Is there any reason I should avoid relationship dialogues?

[John Hadley]

I noticed that each chapter there are some relationship dialogues I can watch and certain allies will become friends. Should I watch all of these or only watch the ones for the units that I want to become friends because I plan to actually use them together? Is there a limit to how many friends one character can have? Will I be preventing myself from becoming friends with someone else later if I become friends with everyone at the start?

[Hand of Gabriel]

A character can have any number of friends. Being friends will give them bonuses while near one another (including being in the same squad).

A character can only have one deep bond which could manifest as being "the bestest of friends" or "star-crossed lovers" or "a life-long companion." Those will be indicated by hearts. This will provide large bonuses while near each other or in the same squad.

There will also be a bond where a drop of blood is the additional icon; that means forming a kind of familial relationship and won't interrupt anything else. This will provide large bonuses while near each other or in the same squad.

[John Hadley]

Thank you for this information. I was worried I might sabotage my ability to choose later by making too many friends early. It sounds like this is not a problem as long as I don't watch any relationship dialogues that establish hearts.

[Lyre]

Another thing to keep in mind is that characters may have multiple potential relationships, and those don't all open up at the same time. Taking a bond option between two characters locks them out of any potential bonds that may open up in later chapters. If you're really concerned with losing out on a relationship, there are places where people have compiled a listing of what characters have potential relationships, and with whom. Then you just have to make sure to not accidentally bond those characters to someone else before the option comes up to do the bond you want.

[davea]

This guide, for example:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2825361167

[John Hadley]

The guide seems very thorough if I wanted to know if two characters can have a relationship bond in the game. I figured that a character could be limited in its relationships, but I wasn't sure what the limit was. I was worried that the limit is on the number of friends, but from what I've been told here it seems that there is not, but there is a limit of only one stronger bond for each character. The guide doesn't explicitly say whether there's any limit to the number of friends a character can have, so it still wouldn't have answered my question, but I certainly see that it will be useful later on if I want to plan out my final pairings for other characters than the main character that seems to be able to pair with almost anyone of the opposite sex.