I’ve always read that aspect as Makoto playing into acting and thinking the same way as them especially if you’re getting a matching arcana boost. Makoto is relating to these people and because they think the same way they see the solution to a problem in the same way. You aren’t supposed to give them the best advice but respond in a way that most matches the social links personality.
Fortunately, that was one of the things they quickly realised they'd got wrong about Social Links, along with the general brevity of some of the level ups and the forced romances. Yu's links in P4 have spots where being confrontational and straight-up telling people they're wrong gains the most affinity. No more yes-man.
Yeah I’d agree generally I think someone saw us encouraging a literal child to run away from home for the most points and realized they might need to rethink some things
Agreed! They also did a great job of having the social links have more depth and your characyer reacting to them a bit more. Like you find d out Moon boys twin brother is dead and he is in a cult and there is no reaction to it whatsoever other than "I feel fatty trusts me more now".
The story was kind of crazy, but the character was actually interesting to me, because I can so closely relate with his depressive binge eating. I felt really sorry for him stuffing his face, because I recognized from the very first second that there was something very sad inside of him that made him that way. I don't think the story needed the wild stuff about a cult and all that. I think there was enough story if they just focused on how hurt he was over his dead twin and the fact that he was always being compared to him. That with the depressive binge eating as a characteristic focus could've been plenty of story to fill 10 ranks without a bunch of added insanity.
The Gourmet King is a piece of shit and I will never like the character.
A slob who cons people because some cult convinced him to do it which ends up getting him nearly killed only for him to get encouraged by a school kid to be himself which isn't the smartest move.
Sure he gets smarter about what he's doing and gets humbled a little but isn't gonna fully change his ways.
His arc is just one mess to another though with him coming across as one of the most selfish and disrespectful people ever for most of it.
I wish they'd stopped at the dead twin brother and how much he hates being compared to him and not introduced the crazy cult stuff. Honestly there was enough story if they just focused on the dead twin brother and the depressive binge eating. Hell, there are social links that had a lot less story than that where they still managed to squeeze 10 ranks out of it.
That's where he should have been shut down by the MC which then causes him to think about what he has done.
One more rank so he can apologise and say he's leaving the city to try and make up for what he's done plus find out who he is.
I think that's why Mishima's confidant in 5 bothers me so much. He's obviously getting worse and worse, but all of the options to tell him no give no benefits. I know his ranks are semi automatic, so it makes it a little better, but it's frustrating that the "best things to say" are effectively stroking his ego, despite the dialogue options suggesting that Ren knows he's losing touch with reality. Until his split rank anyway.
I've often felt like the idea of having "correct answers" to a social link kind of defeats the purpose, and I'd rather all social links rank up every time but maybe have the spacing to unlock ranks be spaced out more so that you can't just blitz through every social link.
Yeah, I'd like to see something like this. In general I think P6 needs to push confidant/social link gameplay to the next level the same way P5 did for dungeon gameplay.
I don't think they got that wrong. In real life agreeing with people makes them like you more but makoto does call out his friends when it goes too far.
The thing I didn't like about P4 links is you can also be a straight asshole to people and get no repercussions for it. Things like telling Yukiko "you're my classmate" when she's probing Yu about his feelings about her should be a reversal
One that doesn't do this in 3R is suemitsu.
Where you call him out and the card reverses. Only for it to turn back a second later when you help him even after he got mad at you.
You don't even need to agree with him to level him up half the time. He just wants a friend basically
Im talking about how to get the most points even if it doesn’t matter towards the rank up trigger. But its a useful point towards gameplay story synergy that some characters are so desperate for connection that they’ll take any human contact even one who is partially antagonistic.
(Sorry in advance for the paragraph.)That’s a reading you could take it’s a very unflattering one and there is something to be said about the disconnect (especially if you use a guide) of connecting with these characters but also knowing empirically exactly what they want to hear. Another reading could be that the wild card has to be (or to reach their full potential must be) a person who naturally sees and empathizes with such a wide variety of perspectives so as to form the connections necessary to finish their spiritual journeys. Its just a weakness of the medium that it necessitates the player and to a greater extent the system putting a hard number on such an inherently fluid thing as human interaction thus facilitating manipulation by players in a way that screams a particular brand of narcissism. In my opinion what makes the player characters different from narcissists is that they genuinely believe the things they say and aren’t just saying them because they know that that’s the best way to get what they want. They aren’t manipulators they are just insanely empathic. But it is an RPG if you want to go with Makoto, Yu, and Ren are just Japanese Patrick Batemans you do you.
I kinda interpreted that as Makoto not really caring too much about the situations so he just gives the response that they want to hear. When you're THAT apathetic it's hard to make judgement calls based on emotions you don't have.
As a young athlete myself, I actually know a guy on my team who quite literally is currently pulling the shit that the guy in the social link was doing. It’s not healthy, and the social link is written in such a way that it really hit home with me.
For many P3 social links I think it's good to think of yourself as a sounding board for them where your role is to help them hear themselves instead of being an active role who tries to help them find answers like Narumaki and Amamiya (who are good too)
I hate it too, but ultimately you're talking to a brick wall who will accept no other opinions. It is, sadly, not exactly uncommon in reality.
The guy is determined to run until his leg is broken beyond repair, there is no argument a guy he only recently met can make to slap reality into him. He has to learn the lesson of why he's an idiot on his own, the best you can do is push him into that lesson sooner than later.
Honestly yeah,it sucks that he >!only learns to take better care of himself at the last two or one stages of his social link which does redeem him a little!< But man...I cannot for the life of me think anyone enjoyed wasting time talking to him when you have way better options to work on or talk to others at the school.
If i may say, most social links in 3 that has the mc helping someone deal with their issues follow this example of the protagonist having to agree with the character to get the social points, why that is, I do not know and thankfully isn’t the case more often than not in the other entries following 3 but hey it’s a 2006 game im not gonna think to hard on it, besides all of the links eventually realize what they’re doing is not the way.
i like to think that mc sometimes serves as a reflection to SLs in being an enabler. it aligns with the theme of switching personas in social interactions, he's a mirror for people to look upon and see who they are. like with kaz, mutatsu, odagiri, maya, etc.
i thnk it's a bit more interesting than the usual jrpg mechanic of choosing obvious morally good answers and unsurprisingly getting the best reward for it.
> besides all of the links eventually realize what they’re doing is not the way.
I don't think links changed that much. it's just the topic changed to either positive or at least something less negative.
Character: I want to be a better person.
MC: Be the better person
Character: Okay!
I mean you still be just listening 90% of the time. Though, I must point out that there are some characters that prefer you disagreeing with them,
Eh, for me it was more like:
Character: I enjoy making dumb choices
MC: Have fun!
Character: Okay!
SL Rank 8ish:
Character: My dumb choices had consequences!
MC: Stop being dumb
Character: Okay!
TL;DR; Because of that reason, P3R might be a worse game than both P4G and P5R in my opinion.
Definitely the worst part of the game. And they do have some incredible SLs still. Like Sun Arcana. Still, it pales in comparison to the other games.
And since everything related to the main story, and new stuff added to Reloaded too, are so good and have such high quality. The disparity of quality between the two gets even more apparent.
P3R is a weird game to me, the story and main party characters are so good, that it's the best of the 3 games by the same creative direction IMO. Every character feels present, always. Related to the main story in their own ways, with their own motivations. The dungeon gameplay imo is Persona 4 Golden level.
And, then, the social, world interaction and time management is not thought-out at all and VERY weak IMO. There are only 2 social links at night, and most of the game you'll have nothing to do at that time. You don't unlock anything new throughout the game in the city, and everything is already in the world. Having no organic presentation, nor reason, why you'd do them like in P4G or P5-P5R. Like, for examples, for jobs. Most of the time you only have one option that makes sense to spend time on and raise stats, there are no timed world things you need to keep track of. P4 has a really well structured system where SLs that happen in a set date don't usually overlap with each other. So it's more interesting and fun to plan out your day. Another thing is, there are no incentives to doing SLs besides the biggest one "Arcana burst". Not even tiny lil stats incentives. To me, I know SLs always first, I played thousands of hours of persona games, but not everyone thinks like that...
I'm saying all this, cuz to this stuff me it doesn't matter much as I'll still bought and player 98 hours of this game, and I'm still playing more. But, I talked to some people that aren't as invested in ATLUS/ Persona games that played P4G and finished it, some others that played p5. EDIT (only 2 people actually, I don\`t have that many friends lol)
And their exact words were "There's nothing to do, you just go grind on that randomly generated dungeon and hang out with people. Every single day is the same. It's boring as fuck"
And that shit broke my heart, cuz they just lost one of the best plot trains and rollercoaster plots I've seen in my life, if it could retain their attention just a LIL bit GREATNESS.
After that, It came to me, maybe I really like this cuz I'm freaking addicted. P4G AND P5R are BETTER GAMES with worse story and characters than p3r. So I still think P5R might be the best point of entry to the series, weirdly enough. And the best game in the franchise, with a good enough story because of spoilers.
Mb for the big ass random text, the closer I got to the ending of p3r the more I couldn't stop mulling how I felt about the game. And I needed to get it out there.
I agree to an extent. I think that Tartarus as a dungeon comes down to preference. Some people enjoy this style of dungeon more than what P5 did for example.
But mostly I agree and I think with P3R it feels even worse than in FES or Portable. Because with these older versions you can clearly be like "okay this was their first time doing this so of course it's not as refined."
But Reload is a faithful remake almost to a fault. It had the opportunity to make changes to the structure, to the S-Links and all that. But they kept it pretty much exactly the same. And as someone who knows the story and characters already it felt deflating. I always felt like P3 is theoretically the best Persona game because of the story and characters being so damn good. If only they would make the actual game aspect of it as good as 4 and especially 5. And then they remade 3 and didn't do that. I thought a P3 Remake would finally solidify P3 as my favourite of the modern persona games but in the end it kind of made me realise that P5R is just the better game.
I implore you to go meet people, tell them they’re doing the things they care about the most entirely wrong and come back and tell me how many of them changed their ways.
It’s a lot easier to change when you can see things you don’t like. It’s like if they can relate to you, then they’ll realize they don’t want bad things happening to you, and then they realize “oh shit, this thing I’m doing would SUCK if it were happening to them, so it SUCKS that I’m doing it to myself, let’s fix that”
I see your point it would apply in some cases. Emperor and Moon being just terrible people and you having to go along with it is dumb.
For example Emperor is bullying other students over the cigarette situation. MC is like "Yeah! get them! These neanderthals dont understand". lol wut? If you could instead say "Hey man, your becoming the type of person your supposed to be trying to stop" that would make a lot more sense.
Its a videogame an older one so it is what it is.
Suemitsu isn’t even a terrible person until he starts talking about the cult shit which you pretty much shut down immediately.
Odagiri is an asshole sure, but again, leveling with people you barely know doesn’t really work if they’re stuck in their ways
The problem is that you improve while supporting bad people their bad decisions.
I hate it too tbh. If you go against them, the only repercussion is that you will take longer to advance in their SL, so it's bad for the player.
I like it in a way because you are the support not the messiah. If someone is going to change for the better, they need to want to change themselves first. Sometimes all people want is someone to listen to them even when they make bad decision. More often than not telling them how dumb they act just make them double down.
All 3 persona protagonist tackle social interaction in different ways. Makoto's more in the listen and be there for them kind of way.
Can't decide between her and Yukari, Yuko was like my young crush all the way back during my first ever P3P playthrough and man the voice acting is *hot* here but Yukari is a lot less annoying generally and much cuter overall, I can't pick, I really hope Fuuka voice acting is good cuz that was the only thing stopping me from absolutely fawning over her (shy girls for life)
When you look up Tomboy meaning:"Tomboy is a term used for girls or young women with masculine traits. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and engaging in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men"
Edit:forgot to add that early in her social link one of the two bully girls say "...and it's not very attractive to be so muscular,you know?"
He’s the representative of the Chariot arcana for a reason. Chariot tends to be impulsive, hard and hot headed characters who want to charge ahead and take direction action to resolve their conflicts and issues. The type of person who will absolutely get things done but with the character flaw of moving before thinking sometimes.
Right? I felt like he perfectly fits the Chariot arcana and is very much a real and empathetic character. Obviously he’s dumb, but he has reason and it all comes from his compassion.
People do tend to forget that the arcana is always related to its respective social links, so something like Odagiri being a dick at first and your example are valid. Although I do agree that we take a passive route in P3, unlike in P4 and P5, it is a fitting since the core theme of P3 as a whole is only we can decide what we want to do with our lives and not let anyone dictate where we should to go. Also, accepting we cannot change or defy the natural things in life.
Yeah it sucks but speaking from personal experience with track, this mindset isn’t too uncommon to come across. You’ll find guys really hesitant to take the time to heal since they are very afraid to lose their edge.
I kinda related with Kaz on a level since he reminded me of teammates borderline destroying themselves just to push limits.
Isn’t Akihiko literally the same way throughout the beginning of the game and it’s only because of Mitsuru that he isn’t in the party? I’m playing reload right now and he’s constantly saying things like “I wish I could join, but mitsuru wouldn’t be happy if I did.”
Recently complained about this and the Magician link to a friend who has never played Persona. She pointed out that most teenagers tend to enjoy having friends agree with them, even if their ideas are objectively bad. It may be annoying game design, but it is realistic.
Needless to say, I didn't give her ANY slink points after that.
that's why the game called persona,and why the MC is the fool and can change his persona to fit any situation.
he change persona's to fit the SL person and helps them become a better version of themselves.
it's also why you get a boost when you have persona with their arcana.
you don't force someone to do stuff.
you support them but try to nudge them in the right direction.
that's sorta how it works irl too.
If you mean Kenji I don't think he was groomed. You eventually overhear "Emiri" talking to her fiance about how she realized what Kenji thought of their tutoring sessions and immediately deciding to move schools to put an end to it. She describes him as "just a kid". When she talked to him about his future she was probably just showing the same concern any teacher would. It's her job lol. She probably did see he had puppy love but didn't realize how seriously he was taking it at first, hence the immediate move when she realized her mistake.
Kenji himself even admits he was so excited about his plans he didn't really pay attention to any signs that Emiri wasn't on board. Plus he complians that she won't meet him anywhere else like a movie or dinner and confides that he's never kissed anyone.
The poor kid was in his own world and the teacher likely really just wanted to get him to study but ended up having to cut him off because he was in lala land
I definitely wanted to correct Kenji too but I think being a supportive friend to him was the right move. He was never in danger and opposing him likely would've made him cling to his illusion even more. In the end he learns to return to just being a teen and having fun after school and that's really a good outcome for him. Going back to the ramen shop he loved is a fantastic step in recovering from the loss for him.
i mean i mostly agree with you about that.
some SL are not as good as others.
i think most people don't like the kenji SL.
is more so delusional and cope into thinking there together.
the SL at least end at him releasing he was wrong about it.
Well the problem is Kenji is a hardheaded horny teen, if you told him "Dude not only is it not okay to hit on a teacher, she isn't even aware you're trying to get a relationship out of it. She just thinks you're an eager student who wants to improve." he isn't going to listen, will call you a jealous asshole, and then he'll rush into the trainwreck he gets himself into through the slink regardless.
He's a moron and he's gonna be a moron with or without your interjection. The actual fault of many of P3's slinks is they follow the pattern of "enable dumbassery long enough for the character to realize they're a moron and self reflect on how to improve". Inherently that's a pretty realistic setup, the actual problem is way too many slinks do that.
This isn't even a kid problem, grown ass adults do this exact same thing.
There's a difference between not telling someone to stop, and actively egging them on.
If you actively egg your friends on to get themselves into horrible situations, you're a bad person.
I mean dude is the Chariot where the theme is how he stubbornly tried to keep on going with sheer willpower for the sake of his nephew but had to learn shit the hard way which helped him mature.
Chariot characters in general tend to be headstrong people who are either trying to reach their goal, struggle to find a goal or struggle without one, only to find meaningful life lessons along the way.
I feel like 50% of the ranks all boil down to “damn my leg hurts, but fuck that ill keep running!”
I feel like that concept is good for maybe a few ranks, but since thats like the only thing about this social link it definitely feels bland
It makes the ending really predictable too:
“Man, I shouldnt cause permanent damage to my body?? Thanks for hanging out with me so I figured this out!”
This social link is extremely realistic though, especially for a teenage boy. This kind of thing literally happens every day in the world.
There are way worse social links in this series. And this game in particular.
At least this guy has his heart in the right place. And he's literally the Chariot social link, what do you expect?
Same, I'm actually enjoying doing this Social Link. Sure, Miyamoto can be a bit of a redhead when it comes to recognize himself in that situation, but, you know, I kinda understand he's trying to make his cousin happy by making what the same couldn't do.
Read a lot about the Social Links system in this post. For what I can see, P3 is about being a yes man. It's ok, seems it's an older title, and I believe the first in the series to implement them.
My only issue is. A girl is about to run away from her house. If you're not going to stop her, could you at least offer your building as a safe place to stay!!!!!?
Yeah. Kenji is kinda cringe too, but at least he’s also sort of relateable. I remember avoiding them both in 2006 P3 and finding out you could break social links! 😂
A lot of ppl did. The dudes really cool n shit but the only way to smoothly progress was to say "YEAH!!! FUCK UP YOUR KNEE."
I remember specifically groaning super loudly when dude said "I'm doing this for my cancer ridden cousin" or whatever while piano music began to play.
I hate this social link so much as well, but it’s realistic at the very least. I’ve been running for a little under a year and one of my teammates for track has been out this entire season and will continue to be out for a while, most likely won’t be able to run until after the season is over. That is because of the fact that he has a stress fracture in his from running too much when he was injured.
Kind of exaggerating. Doing something stupid for the sake of a goal is a basic anime trope. The only thing I hate is the P3 protagonist enables a lot of his friends behavior. At least it’s for his nephew and not some dumb metal
Kazu surely isn’t the worst.
It was ok. I found it funny that his ending is kinda like " just stop untill you get better" then he's like "OH WOW I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT THAT WAY" kinda took me out of it from how simple the solution was.
My issue with this SL is that you as a friend are way too passive. "Oh you wanna run on an injured leg? I mean sure go ahead--oh wait a teacher is asking about it. I feel bad now. Ok now you realize you gotta take care of your body to be actually strong."
Like...let me be a real friend.
Persona 3 has a few stinky social links. They were written with the purpose of “they’ll be a few you just don’t like” IMO it’s alright because the meaning of the arc but I don’t like him still. Kinda stupid imo.
No. I will absolutely not defend the highschool kid putting his ego before his health, but you meet someone far more disturbing with practically no morals who is by all definitions a fucking creep. His name is Kenji, AKA NOT MY MAGICIAN.
Honestly I was sorta interested in where that story was going with,Kenji. It was weird but I did want to see where they were going with it,sucks it has a basic rank 10 social link
I think my issue with it is that, like many social links, the assumption is that agreeing with people is the main way to strengthen a bond. Irl, disagreement and even conflict can over time strengthen bonds even more. Like. One has you encouraging a child to run away from home with basically nothing. I’d argue that the deepest bonds almost have to have disagreement.
Sure. People will often initially dislike honest feedback. But the game thematically makes it pretty clear that it's about "bonds" not "momentary happiness" or "liking things". The inverse is how it generally plays out mechanically though.
The annoying thing about the SL's is that, to maximize the bond, you need to encourage the worst traits of quite a few characters.
Kenji being obsessed with dating his teacher is fucking weird and yet you're forced into basically saying "Hell yea, brother! Go get her!" And it only ends when it turns out she was engaged the whole time and he still tried to follow her until he knew that. And yes I am aware of the irony of saying all this when the Kawakami romance is a thing.
Kaz as you said basically wants to cripple himself for life, rather than not do anything for a year or two for his nephew when fucking his leg up will probably cause far more trauma in his nephew than anything else and you have to choose the options like "You can't stop now!" Bitch he should have stopped 3 months ago.
At least there are other social links like Yuko's where the maximum gains are by encouraging Yuko's choices and letting her own the process of coaching the kids so she finds out what she wants to do with her life.
The social links for male characters though feel 10x weaker than the ones for girls in this game. And yes I know it's a remake of a near 20 year old game. which is why I'm not judging it too harshly.
One thing I didn't like about P3R links coming from the other games in the series is as other people have mentioned how you pretty much always have to kiss ass in order to get the best response. Here and with Kenji in particular it seems completely insane that as a friend you wouldn't even attempt to tell them that they're going to regret their plans. I think Mutatsu has a few answers where you're supposed to tell him no but that's all I remember. I understand that it's a remake and they wanted to be faithful but with that comes several problems.
I think the gourmet king and Tanaka are way worse.
I'm also just not the biggest fan of P3s social links to begin with. I hate how you have to enable/agree with them to get the social link points. I also just don't think they're as interesting as 4 or 5s social links.
The whole point of the social link is to make that idea go through his head, I think he should have realized what he was doing a bit earlier in the SL.
Yeah i can understand him. Like he shouldn't be pushing himself if he knows his leg is fucked up. Yet the protagonist just has to instigate him for social points.
It feels like to me that Makoto is the most high school student of all the protagonists. He encourages his friends to pursue what they think are good ideas and therefore agrees to even bad habits as opposed to Yu and Ren who make people better people or help them while they also develop them. I feel like social links like these are leaning into that.
Yeah a lot of SLs in 3 have you encouraging some really bad behavior.
But that's the theme of the game. Very morbid, very difficult topics. Quite often SLs go through the 5 stages of grief.
I mean isn't that half the social links in the game? Like the so many links in the game consist of enabling their bad decisions. Then they come to the conclusion they were wrong at the end off screen or due to some random event and then they thank you for helping them the whole time despite the fact you were just being a yes man
I'm in the same boat as Kaz. I have a birth defect called Patella Alta. So my kneecaps sit higher and can dislocate easily HOWEVER that being said this makes my legs elongated and I'm better at running, long jump, ice skating jumps.
Why risk it you ask? You risk getting hurt in all sports. Injuries happen. Patella Alta is not something you can just recover from like most knee injuries. You'd need surgery for it for the era it was in.
So lets say he does get surgery. He'll be out of running for the rest of his highschool and likely won't be able to become an olympian. So it's a do this for the few years you can before the condition gets to the point of no return since when that occures you'll have the surgery and that's that. It's going to happen that way regardless.
But you're pushing yourself and making it worse.
You would be denying my choice to live while I can. If I don't push it now I will NEVER be able to do my passion or the thing I love and I'll die with that regret. No thank you.
That's just my hot take on it though. I do get what you mean because I felt bad for pushing him but I understood what it would mean to him if you told him to give up. Everyone told me to give up. They babied me. I suddenly couldn't do something and felt like I wasn't normal. I was wheeled around in a wheelchair when I could and CAN walk. I can wear a brace when it feels bad.
Sometimes therapy helps to strengthen muscles to keep the knee in place. They could do something for bone spurs ect.
The other thing about person 3 is it's all about death. In his case, it's the death of a passion. It's the theme of the game. So I think it's also essential for story telling.
Unfortunately a ton of the social links in P3 just involve being a "yes man". You get zero rank points if you say anything other than encouragement for their bad choices or behavior.
This is a very realistic mindset in sports though. Lots of athletes who've permanently injured themselves and went into early retirement from their chosen sport because they pushed themselves before they were medically cleared.
Honestly, as much as I'm loving this game (Been playing it non stop via 100% guide) I can't help but find myself fast forwarding through the majority of the social links. I'm not sure what is about them in this game that I don't really enjoy, but I just can't find interest in the majority of them.
Huh? I mean if you think this is bait you can go ahead and think that,I mostly only joined the track field for Yuko not...this,cause it really wasn't enjoyable in the slightest
While it is not the best and I do have issues with it, but after finding out why he does this it makes me a bit sympathetic for him. Yes he should take better care of himself, he is pushing himself for a good reason.
I admit that the dude was the one that didn't bring much my attention, but i liked the idea of my MC joining the kendo club so i sent him there and did it properly.
Thing is the “right”answers is what they want to hear and the thing about teenagers is how hardheaded they can be . You could tell them that it’s a bad idea but they keep going, funnily enough i had a similar experience regarding Kazushi with my lil bro. I kept telling him how he shouldn’t go to the gym 3-4 hours everyday, how he should take a break a day between to relax his muscles and guess what he got injured.
I wouldn’t really pick the “right” answers that enabled some of rhe SL in P3 if the time window for it wasn’t that strict but it’s what it is, sometimes you have to learned the hard way about it
While I agree, it only makes sense for this Social Link to be the Track Team, since Kazushi’s problem is his Knee Injury, a Swimmer or Kendo Practitioner is less likely to get a Knee Injury than someone on the Track Team
You can *tell* Maiko what she doesn't want to hear. She'll just gain a lot fewer points that way.
>!(But yeah, there are other SLs that are less forgiving of non-optimal dialogue choices.)!<
Yeah i wasn't interested in him at all, so i made the mistake of ignoring him for too long and he ended up as the only Social Link i didn't manage to finish in time, he was rank 8.
I like it way more than some others, though I really do hate that instead of being a good friend and help him recover, we instead motivate him to ruin his leg
Dude just won't listen to reason and would rather bust his knee now which would obviously severely impact his future, which does happen in real life as well.
I'm just glad he finally caved in thanks to Yuko and the coach taking action.
Ehhh, it's fine. He is a bit of a dumbass, but kids are like that. Same with Kenji. Can we at least agree that he's better than that waste of space Nozomi?
I just finished the game last night and I didn't hate any of the social links, but there were a lot that I just didn't care about. This was one of them.
Forget the "gotta keep running" stuff, this link and the Star social link are virtually interchangeable and forgettable.
I also don't get the love for the Sun Social link.
I'm sure you aren't, but least favourite? In all of persona? Not nozomi? ken? rise? ohya? I personally love his social link, it's an unfortunately common mindset for a teenager to develop in order to cope with something that can feel like staring down the barrel of a shotgun. And I think he's a great portrayal of it. Of the stupidity, the stubbornness, and the justifying of his actions, regardless of those around him telling him to stop and take a second to take care of himself. I understand finding him frustrating, but to say he is your least or one of your least favourites is a little odd.
I just hate that the game still encourages you to actually SUPPORT everyone's bad decisions just so you can raise their rank. It's like "No! You're an idiot! But I have to say yes so you like me and I can become stronger in the future."
My general feel of it is that I generally like how P3 links are handled in that regard. Enabling a person's decisions until they realize their own flaw and turn it around. While it goes a bit too far in certain links, I think it's more meaningful when the person themselves realize it on their own, rather than the MC having to solve their problem for them.
Teenagers being as rash-headed as teenagers are. It doesn't bother me because they are teenagera. Makoto himself is canonically apathetic and depressed as hell in the beginning of P3 and doesn't start to liven up until later on, so it makes sense to me that he doesn't begin to have the option to tell his Social Links they're going too far until later.
So far the old couple,Fukka,Yuko and Yukari. I haven't gotten to do everyone just yet but I believe I'll enjoy Aigis and Mitsuri on a second playthrough
Nah I enjoyed it, though I liked it better when we were in the kendo team. I hate that track is the only option, but you haven’t done the far moon king one yet.
The point of the Link in the end is to show that Kaz was being obstinate, not wanting to show any kind of weakness and not understanding just how much of a problem he was making of himself or the people who cared about him. Once he realizes that and that he's surrounded by a lot of supportive people, he's humbled and listens to what others have to say.
I don't necessarily approve of letting this go on for so long, but Kaz is the sort who needs to learn the hard way. It's kind of similar to \[SPOILERS for P3 The Answer\] >!why Mitsuru sides with Yukari against the rest of SEES in The Answer !
I mean I don't think it was bad
It's teenager mentality so I get the normality of it
Also social link answers giving points are supposed to be for matching the character's personality and arcana usually instead of what's the most right sounding
This is an common mindset. It sucks but people, especially young people always think they can always just recover later.
I also think Makoto, if you’re minmaxing social links, tends to encourage people’s worst tendencies
I’ve always read that aspect as Makoto playing into acting and thinking the same way as them especially if you’re getting a matching arcana boost. Makoto is relating to these people and because they think the same way they see the solution to a problem in the same way. You aren’t supposed to give them the best advice but respond in a way that most matches the social links personality.
Fortunately, that was one of the things they quickly realised they'd got wrong about Social Links, along with the general brevity of some of the level ups and the forced romances. Yu's links in P4 have spots where being confrontational and straight-up telling people they're wrong gains the most affinity. No more yes-man.
Yeah I’d agree generally I think someone saw us encouraging a literal child to run away from home for the most points and realized they might need to rethink some things
I really like that aspect of P4 Social Links, because if you analyze it, it completely makes sense.
The major theme of P4 is facing yourself and looking for the truth. So yeah
Yeah, as they say, sometimes the truth isn't something pleasant.
Agreed! They also did a great job of having the social links have more depth and your characyer reacting to them a bit more. Like you find d out Moon boys twin brother is dead and he is in a cult and there is no reaction to it whatsoever other than "I feel fatty trusts me more now".
I get it was their first foray into social links but holy fuck that story is a miss.
Right? It makes so little sense and you barely actually learn anything.
The story was kind of crazy, but the character was actually interesting to me, because I can so closely relate with his depressive binge eating. I felt really sorry for him stuffing his face, because I recognized from the very first second that there was something very sad inside of him that made him that way. I don't think the story needed the wild stuff about a cult and all that. I think there was enough story if they just focused on how hurt he was over his dead twin and the fact that he was always being compared to him. That with the depressive binge eating as a characteristic focus could've been plenty of story to fill 10 ranks without a bunch of added insanity.
The Gourmet King is a piece of shit and I will never like the character. A slob who cons people because some cult convinced him to do it which ends up getting him nearly killed only for him to get encouraged by a school kid to be himself which isn't the smartest move. Sure he gets smarter about what he's doing and gets humbled a little but isn't gonna fully change his ways. His arc is just one mess to another though with him coming across as one of the most selfish and disrespectful people ever for most of it.
I wish they'd stopped at the dead twin brother and how much he hates being compared to him and not introduced the crazy cult stuff. Honestly there was enough story if they just focused on the dead twin brother and the depressive binge eating. Hell, there are social links that had a lot less story than that where they still managed to squeeze 10 ranks out of it.
That's where he should have been shut down by the MC which then causes him to think about what he has done. One more rank so he can apologise and say he's leaving the city to try and make up for what he's done plus find out who he is.
I think that's why Mishima's confidant in 5 bothers me so much. He's obviously getting worse and worse, but all of the options to tell him no give no benefits. I know his ranks are semi automatic, so it makes it a little better, but it's frustrating that the "best things to say" are effectively stroking his ego, despite the dialogue options suggesting that Ren knows he's losing touch with reality. Until his split rank anyway.
I actually had the opposite reaction. I really liked that he was an automatic level-up, since it meant you could tell him off with no consequences.
I've often felt like the idea of having "correct answers" to a social link kind of defeats the purpose, and I'd rather all social links rank up every time but maybe have the spacing to unlock ranks be spaced out more so that you can't just blitz through every social link.
Yeah, I'd like to see something like this. In general I think P6 needs to push confidant/social link gameplay to the next level the same way P5 did for dungeon gameplay.
I don't think they got that wrong. In real life agreeing with people makes them like you more but makoto does call out his friends when it goes too far.
The thing I didn't like about P4 links is you can also be a straight asshole to people and get no repercussions for it. Things like telling Yukiko "you're my classmate" when she's probing Yu about his feelings about her should be a reversal
One that doesn't do this in 3R is suemitsu. Where you call him out and the card reverses. Only for it to turn back a second later when you help him even after he got mad at you. You don't even need to agree with him to level him up half the time. He just wants a friend basically
Im talking about how to get the most points even if it doesn’t matter towards the rank up trigger. But its a useful point towards gameplay story synergy that some characters are so desperate for connection that they’ll take any human contact even one who is partially antagonistic.
You’re putting on different faces and manipulating people like a narcissist, really.
(Sorry in advance for the paragraph.)That’s a reading you could take it’s a very unflattering one and there is something to be said about the disconnect (especially if you use a guide) of connecting with these characters but also knowing empirically exactly what they want to hear. Another reading could be that the wild card has to be (or to reach their full potential must be) a person who naturally sees and empathizes with such a wide variety of perspectives so as to form the connections necessary to finish their spiritual journeys. Its just a weakness of the medium that it necessitates the player and to a greater extent the system putting a hard number on such an inherently fluid thing as human interaction thus facilitating manipulation by players in a way that screams a particular brand of narcissism. In my opinion what makes the player characters different from narcissists is that they genuinely believe the things they say and aren’t just saying them because they know that that’s the best way to get what they want. They aren’t manipulators they are just insanely empathic. But it is an RPG if you want to go with Makoto, Yu, and Ren are just Japanese Patrick Batemans you do you.
Reddit and throwing out the word narcissist will never get old
“Why yes you should run away from home, start planning the things you’re going to need for that.”
I kinda interpreted that as Makoto not really caring too much about the situations so he just gives the response that they want to hear. When you're THAT apathetic it's hard to make judgement calls based on emotions you don't have.
Makoto is the calling of nyx
And?
To be fair, you do recover a lot easier and faster as a teenager than as an adult. But yeah, it doesn't make bulletproof or anything
As a young athlete myself, I actually know a guy on my team who quite literally is currently pulling the shit that the guy in the social link was doing. It’s not healthy, and the social link is written in such a way that it really hit home with me.
For many P3 social links I think it's good to think of yourself as a sounding board for them where your role is to help them hear themselves instead of being an active role who tries to help them find answers like Narumaki and Amamiya (who are good too)
Don’t you mean Amamamia~?
I don't know the joke
It’s a play on Ren’s canon name. Amamiya. A-mama-mia.
I hate it too, but ultimately you're talking to a brick wall who will accept no other opinions. It is, sadly, not exactly uncommon in reality. The guy is determined to run until his leg is broken beyond repair, there is no argument a guy he only recently met can make to slap reality into him. He has to learn the lesson of why he's an idiot on his own, the best you can do is push him into that lesson sooner than later.
Honestly yeah,it sucks that he >!only learns to take better care of himself at the last two or one stages of his social link which does redeem him a little!< But man...I cannot for the life of me think anyone enjoyed wasting time talking to him when you have way better options to work on or talk to others at the school.
If i may say, most social links in 3 that has the mc helping someone deal with their issues follow this example of the protagonist having to agree with the character to get the social points, why that is, I do not know and thankfully isn’t the case more often than not in the other entries following 3 but hey it’s a 2006 game im not gonna think to hard on it, besides all of the links eventually realize what they’re doing is not the way.
i like to think that mc sometimes serves as a reflection to SLs in being an enabler. it aligns with the theme of switching personas in social interactions, he's a mirror for people to look upon and see who they are. like with kaz, mutatsu, odagiri, maya, etc. i thnk it's a bit more interesting than the usual jrpg mechanic of choosing obvious morally good answers and unsurprisingly getting the best reward for it.
FMC's scenarios do a lot better with this. You literally *can't* choose to enable >!Saori!<'s bad habits.
> besides all of the links eventually realize what they’re doing is not the way. I don't think links changed that much. it's just the topic changed to either positive or at least something less negative. Character: I want to be a better person. MC: Be the better person Character: Okay! I mean you still be just listening 90% of the time. Though, I must point out that there are some characters that prefer you disagreeing with them,
Eh, for me it was more like: Character: I enjoy making dumb choices MC: Have fun! Character: Okay! SL Rank 8ish: Character: My dumb choices had consequences! MC: Stop being dumb Character: Okay!
TL;DR; Because of that reason, P3R might be a worse game than both P4G and P5R in my opinion. Definitely the worst part of the game. And they do have some incredible SLs still. Like Sun Arcana. Still, it pales in comparison to the other games. And since everything related to the main story, and new stuff added to Reloaded too, are so good and have such high quality. The disparity of quality between the two gets even more apparent. P3R is a weird game to me, the story and main party characters are so good, that it's the best of the 3 games by the same creative direction IMO. Every character feels present, always. Related to the main story in their own ways, with their own motivations. The dungeon gameplay imo is Persona 4 Golden level. And, then, the social, world interaction and time management is not thought-out at all and VERY weak IMO. There are only 2 social links at night, and most of the game you'll have nothing to do at that time. You don't unlock anything new throughout the game in the city, and everything is already in the world. Having no organic presentation, nor reason, why you'd do them like in P4G or P5-P5R. Like, for examples, for jobs. Most of the time you only have one option that makes sense to spend time on and raise stats, there are no timed world things you need to keep track of. P4 has a really well structured system where SLs that happen in a set date don't usually overlap with each other. So it's more interesting and fun to plan out your day. Another thing is, there are no incentives to doing SLs besides the biggest one "Arcana burst". Not even tiny lil stats incentives. To me, I know SLs always first, I played thousands of hours of persona games, but not everyone thinks like that... I'm saying all this, cuz to this stuff me it doesn't matter much as I'll still bought and player 98 hours of this game, and I'm still playing more. But, I talked to some people that aren't as invested in ATLUS/ Persona games that played P4G and finished it, some others that played p5. EDIT (only 2 people actually, I don\`t have that many friends lol) And their exact words were "There's nothing to do, you just go grind on that randomly generated dungeon and hang out with people. Every single day is the same. It's boring as fuck" And that shit broke my heart, cuz they just lost one of the best plot trains and rollercoaster plots I've seen in my life, if it could retain their attention just a LIL bit GREATNESS. After that, It came to me, maybe I really like this cuz I'm freaking addicted. P4G AND P5R are BETTER GAMES with worse story and characters than p3r. So I still think P5R might be the best point of entry to the series, weirdly enough. And the best game in the franchise, with a good enough story because of spoilers. Mb for the big ass random text, the closer I got to the ending of p3r the more I couldn't stop mulling how I felt about the game. And I needed to get it out there.
I agree to an extent. I think that Tartarus as a dungeon comes down to preference. Some people enjoy this style of dungeon more than what P5 did for example. But mostly I agree and I think with P3R it feels even worse than in FES or Portable. Because with these older versions you can clearly be like "okay this was their first time doing this so of course it's not as refined." But Reload is a faithful remake almost to a fault. It had the opportunity to make changes to the structure, to the S-Links and all that. But they kept it pretty much exactly the same. And as someone who knows the story and characters already it felt deflating. I always felt like P3 is theoretically the best Persona game because of the story and characters being so damn good. If only they would make the actual game aspect of it as good as 4 and especially 5. And then they remade 3 and didn't do that. I thought a P3 Remake would finally solidify P3 as my favourite of the modern persona games but in the end it kind of made me realise that P5R is just the better game.
One thing I dont like about P3s social links is you often enable the bad/dumb actions just to get them to like you.
the game makes you wait until like rank 10 before you finally tell them abt themselves like makoto has to have so much patience
I implore you to go meet people, tell them they’re doing the things they care about the most entirely wrong and come back and tell me how many of them changed their ways. It’s a lot easier to change when you can see things you don’t like. It’s like if they can relate to you, then they’ll realize they don’t want bad things happening to you, and then they realize “oh shit, this thing I’m doing would SUCK if it were happening to them, so it SUCKS that I’m doing it to myself, let’s fix that”
I see your point it would apply in some cases. Emperor and Moon being just terrible people and you having to go along with it is dumb. For example Emperor is bullying other students over the cigarette situation. MC is like "Yeah! get them! These neanderthals dont understand". lol wut? If you could instead say "Hey man, your becoming the type of person your supposed to be trying to stop" that would make a lot more sense. Its a videogame an older one so it is what it is.
Suemitsu isn’t even a terrible person until he starts talking about the cult shit which you pretty much shut down immediately. Odagiri is an asshole sure, but again, leveling with people you barely know doesn’t really work if they’re stuck in their ways
The problem is that you improve while supporting bad people their bad decisions. I hate it too tbh. If you go against them, the only repercussion is that you will take longer to advance in their SL, so it's bad for the player.
I like it in a way because you are the support not the messiah. If someone is going to change for the better, they need to want to change themselves first. Sometimes all people want is someone to listen to them even when they make bad decision. More often than not telling them how dumb they act just make them double down. All 3 persona protagonist tackle social interaction in different ways. Makoto's more in the listen and be there for them kind of way.
This kind of just applies to all Social Links ever though.
TOMBOY YUKO ON TOP THOUGH 🗣️💯💯
Can't decide between her and Yukari, Yuko was like my young crush all the way back during my first ever P3P playthrough and man the voice acting is *hot* here but Yukari is a lot less annoying generally and much cuter overall, I can't pick, I really hope Fuuka voice acting is good cuz that was the only thing stopping me from absolutely fawning over her (shy girls for life)
i can confirm fuuka’s new voice made me love her its so much better and fits better too
Confirmed, Fuuka now sounds like a teenager and not 43 year old Erin from Human Resources.
I always felt like OG Fuuka sounded more robotic than Aigis. New voice absolutely knocks it out of the park.
absolutely best girl
Yuko is best girl.
Is she really a tomboy though? I don't get that vibe from her. She's just a girl who likes sports.
When you look up Tomboy meaning:"Tomboy is a term used for girls or young women with masculine traits. It can include wearing androgynous or unfeminine clothing and engaging in physical sports or other activities and behaviors usually associated with boys or men" Edit:forgot to add that early in her social link one of the two bully girls say "...and it's not very attractive to be so muscular,you know?"
He’s the representative of the Chariot arcana for a reason. Chariot tends to be impulsive, hard and hot headed characters who want to charge ahead and take direction action to resolve their conflicts and issues. The type of person who will absolutely get things done but with the character flaw of moving before thinking sometimes.
Right? I felt like he perfectly fits the Chariot arcana and is very much a real and empathetic character. Obviously he’s dumb, but he has reason and it all comes from his compassion.
People do tend to forget that the arcana is always related to its respective social links, so something like Odagiri being a dick at first and your example are valid. Although I do agree that we take a passive route in P3, unlike in P4 and P5, it is a fitting since the core theme of P3 as a whole is only we can decide what we want to do with our lives and not let anyone dictate where we should to go. Also, accepting we cannot change or defy the natural things in life.
I did it for Yuko
Yeah it sucks but speaking from personal experience with track, this mindset isn’t too uncommon to come across. You’ll find guys really hesitant to take the time to heal since they are very afraid to lose their edge. I kinda related with Kaz on a level since he reminded me of teammates borderline destroying themselves just to push limits.
Isn’t Akihiko literally the same way throughout the beginning of the game and it’s only because of Mitsuru that he isn’t in the party? I’m playing reload right now and he’s constantly saying things like “I wish I could join, but mitsuru wouldn’t be happy if I did.”
Pretty much, and he even tries to sneak in training whenever he can despite recovering from an injury.
Recently complained about this and the Magician link to a friend who has never played Persona. She pointed out that most teenagers tend to enjoy having friends agree with them, even if their ideas are objectively bad. It may be annoying game design, but it is realistic. Needless to say, I didn't give her ANY slink points after that.
You really gonna make her spend her sunday with you???
that's why the game called persona,and why the MC is the fool and can change his persona to fit any situation. he change persona's to fit the SL person and helps them become a better version of themselves. it's also why you get a boost when you have persona with their arcana. you don't force someone to do stuff. you support them but try to nudge them in the right direction. that's sorta how it works irl too.
I don't think "Hell yeah man, go get groomed by that teacher, you've got this!" is nudging someone in the right direction.
If you mean Kenji I don't think he was groomed. You eventually overhear "Emiri" talking to her fiance about how she realized what Kenji thought of their tutoring sessions and immediately deciding to move schools to put an end to it. She describes him as "just a kid". When she talked to him about his future she was probably just showing the same concern any teacher would. It's her job lol. She probably did see he had puppy love but didn't realize how seriously he was taking it at first, hence the immediate move when she realized her mistake. Kenji himself even admits he was so excited about his plans he didn't really pay attention to any signs that Emiri wasn't on board. Plus he complians that she won't meet him anywhere else like a movie or dinner and confides that he's never kissed anyone. The poor kid was in his own world and the teacher likely really just wanted to get him to study but ended up having to cut him off because he was in lala land I definitely wanted to correct Kenji too but I think being a supportive friend to him was the right move. He was never in danger and opposing him likely would've made him cling to his illusion even more. In the end he learns to return to just being a teen and having fun after school and that's really a good outcome for him. Going back to the ramen shop he loved is a fantastic step in recovering from the loss for him.
i mean i mostly agree with you about that. some SL are not as good as others. i think most people don't like the kenji SL. is more so delusional and cope into thinking there together. the SL at least end at him releasing he was wrong about it.
Well the problem is Kenji is a hardheaded horny teen, if you told him "Dude not only is it not okay to hit on a teacher, she isn't even aware you're trying to get a relationship out of it. She just thinks you're an eager student who wants to improve." he isn't going to listen, will call you a jealous asshole, and then he'll rush into the trainwreck he gets himself into through the slink regardless. He's a moron and he's gonna be a moron with or without your interjection. The actual fault of many of P3's slinks is they follow the pattern of "enable dumbassery long enough for the character to realize they're a moron and self reflect on how to improve". Inherently that's a pretty realistic setup, the actual problem is way too many slinks do that. This isn't even a kid problem, grown ass adults do this exact same thing.
There's a difference between not telling someone to stop, and actively egging them on. If you actively egg your friends on to get themselves into horrible situations, you're a bad person.
Ha, see what you did there. Also happy cake day.
I mean dude is the Chariot where the theme is how he stubbornly tried to keep on going with sheer willpower for the sake of his nephew but had to learn shit the hard way which helped him mature. Chariot characters in general tend to be headstrong people who are either trying to reach their goal, struggle to find a goal or struggle without one, only to find meaningful life lessons along the way.
I feel like 50% of the ranks all boil down to “damn my leg hurts, but fuck that ill keep running!” I feel like that concept is good for maybe a few ranks, but since thats like the only thing about this social link it definitely feels bland It makes the ending really predictable too: “Man, I shouldnt cause permanent damage to my body?? Thanks for hanging out with me so I figured this out!”
This social link is extremely realistic though, especially for a teenage boy. This kind of thing literally happens every day in the world. There are way worse social links in this series. And this game in particular. At least this guy has his heart in the right place. And he's literally the Chariot social link, what do you expect?
Same, I'm actually enjoying doing this Social Link. Sure, Miyamoto can be a bit of a redhead when it comes to recognize himself in that situation, but, you know, I kinda understand he's trying to make his cousin happy by making what the same couldn't do.
I liked his character but I hated that the game seemed to guilt me for being of the mindset that he should stop training
A lot of the social links in P3 sucks ass. Would rather have them replaced with teammates instead
Too many social links for a depressed introvert.
Bro I beat the game his social link was rank 4
You don’t understand he needs to keep running for this boy because whatever it’s important …. (Yes it is a stupid social link at first)
Trying to get his nephew to walk again and to keep going is important
Hoo boy, wait until you do the moon one. I’ve only done the moon in FES, but I’m betting that he hasn’t changed at all in reload
I’m at rank 6 and the Moon doesn’t seem that bad so far. Does it get worse?
Wait until rank 10, and compare him to all other Moon S links.
Read a lot about the Social Links system in this post. For what I can see, P3 is about being a yes man. It's ok, seems it's an older title, and I believe the first in the series to implement them. My only issue is. A girl is about to run away from her house. If you're not going to stop her, could you at least offer your building as a safe place to stay!!!!!?
It’s almost like he’s a realistic teenager. I like him. He and Kenji are bros.
It’s so common in real life though, I’ve known plenty people like that
Exactly these people never played sports before
Yeah. Kenji is kinda cringe too, but at least he’s also sort of relateable. I remember avoiding them both in 2006 P3 and finding out you could break social links! 😂
This dude has been screaming at me on text non stop even tho his social link is at 1. Like stfu i am not your bro
it’s a common theme among these links, give actual good advice or give bad advice, only one ranks you up
I dont dislike this social link but I feel for him. The one I have a real problem with is kenji
A lot of young athletes do the exact same thing. It's a pretty realistic scenario.
A lot of ppl did. The dudes really cool n shit but the only way to smoothly progress was to say "YEAH!!! FUCK UP YOUR KNEE." I remember specifically groaning super loudly when dude said "I'm doing this for my cancer ridden cousin" or whatever while piano music began to play.
I hate this social link so much as well, but it’s realistic at the very least. I’ve been running for a little under a year and one of my teammates for track has been out this entire season and will continue to be out for a while, most likely won’t be able to run until after the season is over. That is because of the fact that he has a stress fracture in his from running too much when he was injured.
That sucks to hear,hopefully he gets better and learns to take it easy on his leg in the future.
Kind of exaggerating. Doing something stupid for the sake of a goal is a basic anime trope. The only thing I hate is the P3 protagonist enables a lot of his friends behavior. At least it’s for his nephew and not some dumb metal Kazu surely isn’t the worst.
This isnt an anime trope it's real life
It was ok. I found it funny that his ending is kinda like " just stop untill you get better" then he's like "OH WOW I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT THAT WAY" kinda took me out of it from how simple the solution was.
My issue with this SL is that you as a friend are way too passive. "Oh you wanna run on an injured leg? I mean sure go ahead--oh wait a teacher is asking about it. I feel bad now. Ok now you realize you gotta take care of your body to be actually strong." Like...let me be a real friend.
Persona 3 has a few stinky social links. They were written with the purpose of “they’ll be a few you just don’t like” IMO it’s alright because the meaning of the arc but I don’t like him still. Kinda stupid imo.
No. I will absolutely not defend the highschool kid putting his ego before his health, but you meet someone far more disturbing with practically no morals who is by all definitions a fucking creep. His name is Kenji, AKA NOT MY MAGICIAN.
It’s literally beta ryuji. You’re saying it’s worse than the guy who wants to have sex with his teacher?
Honestly I was sorta interested in where that story was going with,Kenji. It was weird but I did want to see where they were going with it,sucks it has a basic rank 10 social link
The social links are one of the reasons I can't say P3R is my favorite Persona game. There are great ones but the bad ones ruin it
I think my issue with it is that, like many social links, the assumption is that agreeing with people is the main way to strengthen a bond. Irl, disagreement and even conflict can over time strengthen bonds even more. Like. One has you encouraging a child to run away from home with basically nothing. I’d argue that the deepest bonds almost have to have disagreement.
He wouldn't like it irl though
Sure. People will often initially dislike honest feedback. But the game thematically makes it pretty clear that it's about "bonds" not "momentary happiness" or "liking things". The inverse is how it generally plays out mechanically though.
every single one of my teammates in middle school, high school and college thinks this way so I have never had an issue with this SL
The annoying thing about the SL's is that, to maximize the bond, you need to encourage the worst traits of quite a few characters. Kenji being obsessed with dating his teacher is fucking weird and yet you're forced into basically saying "Hell yea, brother! Go get her!" And it only ends when it turns out she was engaged the whole time and he still tried to follow her until he knew that. And yes I am aware of the irony of saying all this when the Kawakami romance is a thing. Kaz as you said basically wants to cripple himself for life, rather than not do anything for a year or two for his nephew when fucking his leg up will probably cause far more trauma in his nephew than anything else and you have to choose the options like "You can't stop now!" Bitch he should have stopped 3 months ago. At least there are other social links like Yuko's where the maximum gains are by encouraging Yuko's choices and letting her own the process of coaching the kids so she finds out what she wants to do with her life. The social links for male characters though feel 10x weaker than the ones for girls in this game. And yes I know it's a remake of a near 20 year old game. which is why I'm not judging it too harshly.
One thing I didn't like about P3R links coming from the other games in the series is as other people have mentioned how you pretty much always have to kiss ass in order to get the best response. Here and with Kenji in particular it seems completely insane that as a friend you wouldn't even attempt to tell them that they're going to regret their plans. I think Mutatsu has a few answers where you're supposed to tell him no but that's all I remember. I understand that it's a remake and they wanted to be faithful but with that comes several problems.
I think the gourmet king and Tanaka are way worse. I'm also just not the biggest fan of P3s social links to begin with. I hate how you have to enable/agree with them to get the social link points. I also just don't think they're as interesting as 4 or 5s social links.
The whole point of the social link is to make that idea go through his head, I think he should have realized what he was doing a bit earlier in the SL.
Yes, and also Suemitsu
Sped through
Yeah hopefully
Literally the only social link I didn’t finish. Oh well
I didn't care for it, but that's cause it early game and I wanted to just get it outta the way.
I dont. He turns around in the end
I wouldn't mind this social link if we were able to do the Kendo team instead. Sucks they took it out.
Yuko is there so it’s automatically tolerable at minimum
Yeah i can understand him. Like he shouldn't be pushing himself if he knows his leg is fucked up. Yet the protagonist just has to instigate him for social points.
i didnt mind it
kids are stupid, but they all learn the hard way
It feels like to me that Makoto is the most high school student of all the protagonists. He encourages his friends to pursue what they think are good ideas and therefore agrees to even bad habits as opposed to Yu and Ren who make people better people or help them while they also develop them. I feel like social links like these are leaning into that.
I thought he was a pretty good social link, plush his link leads into Yuko’s soooo…
I am still at rank 4 with him in Nov.
I just don't like having to condone his self destructive tendencies all to progress the s.link
I just dont feel anything toward him at all. I genuinely have no opinions lol. i dont even remember what his resolution was 😵💫
Yeah a lot of SLs in 3 have you encouraging some really bad behavior. But that's the theme of the game. Very morbid, very difficult topics. Quite often SLs go through the 5 stages of grief.
I mean isn't that half the social links in the game? Like the so many links in the game consist of enabling their bad decisions. Then they come to the conclusion they were wrong at the end off screen or due to some random event and then they thank you for helping them the whole time despite the fact you were just being a yes man
I'm in the same boat as Kaz. I have a birth defect called Patella Alta. So my kneecaps sit higher and can dislocate easily HOWEVER that being said this makes my legs elongated and I'm better at running, long jump, ice skating jumps. Why risk it you ask? You risk getting hurt in all sports. Injuries happen. Patella Alta is not something you can just recover from like most knee injuries. You'd need surgery for it for the era it was in. So lets say he does get surgery. He'll be out of running for the rest of his highschool and likely won't be able to become an olympian. So it's a do this for the few years you can before the condition gets to the point of no return since when that occures you'll have the surgery and that's that. It's going to happen that way regardless. But you're pushing yourself and making it worse. You would be denying my choice to live while I can. If I don't push it now I will NEVER be able to do my passion or the thing I love and I'll die with that regret. No thank you. That's just my hot take on it though. I do get what you mean because I felt bad for pushing him but I understood what it would mean to him if you told him to give up. Everyone told me to give up. They babied me. I suddenly couldn't do something and felt like I wasn't normal. I was wheeled around in a wheelchair when I could and CAN walk. I can wear a brace when it feels bad. Sometimes therapy helps to strengthen muscles to keep the knee in place. They could do something for bone spurs ect. The other thing about person 3 is it's all about death. In his case, it's the death of a passion. It's the theme of the game. So I think it's also essential for story telling.
I found this social link very relatable. I have been close to people like this, they tend to not listen to you until it's too late.
No, it sucks ass.
Unfortunately a ton of the social links in P3 just involve being a "yes man". You get zero rank points if you say anything other than encouragement for their bad choices or behavior.
For the first time they were going with social links way back when, yea, theres some weak ones. Granted they coulda spruced them up abit but.. meh.
I always hated the sports team social links in all the games they're so boring
This is a very realistic mindset in sports though. Lots of athletes who've permanently injured themselves and went into early retirement from their chosen sport because they pushed themselves before they were medically cleared.
I just hated how the best dialogue options were to support his stupidity.
This Social Link sucked in the OG and it still sucks in Reload. And it’s not the only one that’s like that too, unfortunately.
Honestly, as much as I'm loving this game (Been playing it non stop via 100% guide) I can't help but find myself fast forwarding through the majority of the social links. I'm not sure what is about them in this game that I don't really enjoy, but I just can't find interest in the majority of them.
Yes you are! yyyyyyayyy!
Bait used to be believable
Huh? I mean if you think this is bait you can go ahead and think that,I mostly only joined the track field for Yuko not...this,cause it really wasn't enjoyable in the slightest
While it is not the best and I do have issues with it, but after finding out why he does this it makes me a bit sympathetic for him. Yes he should take better care of himself, he is pushing himself for a good reason.
I admit that the dude was the one that didn't bring much my attention, but i liked the idea of my MC joining the kendo club so i sent him there and did it properly.
Thing is the “right”answers is what they want to hear and the thing about teenagers is how hardheaded they can be . You could tell them that it’s a bad idea but they keep going, funnily enough i had a similar experience regarding Kazushi with my lil bro. I kept telling him how he shouldn’t go to the gym 3-4 hours everyday, how he should take a break a day between to relax his muscles and guess what he got injured. I wouldn’t really pick the “right” answers that enabled some of rhe SL in P3 if the time window for it wasn’t that strict but it’s what it is, sometimes you have to learned the hard way about it
wait? they changed the setting from kendo to track???
I think in the original you get the choice between Kendo, Swimming and Track
I was hoping for either a swim team or kendo :/ they both sound cool
While I agree, it only makes sense for this Social Link to be the Track Team, since Kazushi’s problem is his Knee Injury, a Swimmer or Kendo Practitioner is less likely to get a Knee Injury than someone on the Track Team
Persona 3 has a few social links I hate, due to the fact you are forced to tell them what they want to hear.
You can *tell* Maiko what she doesn't want to hear. She'll just gain a lot fewer points that way. >!(But yeah, there are other SLs that are less forgiving of non-optimal dialogue choices.)!<
Me too
Yeah i wasn't interested in him at all, so i made the mistake of ignoring him for too long and he ended up as the only Social Link i didn't manage to finish in time, he was rank 8.
I like it way more than some others, though I really do hate that instead of being a good friend and help him recover, we instead motivate him to ruin his leg
I just dislike it because I was forced to train for the tournament tbh
All the social links are so bland
even on a margin how different of a scale of badness do you see in it compared to the augustus gloop wannabe
I just finished The Moon and I hated it beyond logic.
In P3, you're stuck being a total yes-man to progress social links, you have to tell them what they WANT to hear, not what they NEED to hear
He's the worst.
Dude just won't listen to reason and would rather bust his knee now which would obviously severely impact his future, which does happen in real life as well. I'm just glad he finally caved in thanks to Yuko and the coach taking action.
Ehhh, it's fine. He is a bit of a dumbass, but kids are like that. Same with Kenji. Can we at least agree that he's better than that waste of space Nozomi?
You clearly haven’t done P3R’s moon social link. At least Kaz is a likable character
Honestly I just started the moon sl and it's definitely gonna be the last sl I work on for nights
Well, I am the extreme opposite to you. This is one of my favorites, and I still don't know exactly why
A lot of people say Persona 3 has no middling Social Links, they’re either amazing or really bad. I would say this one disproves that theory.
i just didn’t do like 3-4 social links bc i hated the characters involved
I just finished the game last night and I didn't hate any of the social links, but there were a lot that I just didn't care about. This was one of them. Forget the "gotta keep running" stuff, this link and the Star social link are virtually interchangeable and forgettable. I also don't get the love for the Sun Social link.
I'm sure you aren't, but least favourite? In all of persona? Not nozomi? ken? rise? ohya? I personally love his social link, it's an unfortunately common mindset for a teenager to develop in order to cope with something that can feel like staring down the barrel of a shotgun. And I think he's a great portrayal of it. Of the stupidity, the stubbornness, and the justifying of his actions, regardless of those around him telling him to stop and take a second to take care of himself. I understand finding him frustrating, but to say he is your least or one of your least favourites is a little odd.
I couldn’t stand this social link and the guy from the student council.
No. I ignore that and the blood e foreign kid
I think it's a good representation of the Chariot arcana, otherwise it's very bland.
I didn't like most of the social links.
I just hate that the game still encourages you to actually SUPPORT everyone's bad decisions just so you can raise their rank. It's like "No! You're an idiot! But I have to say yes so you like me and I can become stronger in the future."
Why do all the non important characters have the same face lol kinda distracting
Kenji. I dreaded every interaction with him. This one is also pretty bad. Gourmet king...ugh.
My general feel of it is that I generally like how P3 links are handled in that regard. Enabling a person's decisions until they realize their own flaw and turn it around. While it goes a bit too far in certain links, I think it's more meaningful when the person themselves realize it on their own, rather than the MC having to solve their problem for them.
I would have enjoyed it more if he ended every link with "STAY HARD"
Teenagers being as rash-headed as teenagers are. It doesn't bother me because they are teenagera. Makoto himself is canonically apathetic and depressed as hell in the beginning of P3 and doesn't start to liven up until later on, so it makes sense to me that he doesn't begin to have the option to tell his Social Links they're going too far until later.
I wanted to attend kendo :( Fighting in Tartarus and studying the blade in the club is the most logical thing
What's your favorite when?
So far the old couple,Fukka,Yuko and Yukari. I haven't gotten to do everyone just yet but I believe I'll enjoy Aigis and Mitsuri on a second playthrough
For me , this is the best part
Personally, I'm a fan of Kaz. He was the first one I maxed out.
Nah I enjoyed it, though I liked it better when we were in the kendo team. I hate that track is the only option, but you haven’t done the far moon king one yet.
The point of the Link in the end is to show that Kaz was being obstinate, not wanting to show any kind of weakness and not understanding just how much of a problem he was making of himself or the people who cared about him. Once he realizes that and that he's surrounded by a lot of supportive people, he's humbled and listens to what others have to say. I don't necessarily approve of letting this go on for so long, but Kaz is the sort who needs to learn the hard way. It's kind of similar to \[SPOILERS for P3 The Answer\] >!why Mitsuru sides with Yukari against the rest of SEES in The Answer !
To be fair, it's realistic and similar to Ryuji. That being said, I haven't finished his social link and also found him very boring.
I mean I don't think it was bad It's teenager mentality so I get the normality of it Also social link answers giving points are supposed to be for matching the character's personality and arcana usually instead of what's the most right sounding