Okay, I finished playing the update in just one sitting, I came to give some of my opinions on it.
Well, starting off, I wanted to say that I loved the new intro, I like it better than the old one, showing a bit of Arthur's and Jade's past really adds an extra layer to their characters and to their relationship, I also liked that it was even explained why Annie was there at that moment.
Now, for the characters, Maeve's redesign is awesome, I really liked it, there's not much to add, she hasn't changed much, Lilith improved a lot, not just for the sprites, but for the personality, she's still a silly sleepy teacher, but now she shows herself to be responsible and even serious as you would expect someone with a position like her to be, I still love Jade, I liked the new scenes with Annie, they are very cute and suit her character, Celine is still my favorite, Agnes' personality really makes me very interested in her whole character and I liked her new interactions, Lulu and Elizabeth still need to be explored a little, about Elena, I don't really have an opinion on her yet, she definitely looks interesting, but I'll wait a bit to form my opinion.
One small thing that I noticed is the fact that due to this sudden change in the storyline, many of the texts ended up being very inconsistent, for example, the old intro is still mentioned a few times, with Lilith being mentioned being there even though she's only introduced in the academy now, that's pretty easy to ignore for me, but people who just found the game may have a hard time trying to connect the pieces together, the dialog from this period may need a revision.
Regarding the new interaction options, wonderful, you guys are really heading towards the "sandbox visual novel" path you wanted, I'm curious about what are y'all going to do with this in the future.
The game still suffers from a small problem that I mentioned in my other comment here, which is the fact that it is very silent, especially in specific parts, such as in some events from 4.2, but that can be solved easily and it isn't a major problem.
I think that's all, I see that the wait was worth it, I'll be eagerly awaiting the next update.