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A Corner of Thoughts: A Chain of Bonds
We had a discussion about some of this on Discord, but I felt it may be good to do on site, for those who want more discussion but can’t see the Discords for one reason or another.
Social Links.
I think it’s fair to say opinions are a bit split on them. Consider this a general catch-all discussion for Social Links, and how you feel about them. Who have the best Links? The weakest? Are Confidant skills in P5 useful here or threre, or a missed opportunity. Which game treated them the best?
Feel free to put some thought into your feelings on these topics, and remember this is a dicussion. It would be appreciated if we could have a conversation, agree with people, disagree, argue (in a civil manner) about things. There’s no fun in dropping an opinion and leaving like you’re confessing to a wall.
To start, I’ll see if I can briefly state how I feel about this stuff.
Persona 5 probably has the best Social Links, or Confidants if you prefer, overall in my opinion. Though it’s a mixed bag in its own way, mostly due to new elements.
Persona 3 has my favorite cast, of the ‘modern’ games at least. Though this is mostly for the actual party and major cast. The Social Links are quite awkward, I feel like there are really good ones, and really bad ones without much inbetween. There are the ones I’d say are the best, such as Aigis’, “Mayaâ€, or even the old monk, to ones I can’t stand or even remember like the Moon kid, what was his name again? Also P3P had best girl Saori.
I think a major problem comes from a bit of a disconnect, most obvious in the party members. Characters who have development focused in the story, but they also have Social Links. This creates issues in my opinion since they end up being redundant, or working against the story.
I think this issue is more apparent in Persona 4, where the Social Links I feel are similar to 3, but the party members in P4 ALL have Social Links, and this is extremely awkward in this case. Persona 4 introduces characters WITH their issue and theirs is somewhat complete by the time they join your party. This means the character development feels restricted, like the story acts as if they have concluded their development while working alongside social links that act like they are still struggling.
Persona 5 has less of a problem with this, this specific issue anyway. I’d say it is a detriment however. Since characters have little development in the story itself, all development happens in Confidants, which is a shame two-fold. I think if no one else the cast SHOULD be focued on in the story, and if you like someone, have fun doing their Confidant. God forbid you want to get to know Haru but you neglected your Personality traits.
Because of this I personally feel like Party members should not have Social Links, I really do think it’s a detriment above all else.
I was going to discuss Confidant abilities, but I think I shall do so another day, I’ve already written more than e
Personally I'm one of the few people that didn't really enjoy the Aigis social link, I have no idea why, it might be that I don't really see the meaning behind it as I played P3P a long time ago/when I was younger so I didnt really think much of it
So called "worst social link" Kenji, the god that he is of the magician social link on P3 was my favorite link back then for no reason, he's just, so, cool? It's hard to say, but I like him.
Persona 5 social links I thoroughly enjoyed were all good Tora and actually Ohya, the only problem with Ohya is that her abilities are actually garbage. Tora is a cool link and it gives quite powerful skills.
For Persona 4 my favorite links had to be either Kanji or the Drama Girl, the Drama girl was actually moving and almost literally broke my heart when I rejected her. Kanji is just the man though
I think I've had my fill of them by now. It's gotten too robotic for me by now, because of how the games encourage you to do them as efficiently as possible with the rigid time management, and all the responses that give the most points are just 'tell them what they want to hear' rather than 'tell them how you actually feel'. I also understand that Atlus wants to hit the self-insert/double life theme by being mostly separate from the main storyline, but it's still awkward a lot of the time. Overall, it's been nice, but I hope social links get a big revamp next time, or that daddy Atlus gives us something completely different.
Catto has not played a Persona game, but she has seen playthroughs at the very least. Therefore, I can't say too much about Social Links, but I have to agree with Hibiki somewhat on the subject of party member Social Links.
In my opinion, Social Links shouldn't really be a large part of party members' development and importance. They're enjoyable, but I feel it's a bit unnecessary to limit development to a single player choice. Take P3, for example. The characters develop in the story naturally, and even get their ultimate Personas, without player interference.
Hell, I can agree that party members not having Social Links can work. Remember P2? That had no Social Link system yet, and the characters were still interesting and got development through the story alone.
@Danksuya_Suou
You monster, Aigis is best. Kenji is bad but entertaining so I'll let that slide. Tora is a good social link, and I'm glad to see someone liked best girl Ohya. (inb4 someone doesn't realize I'm joking). Though Ohya's abilities range quite hard. I think they're functionally only useful for bad players or when I want to rush, so they're fairly decent but not too handy for players who take their time. Sad to say I barely remember any P4 links.
@pixie
Really, I can't blame you. I don't think formulas are inherently a problem, but the formulaic nature of Social Links really hurts some. I'm fine with them keeping them, but I think they really need to overhaul them, make each one feel more unique. As it stands, it's nice yet hurtful how every Social Link almost feels like it breaks down to the same thing. I would be on board for seeing a revamped Social Link system where your choices have a greater impact on how the Link progresses. Not just "If you choose this they'll let you see their next Link sooner."
@Cait_Sith
I love seeing some of the side stories, the stories of those not directly tied to the main story, and how they might be impacted by them, but the party Social Links feel redundant, and of course them not having Social Links works fine, every other game does that. Mostly because they don't have Social Links. Social Links are a neat concept and help with world-building, but I feel like with Persona 4 and 5, the writing team realized it could be used as an easy out, so they wouldn't have to worry about writing character details into the plot.
It's a nice feature in games that don't go on forever, nor have huge freedom (think GTA) but are story based to have ways to dig deeper, or even not if you don't care, to the casts or even side characters.
Persona reminds me of both Fire Emblem, or even Danganronpa in that regard.
All of which can easily be skipped if the player so chooses, nor are any of them actually mandatory to enjoy the rest of the game either.
It's funny, most games that implement this feature seem to be incredibly story driven, so much so there's almost no time to put most character depth into the main game itself. Unlike something that might be, say, more action based. It's still there, but nearly a sub game in its own right.
Like a compendium to a huge novel, just for extra details.
In any case, these are the kind of stories or games that I crave added details, so Persona's confidant stories usually were the parts of it I enjoyed most.
(edited by TogoSystem)
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