Social links

[Fahrenheit]

Is it just me or do the social links here feel so inconsequential? In Royal, even the people you meet outside of school still exert some memorable and positive influence on Joker.

Instead of connecting with the people you live and fight together, you get these randos on the street and classmates you never speak to. I don't really care about some old grandma's dead son or my weirdo classmate hitting on a teacher. Admittedly, I'm still in early game but it's pretty hard to feel related to any of these characters.

[Sirius]

And this is why tying "important" things to social links was a weird decision in later games.

It is about the... let's call it "visual novel" aspect of the game where you get to know those characters. Even those "randos on the street" have a story for you to discover, some more interesting than others for sure with some plain awkward or dumb (the horny classmate you mentioned for example), but that's how it is.

It's about the "Social" aspect, not to reward you with shinies as such.

If you "don't care about some grandma's dead son" and many of the other "unimportant" characters you simply ignore a LOT of the games bulk, and that's fine if this is how you see it but you really basically play only half the game.

And not wanting to spoil anything, but they all sort of make an appearance in the cut scenes in the final battle, though to be fair I can't remember from the older versions whether they have an impact on anything, so it might just be be "Visual Novel" stuff again.

It's been a while since I played the old versions and not at the end of P3Reload yet, so yeah.

But ultimately it's the visual novel / dating sim aspect of the game, so if you don't care about the end personas they come with, you can pretty much ignore (most of?) them.

Edit: Note that you can miss some links because they are time sensitive or depend on you progressing other links - you'd need to look that up for yourself though.
I'm too shaky on the details just having started this version after not having played a 3 version for a long time, but I *think* for example the old couple in the bookstore unlocks a step in getting the exchange student link.

[Ryuckshe]

And also, Igor basically told ya to get that extravert vibe so you get stronger, that's the premise for the whole series - you are stronger when you care for people and people care for you.
It goes even to some level of absurdity, when for you to progress SL the fastest way you're gonna support those side characters in some dubious ideas, like a little girl running away from home, or a young athlete wishing to conceal his knee trauma and still perform. But none the less.

[Evangelion]

Social links like the old grandma and her dead son, the one you meet on sundays (no spoiler in case you havent met him) and some others are direct mirrors for the core themes of the game. Trust me, stuff like that has a big impact on the protagonist leading to the ending.

In terms of what the game is trying to say, it prob does it best than any of the others in the series

[Fahrenheit]

Alright, thanks everyone. I'll keep playing to see it through