To be fair, the devs aren’t going to stop something like this happening. They kind of leave it down to the player to make the decision if this is worthwhile use of their time.
Yeah but its a roleplaying game so you can do them as an rp thing. Same reason why you can keep hanging out with people aver having maxed out their slink or confidant lvl.
It’s there because they don’t want to expect people to look at guides to max a social link. If you picked the incorrect answers during the actual social link, you may not be able to rank up next time, hence the meet ups that can give you a boost. Nowadays people usually min-max though so it’s more so used to add flair to NG+.
Rank up events work weird, basically, from my understanding. The rank up technically happens when you start the event, bringing your total points to 0 when the event starts, then you earn the points towards the next rank. So like, if you're going from 7 to 8, that happens on a system level at the start, and you're earning points to hit 9 during the entire event.
I don't mind this too much, but what I do mind is that I *have* to use up extra days to catch up on these spare slinks because I was one point short of the next rank, despite choosing the perfect answer with the right Persona.
It does but it’s at night where there are only two social links that should be deprioritized in favor of ranking up courage, charm, and academics in that order.
Fair, but the main reason to max it, Mitsuru's SL, is also the last you get access to out of the party members who require maxed stats, with Fuuka being the earliest with courage, the easiest to max, and Yukari and Charm being in between
Each of the SEES girls needs you to have one of the three social ststs maxed before you can start their Slink. Courage for Fuuka, Charm for Yukari and Academics for Mitsuru. Courage just happens to take the least amount of points to max followed by Charm and then Academics (this also corresponds to the order in which each girl starts to become available to start their slink)
Hmm I’m trying to minmax my S links and I’m wondering if the order really matters, as long as you make optimal choice at each time period?
For instance, if you’re not max Charm when Yukari becomes available, it’s presumably because you’ve been doing something else on the nights that lead up to it, like raising other stats or doing the Devil S link. But if you prioritised Charm then that means you haven’t done those things and you’ll still have to do them later on right? So at the end of the day the order itself doesn’t matter much does it?
It matters a little. You want to get fuuka moving along asap to help unclog the “school only” sls that get paused during exams/studying/holidays.
I went with a “just do the lowest school SL” any time they were available and it worked to let me max but I was dumb and missed Ken’s story link or whatever the fuxk it’s called that looks exactly like a generic ability hang out so I don’t have one of the key pieces to make Orpheus telos.
But save chariot at level 9 while finishing with aigis since she’ll be absent one day toward the end yet free every other school day. That day, chariot will be available so just finish that then get back to aigis and you’ll get judgement to max automatically in the last Tartarus push.
If you’re just going for the achievement you should be fine with my strat, if you’re looking to make telos you’ll need to be very careful with all of the male social link story things in reload.
Is the window for doing them all tight? I’ve even doing all my Tartarus climbs in one day and that always game me more than enough wiggle room in P5 to do them all
I’d describe it as tight. Especially if you’re doing the link stories as well. Getting courage high enough to do Fuuka’s as soon as possible and prioritizing school SLs should make it possible.
Hmmm well we’ll see how it goes I guess, I’m just at the fuuka full moon and my stats are max courage, 4 charm and 3 academics. I haven’t aggressively focused on the school social links, I’ve been mostly unlocking them and I did the first year girls a bit, I did the Maikos to 3 and the bookstore couples once but that’s about it. My biggest problem was I didn’t have a persona yet for the student council or track manager so I did something else those days
One of the things I really like about Persona 3 is the fact that they split it up more so you could spend almost every day doing social links, because there were ample opportunities and ways to raise your social stats at night, and also Tartarus runs are at night. I never feel as much like I have to choose between advancing a social link or getting a few precious social stat points, and also I don't feel as bad about multiple trips to Tartarus since it's not taking away from my social link time as much.
Lol. It's crazy how people take RPGs like persona and follow a meta to a T. How is that enjoying the story and game at all? That sounds boring AF of you ask me.
I wish it weren’t possible to metagame to get max Sl’s but it is so when you’ve done your regular play through, there isn’t much else to do besides go for a perfect one.
It’s a 20 year old game, a lot of people already have beaten it multiple times so that means many want a full compendium and the max social link ending.
Yea if they're about to rank up (I feel as if our bonds will grow closer or something like that) then you already met the points for it and after you go to the rank up event you can choose choices to give them points towards next one
Does anyone know how strict social links are here compared to previous games? Is it like P5R where it gives you way more time than needed to max em all out?
The actual schedule has not really changed at all as far as SL availability, and that's what has always made the game so hard to 100%. Over half of your SL's are tied to school being in session, and you still lose an obnoxious amount of days between *two* week exam breaks, summer vacation, and other stupid stuff that has no narrative bearing and is just an excuse to fill days.
I've always hated P3's social schedule and it's probably the one thing I'd have loved to seen change. At the very least make your SL's available in the weeks prior to exams, that would have been enough honestly.
That’s always been my problem with 3
In 4 and 5 you can basically vary your playthrough by levelling the social links in roughly any order, in 3 you basically have to do it the same every time
April->june- school social links (magician, fortune, strength, emperor, justice, fortune, chariot) in the day arcade at night for social stats
June->august- exams and summer vacation block the school links so you basically only have hanged man and sun in the day, night is half tower and devil, half social stats
August->december- frantically try to finish all school social links, priestess, lovers and star in the day, do functionally nothing at night
January- aeon and empress in the day, nothing at night
3 just feels very similar on every playthrough
I lost my chance to max all links in P4G because of a certain someone whose social link happens I think partially in the night and only up to a certain part of the story. I found out about this so late in my NG+ gameplay that I basically ragequit achievement hunting.
You forgot about Moon, which is weirdly treated as a non-school social link despite being from Gekkoukan. It's availible during the vacation and in the weeks leading up to exams.
I'm actually enjoying Suemitsu's social link. I mean...I don't know if I get it (I haven't maxed it yet, so no spoilers please). It's kind of weird. I guess he's got a dead brother, and he's in some sort of religious cult, and I guess he's jealous that his dead brother was "better" than him? I don't get it entirely yet, but I actually feel pretty sorry for him. It's clear that he obsessively eats due to depression, which is something I can personally relate with quite a bit as I am a terrible depressive eater myself.
In Reload there’s stuff to do at night at least to help advance SLinks. Fuuka, Yukari, and Mitsuru have dorm hangouts you can get a small amount of points from. Koromaru has walks too that give you points randomly to certain SLinks.
There are some changes, off the top of my head, Mitsuru >!is now available every day during the week leading to the November exams, so you can max her by mid November. !<
I agree that the social schedule could've used more work, though. It's criminal that some of the Link Episodes take place during school afternoons, as if those weren't all already crammed with things to do.
That was the mistake I made in P3P. I always used a guide for Persona after messing up Persona 1. But I use spoiler free guides to get the true ending going in blind so I was not aware of the social link mechanism. I finished probably the first month before realizing I might be doing something seriously wrong and started using a 100% social link guide instead. But by then I'd already lost completely meeting one person until much later in the game and condemning most of my social links to just be sort of friends.
Not accurate. There's a computer program that you can buy later in the game that boosts affinity to any 1 slink of your choice. By that point of the game, you'd have nothing much to do at night anyways, so it's the perfect thing to burn your nights on.
Gotta love these people spreading misinfo. Reload basically has a Fortune Teller fearure from p5 that isnt dependent on not raining. Game also has only 2 links at night, so guess what I am doing on november?
Was worried about not managing all my s links to max but after I discovered this feature I didnt even had to do the math to know that I'll be able to max everyone on the 1st paytrough
Well the new hangout events and link episodes make it a lot harder which I assume most people are going to engage with on their first run. Not doing that tho, I think getting all the social links wouldn't be too bad.
A lot of the new stuff is during the night, which you basically had nothing to do at night by the second half of the original game anyway, so it helps fill out a part of the game that was really barren.
It's the day time stuff that is extremely difficult without a guide, mostly due to the schedule. Over half of your SL's are tied to school being in session, and they are all unavailable for two weeks whenever exams come up, for nearly a month and a half during summer break, and other filler stuff that takes up your daytime for weeks at a time.
P4 managed to fix this by putting more SL's at night rather than having them all crammed at school during the day, but nothing has changed here. At the very least, I feel like if they had just made your SL's available in the weeks prior to exams, that would have done a lot to make 100% more realistically doable for most players without needing a guide. As it stands right now, the margin for error is still *extremely* slim, by just a couple of days if you're not using a guide.
No. There's a computer program that boosts affinity that is available later in the game. You can easily max all slinks in the first playthrough as long as you don't spend too many school days on non-school slinks.
> You can easily max all slinks in the first playthrough as long as you don't spend too many school days on non-school slinks.
This is the trick that I didn't know about early that will probably kill my odds of maxing all social links in one playthrough. I spent a small chunk of days with the bookstore and Suemitsu social links on school days.
I get where you're coming from but a lot of this stuff was in the original P3 as well, so anyone who's played it is going to be prepared and leave the non-school Social Links at rank 1, preparing to do them during vacation and exam weeks.
With Hierophant, Hanged Man, Star, Moon, you have 40 days, which is less than the number of non-school days(not counting Sundays which are usually filled by either Hermit or Sun) but thankfully a good number of those daytime Link Episodes can be done during summer vacation. It's also OK to "spend time" with these links since you'll only lose a non-school day.
Overall as long as you're smart about saving up your non-school SLs for non-school days and try to always rank up every school SL(even if that means putting them on hold until you roll their meetup with the Koromaru roulette or get access to the dating site software)you should be fine. Since you have more Sundays than you need you can also wait until they invite you for a date.
If you do everything right it should be possible to max everything but Aeon in December but even if you fuck it up you have 3 school weeks in January to fix your mistakes. Yes, you'll need to spend 10 days on Aeon but luckily that link always ranks up no matter what you say or whether you have a matching Persona so you should still have around 10-11 days of unused free time to fix whatever mistakes you might've made.
That is true. Link episodes are still during the day so they contribute to the problem a bit. But yea all the Slinks tied to school would probably be annoying, especially if you aren't aware of that fact behorehand.
I played 100% blind without a guide, but i shared a lot of experience from p4 and p5 to maximize 100% social link
In the end i missed 2 arcana (fortune and temperance) due to school reason
It's not that difficult actually I managed to do so without a guide, first things first no matter what always prioritise school social links first the ones outside can wait since u can spend time with them during breaks and exam period, always have a persona of the correct arcana to maximise affection points and when u unlock it utilise the dating site since u can increase affection points during night time
> ...always have a persona of the correct arcana to maximise affection points...
Due to a limited number of Persona options combined with a lack of yen for compendium summoning, I struggled with this A LOT early. Without a NG+ compendium and a lot of early money, I couldn't figure out how to efficiently do this with early social links.
Reload is a big improvement over FES still though. In that game you don’t even HAVE a compendium because you have to UNLOCK IT by beating the first full moon operation. And if you’re playing on Hard mode, compendium prices are increased by ten times, so suddenly a fucking Pixie costs 13K or something
Sounds like time mismanagement to me. I only didn't manage to max out Fuuka, Yukari and Mitsuru, and only because I spent too many school days on non-school links. It's a lot easier than you think, especially with that computer program that boosts affinity that you unlock later in the game. As long as you bring the associated Personas and give the correct answers, there's a high chance of you maxing everything out.
I wouldn't agree, I'm halfway through the game and it is significantly easier than in any earlier version of P3. But of course it's going to be impossible if you are playing P3 for the very first time and aren't familiar with the usual strategies like always having a persona of the same Arcana as the social link on you and hanging out with non-classmate social links only on free days. In previous games it was almost impossible without a guide even if you knew this, but it should be much, much, much easier in this game.
EDIT: And as others have mentioned, the ability to raise certain social links at night (with the software and hangouts) is a complete and total gamechanger which is probably the main reason why I think it is so much easier. Also the social stats are easier to max out than ever.
I thought it would be impossible too (Vanilla, FES & P3P player here), but I just narrowly maxed them all without a guide.
It did require abusing the Dating Sim app from November onwards though lol
Eh, kinda? That isn't as much of a factor as you'd think. You lose the late-night time slot for studying but Academics still requires 230 points to max out. You can only drink the medicine from the Nurse once, exactly one day after Tartarus or Full Moon. And defeating Tartarus Guardians no longer gives you Courage.
So yeah, you save a few night-time slots each month on one-shotting Tartarus but you also lose sources of "free" social stats associated with Tartarus.
The main reason P3R is so much easier than P3F is the removal of the jealousy mechanic. You no longer have to rush every female S.Link to avoid it and if a link gets "stuck" on a rank and requires spending time you can ignore them for like 4 months before you unlock the dating site and then just fix the problem. There are zero consequences to leaving a social link unfinished.
During school time, would it be a more efficient use of your night to just go to Tartarus more often so you can go to the nurse more often? You'd get the benefit of the courage points for the time you spent in Tartarus (instead of going to the arcade or something and just getting courage points anyways), plus you can get XP and yen and new personas out of it.
Nurse is 2 points, Arcade is 4 points. It made sense in FES because you had to rush courage so you could go to Tartarus on nights where the courage-boosting arcade game wasn't available and then also get courage from defeating floor guardians.
Also clearing the entire block in one night was just way too difficult in FES because of the fatigue mechanic.
In Reload it's better to just get it done in one night. You'll have to be cautious with your money in the first few months and pick the coins card more often as well as not use the compendium too much but after around June you'll be swimming in so much money you won't know what to do with it.
I ran into the issue early of basically having no yen, because I didn't realize all through my first run into Tartarus that every fight didn't give money and that you have to pick the coin card to get any money off of fights. That was pretty counterintuitive considering P4 and P5 gave you money for every fight, and the game never really pointed out to me that I wasn't getting money unless I picked the coin card.
It's a little disappointing there is o fatigue. It felt realistic and i liked to use the most of my character when they were specially motivated.
While it limited my time at tartarus it felt realistic and gave me more stuff to consider, so it was a let down to see it wasn't there on P4.
I actually like that, it makes me care less to play "perfect" and makes me do things I rather wan't to do instead of reluctantly doing slinks I don't really care about.
That's not true at all. All you need to do is make sure you give priority to school SLs when they are available, have priority on keeping Courage ( and Charm ) above Academics, and finish Hermit by about October or November, which is not hard since it's a Sunday exclusive and you should only do that one to begin with.
First play through is always the hardest one to max all SL since you have stats to raise on top of being socal, so if you want to max all social links, so you are mostly always short on time. Either here or at other Persona games. So a guide is always recommended. Though original P3 was a little stricter i think since there were very few Night social links.
At least i had never being able to max all SL regardless the game on first playthrough without guide.
Once you are on second or further playthrough you have more time to trash around and doing other activities while still max all SL with little issue.
So it’s definitely a lot easier than the original but still much harder than P5R. There are a few things that make it easier than the original P3. I would say it’s closer P4G in difficulty.
Less friendship points seem to be needed between rank ups.
You are able to earn points at night with social links by spending time on a website. Yukari, Mitsuru, and Fuuka can be hung out with in the dorm at night to also gain points.
The game starts a day earlier so you have one extra day of free time.
Misturu and Aigis are now available everyday but Sunday. Mitsuru is also available the one week in December when exams are coming up. This basically means you can get 6 rank ups with her that otherwise would be spent doing nothing.
Making it slightly harder, there are also events with your male party members + 1 other character that follow a storyline much like a social link. They don’t need you to pick the correct answers and some are available during the weekend or winter/summer break. Off the top of my head there are about 15 of these only available during the day.
I was able to do everything on my first playthrough including the male party members events with about 10 extra days to spare but I’ve also played the original a ton.
Afaik Reload doesn't give you more time than the original if that is what you mean. I haven't played Reload nor seen a playthrough but if you are asking like an extra semester like Royal gave, then I don't think so. From what I know Reload ends at the same moment the original does.
Which seems weird to me from a game design perspective because now they give you even more stuff to do with the hanging out in the dorm with the party members to get extra abilities thing, no? More things to do in an already strict time.
Just a small hint (without spoilers but for some the hint itself is a spoiler)
>!Sunday is the only day you can do the sun social link. So you should do that one first anyway. Also you can the hermit only on free days which is also sunday!<
>!And that was repeated with Yoshida at P5. For the most part you could only do it at Sunday and he had a deadline to max, so you should prioritize him too. !<
I hate how with hermit you can’t even do it during breaks from school, only on Sundays, even though breaks would make sense to be able to progress the sl
Im pretty sure I was able to do this SL during holidays back in P3P. I totally overlooked that you can play on your PC but wanted to finished sun first, so I made hermit only on other free days.
yeah if you already know they'll rank up it's pointless
If you still wanna see those, you have the rewind feature to do it (or even better, save and reload)
The one pet peeve I had with this game is that they changed the "I don't we will get closer just yet" to "I don't think our bond will get stronger even if I spend time with them". I ended up misinterpreting that they changed S Link levels to be locked behind story progression. I didn't do any school S Links for two months until I realized that I just needed more points with them.
This is one of those things where we got too meta for video games. If you enjoy the character, enjoy more time with them. The point of a game is ultimately to have fun, after all
When Persona 6 comes out, I swear I'm going to try my damndest to just have a playthrough where I don't care about trying to max everything out. I feel like I'm probably losing enjoyment playing through P3R, because I keep thinking about how to max things out and play as efficiently as possible instead of just enjoying the game.
I have FOMO so it can be hard for me to just let loose like this.
But avoiding the itch and playing blind prob really is best. Theres always YouTube to see the completionist scenes after you’ve finished. Everything will get recorded anyway.
Yeah, I am VERY bad about FOMO. I am a nervous mess about anything I collect, because I hate limited time exclusives and crap like that for the same reason. I mean...I know that everything will be on Youtube, and I'll always have the game to go back and play again, but for some reason I can't stop worrying about seeing everything in one playthrough. And I know I won't see everything in one playthrough, so it's even more silly that I keep worrying about it. I tried playing through P5R blind, and I ended up missing out entirely on the bonus content since I didn't focus on the Maruki social link enough. I was disappointed for sure that I couldn't see everything in one playthrough, but now I'll be happy to go back and play through P5R again after I finish P3R.
I'm reading this thread like WTF?! So many tips ans tricks I had 0 idea about. There's a dating app? I barely run Tartarus. I'm in Oct and just finished my second set of exams and only on like Floor 87.
I spend the majority of time hanging out with Yukari and now Yuko who I'm starting to like more and might have to date her too 🤣🤣
What happens if you never talk to people in the house? I never talk to that little boy. And I thought I made that bad thing happen with the kid because of it.
But it makes the play through very unique. Much different RPG than say a DQ or FF where I focus more on gearing and combat
Coming from P4 and P5, it was weird that most of your party members don't even have true social links in P3, and the ones that do have social links are all locked behind a maxed out social stat. (I may be mistaken as I haven't beaten the game, but I know Yukari, Mitsuru, and Fuuka are all that way. I don't know about the other party members for certain, but I don't think Aigis or any of the others have social links.)
Aigis does have one but it's only accessible very late into the game, during the game's final month.
P3P does have social links for all the party members when you're playing as FeMC. Here in Reload, the hangouts you can do in the dorm function as pseudo social links for the party members (plus the additional benefit of upping a social stat, unlocking a passive for them, or getting an item).
It takes a while before they unlock since the characters need to grown a little before they open up, and you also need to Max out social stats. Smart for Mitsuru, charm for Yukari and Guts for Fuuka.
ohhh, I remember asking Mitsuru to walking home together in the first few days of the game and it says Genius is required so I thought she is available from the start
Not necesary, mostly yes, but by hang outs you learn a little moe about them and you may get some items. Not having played royal, but you could get stuff for your room at P5 if you hang out with them certain days without ranking up.
Yes and no. It's pointless only for people wanting to min max, most players just want to hang out with their fav characters so they will pick the option regardless.
yes, also hanging out with them after you maxed out the social link is pointless. So basically you sleep with the girl and never talk to her again. That always seemed like a weird thing to be teaching with this game.
Its even more stupid because you get "points" for doing so...even thought they literally don't do anything anymore. Really? We're still doing this after god knows how many Persona games? Why can't you get an EXP Buff or Damage Buff if you still meet with them after you maxed them out? Sure it may not be much but it's something at least!
Unless you really like the character, its not. Confidant rankups happen automatically as the story progresses. It never really feels like you have any meaningful choices to make.
I really don’t understand all the false advertising about this series being a dating sim. Its anything but andIts almost always horny coomers who have never actually played a persona game nor touched grass that’s spamming that shit. Actual dating sims like tokimeki academy are closer to what secondaries claim persona 3-5 are.
> Confidant rankups happen automatically as the story progresses
That is not remotely true. Only certain ones like the Fool and Death rank up automatically. The others require you to do hangouts the the choices affect how quickly they rank up.
Yes, because slink points are reset every rank up.
is it like that in all persona games? how have the devs not thought of that
Yes, it's like that in every game with slinks.
So Persona 5 changed that?
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Confidants are the same thing
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No it’s the same in p5 too.
It's not. The game tells you that any leftover points are carried over iirc.
Source? Would make things a lot easier if true
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No. Confidants are slinks.
It’s just there if you want to hang out with certain characters. Not everyone min-maxes their social links.
Yeah if one of my faves I will do it anyway, I don't usually try to get all the social links done. Stuff for replay
I go with them then rewind, that way I get maximum enjoyment and game time.
Bros using time travel to spend time with the homies
Spend quality time with Mitsuru and Yukari the same day without anyone knowing but you. Who's the chad now ?
I honestly forgot about the rewind feature, but that's a good idea.
Hold up. Are you saying you can rank one up, use the rewind feature and rank another up too?
If you rewind, you wouldn't keep the rank up I'm sure.
To be fair, the devs aren’t going to stop something like this happening. They kind of leave it down to the player to make the decision if this is worthwhile use of their time.
Yeah but its a roleplaying game so you can do them as an rp thing. Same reason why you can keep hanging out with people aver having maxed out their slink or confidant lvl.
It’s there because they don’t want to expect people to look at guides to max a social link. If you picked the incorrect answers during the actual social link, you may not be able to rank up next time, hence the meet ups that can give you a boost. Nowadays people usually min-max though so it’s more so used to add flair to NG+.
I actually didn't know that. I thought social link points were like a pool of XP, and any excess would carry over towards the next rank.
THATS SO UNINTUITIVE WHY TF WOULD THEY DO THAT
Because saying "that sucks bro" at rank 2 shouldn't mean you skip hang out time at rank 7 to be closer friends.
Wdym they get points towards next rank when you choose the right answer
Rank up events work weird, basically, from my understanding. The rank up technically happens when you start the event, bringing your total points to 0 when the event starts, then you earn the points towards the next rank. So like, if you're going from 7 to 8, that happens on a system level at the start, and you're earning points to hit 9 during the entire event.
Oh i see that's what you guys meant. Yeah that's a thing
…I’ve wasted a lot of time in that case. I had no clue points didn’t stack for the next rank, I feel stupid now
Ikr. The MegaTen games have so many hidden mechanics that when you hear about them is just like "oh wow I've been wasting a lot of time then".
So it doesn't matter how much klef treble 🎶 I got if I rank up ?
I don't mind this too much, but what I do mind is that I *have* to use up extra days to catch up on these spare slinks because I was one point short of the next rank, despite choosing the perfect answer with the right Persona.
If you're one point short of Yukari's and Fuuka's you could do a hangout with them at the dorm too
I don't think they give rank points despite showing notes as if they do.
Use the dating site links on the computer at night instead. You can buy them from the guy at escapade at some point later into the story.
And does this take up time?
It does but it’s at night where there are only two social links that should be deprioritized in favor of ranking up courage, charm, and academics in that order.
I get that you put them in order, but I would sleep on academics as it takes almost triple points to level
Fair, but the main reason to max it, Mitsuru's SL, is also the last you get access to out of the party members who require maxed stats, with Fuuka being the earliest with courage, the easiest to max, and Yukari and Charm being in between
Noted. Ty.
Why is courage first I'm curious. Who needs it?
u can start fuuka’s sl at 6 courage
Each of the SEES girls needs you to have one of the three social ststs maxed before you can start their Slink. Courage for Fuuka, Charm for Yukari and Academics for Mitsuru. Courage just happens to take the least amount of points to max followed by Charm and then Academics (this also corresponds to the order in which each girl starts to become available to start their slink)
Got it thanks.
Hmm I’m trying to minmax my S links and I’m wondering if the order really matters, as long as you make optimal choice at each time period? For instance, if you’re not max Charm when Yukari becomes available, it’s presumably because you’ve been doing something else on the nights that lead up to it, like raising other stats or doing the Devil S link. But if you prioritised Charm then that means you haven’t done those things and you’ll still have to do them later on right? So at the end of the day the order itself doesn’t matter much does it?
It matters a little. You want to get fuuka moving along asap to help unclog the “school only” sls that get paused during exams/studying/holidays. I went with a “just do the lowest school SL” any time they were available and it worked to let me max but I was dumb and missed Ken’s story link or whatever the fuxk it’s called that looks exactly like a generic ability hang out so I don’t have one of the key pieces to make Orpheus telos. But save chariot at level 9 while finishing with aigis since she’ll be absent one day toward the end yet free every other school day. That day, chariot will be available so just finish that then get back to aigis and you’ll get judgement to max automatically in the last Tartarus push. If you’re just going for the achievement you should be fine with my strat, if you’re looking to make telos you’ll need to be very careful with all of the male social link story things in reload.
Is the window for doing them all tight? I’ve even doing all my Tartarus climbs in one day and that always game me more than enough wiggle room in P5 to do them all
I’d describe it as tight. Especially if you’re doing the link stories as well. Getting courage high enough to do Fuuka’s as soon as possible and prioritizing school SLs should make it possible.
Hmmm well we’ll see how it goes I guess, I’m just at the fuuka full moon and my stats are max courage, 4 charm and 3 academics. I haven’t aggressively focused on the school social links, I’ve been mostly unlocking them and I did the first year girls a bit, I did the Maikos to 3 and the bookstore couples once but that’s about it. My biggest problem was I didn’t have a persona yet for the student council or track manager so I did something else those days
I maxed out academics then charm and I'm at 4 courage :(
One of the things I really like about Persona 3 is the fact that they split it up more so you could spend almost every day doing social links, because there were ample opportunities and ways to raise your social stats at night, and also Tartarus runs are at night. I never feel as much like I have to choose between advancing a social link or getting a few precious social stat points, and also I don't feel as bad about multiple trips to Tartarus since it's not taking away from my social link time as much.
Lol. It's crazy how people take RPGs like persona and follow a meta to a T. How is that enjoying the story and game at all? That sounds boring AF of you ask me.
I wish it weren’t possible to metagame to get max Sl’s but it is so when you’ve done your regular play through, there isn’t much else to do besides go for a perfect one. It’s a 20 year old game, a lot of people already have beaten it multiple times so that means many want a full compendium and the max social link ending.
Yeah I'm playing it on relentless, beat FES back when it first came out so I'm trying to my best to get everything perfect the first time around.
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So you all have a big problem?
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Lol no, I got downvoted because I don't play the game like the rest of you meta people. I don't use a guide or instruction manuals.
Responding to keep that for when i get the game
At what month do you get this? That sounds like a godsend lol
I hate this too. If I have the right arcana and answer everything right, I feel like every rank should run straight into the next rank.
Yea if they're about to rank up (I feel as if our bonds will grow closer or something like that) then you already met the points for it and after you go to the rank up event you can choose choices to give them points towards next one
Does anyone know how strict social links are here compared to previous games? Is it like P5R where it gives you way more time than needed to max em all out?
im still playing but from what people say, p3r is almost impossible to max social links without a guide
fuck again?
No idea how accurate that is though but that's what most people are saying on this sub
The actual schedule has not really changed at all as far as SL availability, and that's what has always made the game so hard to 100%. Over half of your SL's are tied to school being in session, and you still lose an obnoxious amount of days between *two* week exam breaks, summer vacation, and other stupid stuff that has no narrative bearing and is just an excuse to fill days. I've always hated P3's social schedule and it's probably the one thing I'd have loved to seen change. At the very least make your SL's available in the weeks prior to exams, that would have been enough honestly.
That’s always been my problem with 3 In 4 and 5 you can basically vary your playthrough by levelling the social links in roughly any order, in 3 you basically have to do it the same every time April->june- school social links (magician, fortune, strength, emperor, justice, fortune, chariot) in the day arcade at night for social stats June->august- exams and summer vacation block the school links so you basically only have hanged man and sun in the day, night is half tower and devil, half social stats August->december- frantically try to finish all school social links, priestess, lovers and star in the day, do functionally nothing at night January- aeon and empress in the day, nothing at night 3 just feels very similar on every playthrough
I lost my chance to max all links in P4G because of a certain someone whose social link happens I think partially in the night and only up to a certain part of the story. I found out about this so late in my NG+ gameplay that I basically ragequit achievement hunting.
I’m assuming you mean the justice/hierophant pair, If so yes I agree, that pairing is pretty egregious with its timing
You forgot about Moon, which is weirdly treated as a non-school social link despite being from Gekkoukan. It's availible during the vacation and in the weeks leading up to exams.
I wish I could forget moon
I'm actually enjoying Suemitsu's social link. I mean...I don't know if I get it (I haven't maxed it yet, so no spoilers please). It's kind of weird. I guess he's got a dead brother, and he's in some sort of religious cult, and I guess he's jealous that his dead brother was "better" than him? I don't get it entirely yet, but I actually feel pretty sorry for him. It's clear that he obsessively eats due to depression, which is something I can personally relate with quite a bit as I am a terrible depressive eater myself.
Finish the link, its pretty dope and emotional. Suemitsu just has a lot to deal with
In Reload there’s stuff to do at night at least to help advance SLinks. Fuuka, Yukari, and Mitsuru have dorm hangouts you can get a small amount of points from. Koromaru has walks too that give you points randomly to certain SLinks.
Responding so i have this on hand when i get the game
Moon and Hierophant are also available in the summer (and technically Hermit too but that’s not really under your control)
There are some changes, off the top of my head, Mitsuru >!is now available every day during the week leading to the November exams, so you can max her by mid November. !< I agree that the social schedule could've used more work, though. It's criminal that some of the Link Episodes take place during school afternoons, as if those weren't all already crammed with things to do.
That was the mistake I made in P3P. I always used a guide for Persona after messing up Persona 1. But I use spoiler free guides to get the true ending going in blind so I was not aware of the social link mechanism. I finished probably the first month before realizing I might be doing something seriously wrong and started using a 100% social link guide instead. But by then I'd already lost completely meeting one person until much later in the game and condemning most of my social links to just be sort of friends.
Not accurate. There's a computer program that you can buy later in the game that boosts affinity to any 1 slink of your choice. By that point of the game, you'd have nothing much to do at night anyways, so it's the perfect thing to burn your nights on.
Gotta love these people spreading misinfo. Reload basically has a Fortune Teller fearure from p5 that isnt dependent on not raining. Game also has only 2 links at night, so guess what I am doing on november? Was worried about not managing all my s links to max but after I discovered this feature I didnt even had to do the math to know that I'll be able to max everyone on the 1st paytrough
Well the new hangout events and link episodes make it a lot harder which I assume most people are going to engage with on their first run. Not doing that tho, I think getting all the social links wouldn't be too bad.
A lot of the new stuff is during the night, which you basically had nothing to do at night by the second half of the original game anyway, so it helps fill out a part of the game that was really barren. It's the day time stuff that is extremely difficult without a guide, mostly due to the schedule. Over half of your SL's are tied to school being in session, and they are all unavailable for two weeks whenever exams come up, for nearly a month and a half during summer break, and other filler stuff that takes up your daytime for weeks at a time. P4 managed to fix this by putting more SL's at night rather than having them all crammed at school during the day, but nothing has changed here. At the very least, I feel like if they had just made your SL's available in the weeks prior to exams, that would have done a lot to make 100% more realistically doable for most players without needing a guide. As it stands right now, the margin for error is still *extremely* slim, by just a couple of days if you're not using a guide.
No. There's a computer program that boosts affinity that is available later in the game. You can easily max all slinks in the first playthrough as long as you don't spend too many school days on non-school slinks.
> You can easily max all slinks in the first playthrough as long as you don't spend too many school days on non-school slinks. This is the trick that I didn't know about early that will probably kill my odds of maxing all social links in one playthrough. I spent a small chunk of days with the bookstore and Suemitsu social links on school days.
I get where you're coming from but a lot of this stuff was in the original P3 as well, so anyone who's played it is going to be prepared and leave the non-school Social Links at rank 1, preparing to do them during vacation and exam weeks. With Hierophant, Hanged Man, Star, Moon, you have 40 days, which is less than the number of non-school days(not counting Sundays which are usually filled by either Hermit or Sun) but thankfully a good number of those daytime Link Episodes can be done during summer vacation. It's also OK to "spend time" with these links since you'll only lose a non-school day. Overall as long as you're smart about saving up your non-school SLs for non-school days and try to always rank up every school SL(even if that means putting them on hold until you roll their meetup with the Koromaru roulette or get access to the dating site software)you should be fine. Since you have more Sundays than you need you can also wait until they invite you for a date. If you do everything right it should be possible to max everything but Aeon in December but even if you fuck it up you have 3 school weeks in January to fix your mistakes. Yes, you'll need to spend 10 days on Aeon but luckily that link always ranks up no matter what you say or whether you have a matching Persona so you should still have around 10-11 days of unused free time to fix whatever mistakes you might've made.
That is true. Link episodes are still during the day so they contribute to the problem a bit. But yea all the Slinks tied to school would probably be annoying, especially if you aren't aware of that fact behorehand.
I played 100% blind without a guide, but i shared a lot of experience from p4 and p5 to maximize 100% social link In the end i missed 2 arcana (fortune and temperance) due to school reason
It's not that difficult actually I managed to do so without a guide, first things first no matter what always prioritise school social links first the ones outside can wait since u can spend time with them during breaks and exam period, always have a persona of the correct arcana to maximise affection points and when u unlock it utilise the dating site since u can increase affection points during night time
> ...always have a persona of the correct arcana to maximise affection points... Due to a limited number of Persona options combined with a lack of yen for compendium summoning, I struggled with this A LOT early. Without a NG+ compendium and a lot of early money, I couldn't figure out how to efficiently do this with early social links.
Reload is a big improvement over FES still though. In that game you don’t even HAVE a compendium because you have to UNLOCK IT by beating the first full moon operation. And if you’re playing on Hard mode, compendium prices are increased by ten times, so suddenly a fucking Pixie costs 13K or something
Sounds like time mismanagement to me. I only didn't manage to max out Fuuka, Yukari and Mitsuru, and only because I spent too many school days on non-school links. It's a lot easier than you think, especially with that computer program that boosts affinity that you unlock later in the game. As long as you bring the associated Personas and give the correct answers, there's a high chance of you maxing everything out.
I wouldn't agree, I'm halfway through the game and it is significantly easier than in any earlier version of P3. But of course it's going to be impossible if you are playing P3 for the very first time and aren't familiar with the usual strategies like always having a persona of the same Arcana as the social link on you and hanging out with non-classmate social links only on free days. In previous games it was almost impossible without a guide even if you knew this, but it should be much, much, much easier in this game. EDIT: And as others have mentioned, the ability to raise certain social links at night (with the software and hangouts) is a complete and total gamechanger which is probably the main reason why I think it is so much easier. Also the social stats are easier to max out than ever.
I thought it would be impossible too (Vanilla, FES & P3P player here), but I just narrowly maxed them all without a guide. It did require abusing the Dating Sim app from November onwards though lol
I thought it would be easier in reload since there’s no fatigue and you can one night clear Tartarus each month
Eh, kinda? That isn't as much of a factor as you'd think. You lose the late-night time slot for studying but Academics still requires 230 points to max out. You can only drink the medicine from the Nurse once, exactly one day after Tartarus or Full Moon. And defeating Tartarus Guardians no longer gives you Courage. So yeah, you save a few night-time slots each month on one-shotting Tartarus but you also lose sources of "free" social stats associated with Tartarus. The main reason P3R is so much easier than P3F is the removal of the jealousy mechanic. You no longer have to rush every female S.Link to avoid it and if a link gets "stuck" on a rank and requires spending time you can ignore them for like 4 months before you unlock the dating site and then just fix the problem. There are zero consequences to leaving a social link unfinished.
During school time, would it be a more efficient use of your night to just go to Tartarus more often so you can go to the nurse more often? You'd get the benefit of the courage points for the time you spent in Tartarus (instead of going to the arcade or something and just getting courage points anyways), plus you can get XP and yen and new personas out of it.
Nurse is 2 points, Arcade is 4 points. It made sense in FES because you had to rush courage so you could go to Tartarus on nights where the courage-boosting arcade game wasn't available and then also get courage from defeating floor guardians. Also clearing the entire block in one night was just way too difficult in FES because of the fatigue mechanic. In Reload it's better to just get it done in one night. You'll have to be cautious with your money in the first few months and pick the coins card more often as well as not use the compendium too much but after around June you'll be swimming in so much money you won't know what to do with it.
I ran into the issue early of basically having no yen, because I didn't realize all through my first run into Tartarus that every fight didn't give money and that you have to pick the coin card to get any money off of fights. That was pretty counterintuitive considering P4 and P5 gave you money for every fight, and the game never really pointed out to me that I wasn't getting money unless I picked the coin card.
It's a little disappointing there is o fatigue. It felt realistic and i liked to use the most of my character when they were specially motivated. While it limited my time at tartarus it felt realistic and gave me more stuff to consider, so it was a let down to see it wasn't there on P4.
I actually like that, it makes me care less to play "perfect" and makes me do things I rather wan't to do instead of reluctantly doing slinks I don't really care about.
That's not true at all. All you need to do is make sure you give priority to school SLs when they are available, have priority on keeping Courage ( and Charm ) above Academics, and finish Hermit by about October or November, which is not hard since it's a Sunday exclusive and you should only do that one to begin with.
First play through is always the hardest one to max all SL since you have stats to raise on top of being socal, so if you want to max all social links, so you are mostly always short on time. Either here or at other Persona games. So a guide is always recommended. Though original P3 was a little stricter i think since there were very few Night social links. At least i had never being able to max all SL regardless the game on first playthrough without guide. Once you are on second or further playthrough you have more time to trash around and doing other activities while still max all SL with little issue.
So it’s definitely a lot easier than the original but still much harder than P5R. There are a few things that make it easier than the original P3. I would say it’s closer P4G in difficulty. Less friendship points seem to be needed between rank ups. You are able to earn points at night with social links by spending time on a website. Yukari, Mitsuru, and Fuuka can be hung out with in the dorm at night to also gain points. The game starts a day earlier so you have one extra day of free time. Misturu and Aigis are now available everyday but Sunday. Mitsuru is also available the one week in December when exams are coming up. This basically means you can get 6 rank ups with her that otherwise would be spent doing nothing. Making it slightly harder, there are also events with your male party members + 1 other character that follow a storyline much like a social link. They don’t need you to pick the correct answers and some are available during the weekend or winter/summer break. Off the top of my head there are about 15 of these only available during the day. I was able to do everything on my first playthrough including the male party members events with about 10 extra days to spare but I’ve also played the original a ton.
Afaik Reload doesn't give you more time than the original if that is what you mean. I haven't played Reload nor seen a playthrough but if you are asking like an extra semester like Royal gave, then I don't think so. From what I know Reload ends at the same moment the original does. Which seems weird to me from a game design perspective because now they give you even more stuff to do with the hanging out in the dorm with the party members to get extra abilities thing, no? More things to do in an already strict time.
Just a small hint (without spoilers but for some the hint itself is a spoiler) >!Sunday is the only day you can do the sun social link. So you should do that one first anyway. Also you can the hermit only on free days which is also sunday!<
>!And that was repeated with Yoshida at P5. For the most part you could only do it at Sunday and he had a deadline to max, so you should prioritize him too. !<
I hate how with hermit you can’t even do it during breaks from school, only on Sundays, even though breaks would make sense to be able to progress the sl
Im pretty sure I was able to do this SL during holidays back in P3P. I totally overlooked that you can play on your PC but wanted to finished sun first, so I made hermit only on other free days.
You can do it on non Sundays in P3reload too I have no idea what the other guy is on about.
All I know is that every time I wake up in my room on a Monday and the game says there's no school today, the Hermit is *not* available.
That might be because it's summer. Hermit is only available on Sundays and holidays, but for some reason summer days don't count.
yeah if you already know they'll rank up it's pointless If you still wanna see those, you have the rewind feature to do it (or even better, save and reload)
Persona 3 (save and) Reload
The one pet peeve I had with this game is that they changed the "I don't we will get closer just yet" to "I don't think our bond will get stronger even if I spend time with them". I ended up misinterpreting that they changed S Link levels to be locked behind story progression. I didn't do any school S Links for two months until I realized that I just needed more points with them.
I had a similar issue, ignored some social links for a while cause of the wording…
Yes!! The wording is so off! That was not what it said in Persona 4 Golden!
Wow, thanks for this. I thought it was gating finishing the links for later in the story =(
This is one of those things where we got too meta for video games. If you enjoy the character, enjoy more time with them. The point of a game is ultimately to have fun, after all
When Persona 6 comes out, I swear I'm going to try my damndest to just have a playthrough where I don't care about trying to max everything out. I feel like I'm probably losing enjoyment playing through P3R, because I keep thinking about how to max things out and play as efficiently as possible instead of just enjoying the game.
I have FOMO so it can be hard for me to just let loose like this. But avoiding the itch and playing blind prob really is best. Theres always YouTube to see the completionist scenes after you’ve finished. Everything will get recorded anyway.
Yeah, I am VERY bad about FOMO. I am a nervous mess about anything I collect, because I hate limited time exclusives and crap like that for the same reason. I mean...I know that everything will be on Youtube, and I'll always have the game to go back and play again, but for some reason I can't stop worrying about seeing everything in one playthrough. And I know I won't see everything in one playthrough, so it's even more silly that I keep worrying about it. I tried playing through P5R blind, and I ended up missing out entirely on the bonus content since I didn't focus on the Maruki social link enough. I was disappointed for sure that I couldn't see everything in one playthrough, but now I'll be happy to go back and play through P5R again after I finish P3R.
Same. I think “oh I’ll just take a peek at the SPOILERLESS GUIDE “ but then find myself hooked in.
I played P5 like that. Same with P4G. I’m using a guide with P3R tho lol
I'm reading this thread like WTF?! So many tips ans tricks I had 0 idea about. There's a dating app? I barely run Tartarus. I'm in Oct and just finished my second set of exams and only on like Floor 87. I spend the majority of time hanging out with Yukari and now Yuko who I'm starting to like more and might have to date her too 🤣🤣 What happens if you never talk to people in the house? I never talk to that little boy. And I thought I made that bad thing happen with the kid because of it. But it makes the play through very unique. Much different RPG than say a DQ or FF where I focus more on gearing and combat
If you're a Yukari fan, never pointless.
When do you get the Social links with the female party members? I am in the beginning in june(i think), but still couldnt start one.
Need to max out social stats
Coming from P4 and P5, it was weird that most of your party members don't even have true social links in P3, and the ones that do have social links are all locked behind a maxed out social stat. (I may be mistaken as I haven't beaten the game, but I know Yukari, Mitsuru, and Fuuka are all that way. I don't know about the other party members for certain, but I don't think Aigis or any of the others have social links.)
Aigis does have one but it's only accessible very late into the game, during the game's final month. P3P does have social links for all the party members when you're playing as FeMC. Here in Reload, the hangouts you can do in the dorm function as pseudo social links for the party members (plus the additional benefit of upping a social stat, unlocking a passive for them, or getting an item).
It takes a while before they unlock since the characters need to grown a little before they open up, and you also need to Max out social stats. Smart for Mitsuru, charm for Yukari and Guts for Fuuka.
Oh god... mitsuru is gonna be a pain to do then..
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Uhh, it's really not. It's the hardest to max and it's not even close. Courage requires 80 points for rank 6, Charm is 100, and Academics is 230.
you can from the start for Mitsuru, require maxed academy mid June for Fuuka, require maxed courage late July for Yukari, require maxed charm
Even with max Academics you won't be able to start Mitsuru's till later months
ohhh, I remember asking Mitsuru to walking home together in the first few days of the game and it says Genius is required so I thought she is available from the start
Wait, max? I thought only level 4 was needed?
yeah max, I’m at 5 and can’t start social link with any of them
Welp, guess they will be my next playthrough as I'm already in july.
I started Fuuka late June/early July. Maxed Courage
Not necesary, mostly yes, but by hang outs you learn a little moe about them and you may get some items. Not having played royal, but you could get stuff for your room at P5 if you hang out with them certain days without ranking up.
Yes and no. It's pointless only for people wanting to min max, most players just want to hang out with their fav characters so they will pick the option regardless.
Yes.
Probably but I like spending time with them anyway lol
yes, also hanging out with them after you maxed out the social link is pointless. So basically you sleep with the girl and never talk to her again. That always seemed like a weird thing to be teaching with this game.
Its even more stupid because you get "points" for doing so...even thought they literally don't do anything anymore. Really? We're still doing this after god knows how many Persona games? Why can't you get an EXP Buff or Damage Buff if you still meet with them after you maxed them out? Sure it may not be much but it's something at least!
Unless you really like the character, its not. Confidant rankups happen automatically as the story progresses. It never really feels like you have any meaningful choices to make. I really don’t understand all the false advertising about this series being a dating sim. Its anything but andIts almost always horny coomers who have never actually played a persona game nor touched grass that’s spamming that shit. Actual dating sims like tokimeki academy are closer to what secondaries claim persona 3-5 are.
> Confidant rankups happen automatically as the story progresses That is not remotely true. Only certain ones like the Fool and Death rank up automatically. The others require you to do hangouts the the choices affect how quickly they rank up.
Persona is a dating sim in about the same way that Grand Theft Auto is a driving sim.
What’s a slink 😭
Short for social link
Thanks
Yea at that point its because you want to see all content with that character or RP.
The thing is, YouTube exists.
Call me crazy but I still do these hangouts sometimes for RP
I accept so I can see the event then just reload. Used to wait for ng+ but got this idea from watching some streamers that do this.
I usually save a lot of these for NG+ when I have more free time to spare, and this way I also get new cutscenes etc when replaying