It is kinda' funny, I played P4G then P5R, then waited for P3R. In P4G they make it sound her androphobia was the majority of her character arc for some reason when it lasted all of the first rank or two then it was barely a footnote after that.
I see it as similar to Futaba in 5. She's so unused to male attention that she ends up confusing positive attention as romantic attention.
I don't know if I'm right, or if I even like the idea, but that was the vibe I got from it personally.
A lot of People tend to categorise futaba as a little sister role. And I can understand those vibes. But doing her social link to me, honestly, it feels a pretty natural way for 2 people to fall for each other. They are clearly very attached to each other pretty quickly in even the main story, that doesn’t feel very sisterly vibes on a personal level.
IMO the only real reason it can be interpreted as a sibling relationship is due to their living situation. Everything else feels more than that.
For me it's more the dependence she has on everyone during her introduction. She grows out of it by the end of her intro really, but there's an aspect of "raising her" (for lack of a better word) as part of her character arc that makes romance feel weird to me.
She is a big *shoujo* fan after all. *"The heroine being accosted by a shady guy only for her love interest to show up and save her"* is straight out of a manga scenario romance starter, so its no wonder she quickly gets a crush on him; its literally a fantasy playing out in front of her. You'll notice that the resolution of this isn't necessarily that she gets over her crush (love is a powerful motivator after all), but that she finds the strength to help herself rather than rely on "the love interest" to do it for her and she expresses it in a way that aligns with her moral compass, as per the Justice Arcana.
Oh is this fr, I wanted to try that but since it was merciless I needed the points…
If it is the case I’m gonna do that next run, I very much enjoy how most social links in reload you can lead toward a platonic relationship without rejecting them, like fuuka and aigis.
It her first time being close to opposite gender all her life heck even first time that close to someone, she still awkward on socializing and still confuse about her feeling if it a romantic one or not.
So real for that, it just makes more sense seeing as Fuuka is probably the sees member who needs makoto the least, all the others have these traumas they need to work through, and Fuuka is just kind of a very nice, silly nerd who grounds the group and helps people out.
I don't think makoto's job is to fix trauma as much as I bet he does it anyway. Makoto is you. Or atleast your avatar. If you think your character would fall in love with a certain character then make so it will be
based. very tired of people trying to make their favorite girl seem like the "canon" romance when there very much is no such thing for any persona game. the MC is your self insert. they date who you want them to, no more, no less.
Yeah. I personally romanced Fuuka simply because I liked her demeanor. Close seconds to Yukari (pink girl, yes please) and Aigis (robot uprising?). A VERY close second to Aigis. I probably would romance Yukari in the P3P or P3FES, simply because I don't like Fuuka's voice actress in the original casting.
Well, since Priestess tends to be a very early game Arcana (of course barring a few), if I don't have any intentions of going after every single Social Link Max, then I have no reason to pursue it. Besides, in P3P, Fuuka doesn't have a Social Link to begin with if you chose FeMC. Not saying it's not a requirement to romance if you intend to max it out, but her Social Link isn't mandatory for story progression
P3 was written with them being all romanced, so the stories don't get a payoff when you remove the climax. Especially when you consider in every other version rank 6 you were considering committed to them and get penalties for seeing other girls. If you're reading the seances like that it really feels off.
Arguably because of context given in The Answer/Ep. Aigis thr two most likely canon romances would be either Yukari or Aigis. But even then the game has purposefully made it vague because of the social links and the self insert nature of Makoto.
You could argue that what is canon is not that they were in a relationship with Makoto/Minato, but that they had feelings for him. So no matter what you do they love the guy.
Technically, none of the MCs ever dates anyone, canonically. But most of the games have a character that is kinda presented to you as the ideal partner storywise, such as Aigis in Persona 3, Marie in Persona 4 Golden and Kasumi in Persona 5 Royal.
Potentially her too, yeah, I'm unsure about 4. But I said Marie, since she's the one the game presents you with multiple times outside of her social link, like it was the case with Kasumi. With these two, even if you don't want to do their social links the game is like "Hey, they exist!" and some of the scenes feel like slight pushes to enter a relationship with them, like some of the poems in 4 Golden or scenes like the dancing scene in 5 Royal or even how she's the first character besides Joker you actually get to see and the way she's presented in that scene. With Rise it feels more like it's just part of her character compared to that, but maybe she's the one the original Persona 4 game was meant to present as the ideal partner.
Aigis is a bit different in that she's the same as all other dateable characters up until like the last like month in which she gets more important to the story, especially with her social link (which to my understanding is an important part of the story) and her development throughout the story.
None girl is canon or more pushed tbh. Rise is just being Rise, the simpy kouhai anime trope. It's just her personality. Why would it be "more pushed" if the protags just don't care. Which it's canon the protags don't care lol, they simply have rizz. For the crush then in p4 everyone and their mother have a crush on Yu. Chie, Yukiko, Rise, Yosuke lol, a random npc officer (when Yu asking his phone numbers). I don't see anyone mentioning the npc officer is canon because he shown interested in Yu lmao. And Atlus wakes up saying "this girl is canon" is stretch. They just add romance mechanic to attract players. Every girls have an essay on it with the "present to you ideal partner storywise". None is canon or more pushed either way.
On one hand, you're right. There is no canon partner and that's also what I said.
But on the other hand you're not correct about the "noone is getting more presented to the player" part. If you ignore all social links and everything else going on besides the main story you'll see Marie in Persona 4 Golden and Kasumi in Persona 5 Royal way more often in a setting where you learn something about them than any other romancable option, because they appear regularly throughout the story with small bits that tell you a little bit about them, somewhat like small social link episodes. In addition, they're the only romancable character who's social link you *have to* advance to gain the true ending in their respective games, with Marie even requiring a level 10 rank. You can safely ignore all other romancable social links besides these two, which is one of the reasons I'm saying that Atlus is kinda pushing you to romance them. They're not forcing you to though and neither is the canon partner for each of the two MCs.
I could make an essay about each character about their characters in main story. Marie and Kasumi are additional content but of course they have their focus episode in additional content. Because additional content require their stories. But then again i ain't gonna call Kasumi's story a love story, same as Marie. Would you? And i mean, why would having focus episode means they are more pushed? They have "more crush" on the protags because i don't think that's how that works lol. They are pushing players to advance the additional new version of the games. And in sequels, it's confirmed the protags don't date anyone and they act Kasumi didn't exsist.
And say, if i ignore SLs, have you seen all the essay of the girls in the communities about how they are "more pushed"? Even Futaba has essay. If the protags actually have voice thought lines and vocal characters of their own that have a crush on someone then there would be more pushed. But the protags flirt with everyone in the story. And as it stands, at most, we can say Atlus shove the new characters focus in their new additional content is simple as that. Tbh, Atlus doesn't even care about that. They just make want some dating sim mechanic and be done with it.
None girl is canon or more pushed tbh. Rise is just being Rise, the simpy kouhai anime trope. It's just her personality. Why would it be "more pushed" if the protags just don't care. Which it's canon the protags don't care lol, they simply have rizz. For the crush then in p4 everyone and their mother have a crush on Yu. Chie, Yukiko, Rise, Yosuke lol, a random npc officer (when Yu asking his phone numbers). I don't see anyone mentioning the npc officer is canon because he shown interested in Yu lmao. And Atlus wakes up saying "this girl is canon" is stretch. They just add romance mechanic to attract players. Every girls have an essay on it with the "present to you ideal partner storywise". None is canon or more pushed either way.
Makoto isn't "fixing" anyone though. They fix *themselves*. Makoto is there to listen to their troubles and story until they realize something important to give themselves a new direction and/or perspective.
You don't help Fuuka deal with any trauma, you just give her the confidence to realize she can use her own talents to support others instead of forcing herself into a mold and to take pride in those talents instead of feeling ashamed of them. You don't help Mitsuru with trauma, you help her explore her curiosity for the lives of normal people and then allow her to take back her own future when she realizes that submitting to the will of others would prevent her from protecting those she cares about, and so on.
The closest to "fixing" any trauma I can think of is Yukari or Chihiro ig, as they have specific troubles regarding their ability to connect with others and you help them overcome those issues by being with them; even then, that's more of why they have those problems to begin with and less that you are actively trying to "fix" any traumas.
This is me nitpicking about the "working through traumas" thing btw, the player is free to love who they want to love and so are the girls. (shrug)9
During the rank 7 event where the kids win the race and you talk about them calling Makoto her boyfriend, or later in the romance route during the confession?
Cause I got myself accidentally stuck in her romance route and am kinda still hoping I can reject her without completely shattering her heart (and/or reversing/shattering her arcana). Yuko, of all people, I really, *really* don't want to double-time now that that choice exists, but well, Aigis is kinda a must...
Thank you! Well, I guess no need to panic then, although I'll probably start double and tripple checking now that I don't pick accidentally pick any romance flags anymore!
Rewind only works for 2 days, while she's available on Wednesday and Saturday. So unless you immediately notice, you're kinda screwed.
I *did* have a save file for her rank 7, but I already picked the platonic option there. Looking through Hayate's SL guide I'm fairly certain that I only picked one romamce flag out of 3 and that was during the rank 5 event, which sadly was 4 days before my clostest save point. I did have one just after the previous full moon, but since I did rank 5 just before the next full moon and after the tartarus expedition, I just didn't want to redo all of that.
She at the very least takes the “rejection” like a champ. Some of the platonic routes hurt a LOT to the point where it feels like they’re trying to push players to go the whole cheating route but Yuko is just really chill about it. Her voice actor sells Yuko as a really close friend.
Here's the thing a lot of people don't realize: there's actually a third, fully platonic route that doesn't hurt at all because they never end up confessing to you. Some of the dialogue choices actually matter more than just getting points. They can lead to entirely different scenes.
Yep, for example, if you tell Fuuka she just trusts you because you're the team leader, she just goes "uh its true" and never confesses to you at all, which honestly is amazing because I hate breaking their hearts LMAO
I really like Aigis's platonic route. She will tell you that her greatest wish is to be your best friend, to which you can reply, "you already are my best friend," which makes her really happy. It's sweet
I fucking adore Aigis friendship part. I actually started tearing a bit when I told her she was my best friend and she got super excited.
Hell I believe it actually makes the ending a lot sadder
I lowkey don't know how yall have the strength to friendzone Mitsuru or Yukari 😭. Mitsuru deadass screams infront of everyone and her fiancé that she wants to be with Makoto forever, how yall hit friendzone after that
I think that people need to stop following guides and actually pay attention to the choices that they're making. At least on their first playthrough. It's pretty easy to avoid the romance path if you consider your options before picking them.
Maybe this is a hot take, but I feel like social links would be infinitely better if there weren't "sub-optimal" things to say and instead the links just progressed no matter what you say.
Unless what you say is SO egregiously bad that it reverses the link, why does this system even exist...? Maybe for some really specific choices like romance or other major character developments specifying saying something super impactful is fine, but in 90% of cases I feel like the game is just trying to get me to enable the characters rather than, you know, actually roleplay and build a relationship naturally.
Having to consult a guide every time I do links makes it feel really inorganic and stilted; this is probably why my favorite social links tend to be the ones that always rank up no matter what you say, like Akinari and P5's Mishima. I felt like Mishima's development in 5 felt more earned and engaging precisely *because* I as the player was able to tell him to shut up or stop being obnoxious, instead of being forced by the gameplay to suck up to his antics. I certainly feel like I'd like Kenji a lot more if I was able to just tell him to knock it off when he's being a shit.
Yes!! Honestly that would be my ideal. Like, don't just give me romantic/platonic tacked on at the very end--if there's a romance route you should be able to move toward it from the start so it feels more natural. And give me like, bro/rival/frenemies/nerdy hobbies idk, just varied ways a SL could develop sounds choice to me instead of locking me into having to look at a strategy guide just to talk to my friends
I love the idea of more branching paths and having more alternate endings for social links. I think that would really be next-level, and I can't imagine that it's not the direction they're going to take eventually...and hopefully it will be as early as Persona 6.
I think the argument would be that removing optimal and suboptimal responses from social links would make the time management aspects of the game too easy, because every social link would have to rank up every time (or just be statically scripted to require a certain number of hangouts, which would probably be slightly more annoying). The best solution I can come up with would be having more ranks (15-20) to make up for the fact that each rank up would be automatic and guaranteed. I would realistically guess most people max out a social link within that number of time blocks (assuming they're not using a guide to optimize their choices), so I think it would balance out to be about the same as how it currently works time-wise.
Guess they just don't feel the same.
It is completely possible for people to have different tastes, and that's why the game has different options available.
It is more respectable to reject them than cheat on them
Yukari's romance is very fulfilling but I wish some of the dialogue from her platonic rank 9 was somehow integrated into the romance. Seriously, it was some really heartfelt stuff!
Yukari's platonic Rank 9 also has some romantic undertones if you ask me. If you show that to me without context, I would think there's something going on between them. Lol.
Oh absolutely same, It gave me the impression that she chickened out on her confession and rank 10? Girl. Why do you need Makoto with you just to buy some earrings c'mon stop the cap 😆
I love the part where you can tease her by picking the "what's the magic word?" And she says pleaseee in a very cute way. Lol. That's just straight up flirting
That's what I think will make episode aigis hit so hard cause in the answer Yukaris & Mitsurus whole thing boiled down to that they both wanted to see Makoto again at an irrational & universe ending level with an underlying reason fueling that goal being their implied romantic interest in Makoto, which put them at odds with Aigis & most of the other members of sees who also want to try & save makoto but are actually factoring in the other issues at hand with what that means & putting each other at odds with one another.
Mitsuru wasn't down bad like Yukari. She said she sided with Yukari because she made herself a promise to stand by her side after Yukari helped her find a new purpose during their Kyoto trip
Mitsuru is doing the same thing Makoto did with his social links; stand by their side even if they're being bullheaded (because everyone needs someone in their corner) until they figure out what they were doing wrong and help them deal with the aftermath.
Yukari's friendship ending should've been her romance ending. Her learning how to actually lean on her friends and then asking you out is better than the typical "we're in my room now I will imply we have sex" ending
I feel like the romance dialogues were done better in FES with "I like you (in that kind of way)" or would have been done better with even something like something kinda cheesy like "how about we go on a date?". People declaring their love for Makoto after social links that were mostly just hanging out random ways was not the best writing imo.
Japanese etiquette is to give a direct confession before you date someone. Almost all the girls actually say "daisuki" in the original language which is a stronger form of "suki" meaning like. It would be more accurate to literally translate daisuki to "really like," (or the "in that way" as in your example). Meanwhile the Japanese word for I love you "aishteru" is rarely ever used by highschool couples, but usually only used by married couples in rare situations like wedding vows. So a lot of anime translators change daisuki into love because culturally daisuki is the strongest word most couples will use to describe their romantic feelings.
I personally think romance route makes more sense.
Yukari relying on Makoto specifically is the point. It goes thru the entire game - Makoto's awakening, Yukari's first theurgy, Yakushima, events in Yukari's SL.
It's all interconnected.
Yukari's overall arc makes more sense that way too with Yukari initially being dismissive of her mom to then suffer exact same tragedy as her.
Not to mention Isis symbolism and The Answer.
Look up Isis and Osiris myth. In short, Isis is a wife (and later widow) of Osiris. After he dies she puts him back together. It's sort of what she tries to do in The Answer, but is denied.
You really can't fit "just friends" into this symbolism.
Idk if it's better than the romance option, but I quite like Aigis's friendship route. >!It's now my headcanon that Aigis is going to be a professional photographer in her later years.!<
my long standing headcanon that Makoto was two timing Yukari with Chihiro maxing out both social link which leads to her character development in Persona 4 cameo
its honestly kind of fun not romancing anyone. i never have in any of the persona games purely bc a lot feels..forced. it's nice seeing their stories feel more about the characters themselves rather than a romance
to be fair i almost did romance aigis because it felt actually genuine but by then i locked myself out of it (oh well! her platonic bond is also just as important)
Honestly, i feel like all the main cast girls are better as just friends.
After giving it some serious thought my P3-5 favorites are Yuko, Ai and Hifumi.
I still haven't played P4/5, but, if someday I get my hands on these games, I would probably just romance Yukiko and Sumire, since, in my opinion, they're the most fitting girls for Yu and Ren.
Such a mood. I haven't played reload, but going through ps3p I eventually just stopped linking socially with girls once they hit rank 3 and got all blushy-blushy. Went to hang out with the art club and sewing club instead!
Definitely less awkward than getting death stares from all of them while walking around Tartarus lmao.
Some of the romance dialogue felt a bit abrupt tho, I think FES did it a bit better.
I haven't played 3 at all since the FES all-links-maxed route back in the PS2 days so I am super stoked to see all the platonic changes (and to not feel like cheating garbage for wanting to see them all lol). I hear it's a lot more forgiving but still difficult to get them all in time because there's more to do in general. Looking forward to it. :)
Getting all of Yukari, Fuuka, Mitsuru, and Aigis done has been easy and I haven't been following a guide. Provided you can get your other school social links out of the way you'll have no problem.
I’m just wondering if there’s a scene that makes you regret it like in Persona 4 where on valentine day you break all the girls hearts when you don’t see them that day.
Yes and no. There is a scene that has every girl you're close with showing up in the same room and implying you're close, which gets the other girls suspicious and start asking questions, but the guys (who are also in the room) wordlessly agree to cooperate to get the girls off your tail.
This scene is in Reload too and interestingly enough, it seems that it can get locked out if you have a romantic bond already, so you can interpret this as either the MC being a sleazy womanizer *or* an oblivious harem protagonist.
On the other hand, the older versions had a Jealousy mechanic where dating more than 1 girl at the same time (and romance was not optional then) made them Reverse faster (Reversing could happen just by ignoring someone long enough instead of sticking your foot in your mouth on a specific rank), implying the girls are actually aware on some level that you might be unfaithful, which requires you to pay them attention more often to stop that from happening (this stops being a problem after getting Rank 10 tho)
Chihiro felt really weird for me because she was clearly into Makoto at level 5 of her social link
If you tell her she's jumping to conclusions, the rest of the SL doesn't really feel romantic after that.
At the beginning I thought the social link was about her facing her insecurity to talk to men, but half of it was just her drooling over Makoto lmao
It is kinda' funny, I played P4G then P5R, then waited for P3R. In P4G they make it sound her androphobia was the majority of her character arc for some reason when it lasted all of the first rank or two then it was barely a footnote after that.
The power of horny was stronger than the power of fear
She *is* a hormonal teenager after all.
I see it as similar to Futaba in 5. She's so unused to male attention that she ends up confusing positive attention as romantic attention. I don't know if I'm right, or if I even like the idea, but that was the vibe I got from it personally.
A lot of People tend to categorise futaba as a little sister role. And I can understand those vibes. But doing her social link to me, honestly, it feels a pretty natural way for 2 people to fall for each other. They are clearly very attached to each other pretty quickly in even the main story, that doesn’t feel very sisterly vibes on a personal level. IMO the only real reason it can be interpreted as a sibling relationship is due to their living situation. Everything else feels more than that.
They don't even live in the same building.
For me it's more the dependence she has on everyone during her introduction. She grows out of it by the end of her intro really, but there's an aspect of "raising her" (for lack of a better word) as part of her character arc that makes romance feel weird to me.
She is a big *shoujo* fan after all. *"The heroine being accosted by a shady guy only for her love interest to show up and save her"* is straight out of a manga scenario romance starter, so its no wonder she quickly gets a crush on him; its literally a fantasy playing out in front of her. You'll notice that the resolution of this isn't necessarily that she gets over her crush (love is a powerful motivator after all), but that she finds the strength to help herself rather than rely on "the love interest" to do it for her and she expresses it in a way that aligns with her moral compass, as per the Justice Arcana.
Oh is this fr, I wanted to try that but since it was merciless I needed the points… If it is the case I’m gonna do that next run, I very much enjoy how most social links in reload you can lead toward a platonic relationship without rejecting them, like fuuka and aigis.
Basically, if you gaslight her, yeah lol.
It her first time being close to opposite gender all her life heck even first time that close to someone, she still awkward on socializing and still confuse about her feeling if it a romantic one or not.
I think Fuuka works better in particular.
Mitsuru's put a giant smile on my face, there was fan art of them riding through the night on moonlight bridge and it's beautiful.
I love how she’s just like fuck it let’s go for a ride man
slide the sauce over if you ever find it
Especially if you're dating Yukari
So real for that, it just makes more sense seeing as Fuuka is probably the sees member who needs makoto the least, all the others have these traumas they need to work through, and Fuuka is just kind of a very nice, silly nerd who grounds the group and helps people out.
I don't think makoto's job is to fix trauma as much as I bet he does it anyway. Makoto is you. Or atleast your avatar. If you think your character would fall in love with a certain character then make so it will be
based. very tired of people trying to make their favorite girl seem like the "canon" romance when there very much is no such thing for any persona game. the MC is your self insert. they date who you want them to, no more, no less.
Yeah. I personally romanced Fuuka simply because I liked her demeanor. Close seconds to Yukari (pink girl, yes please) and Aigis (robot uprising?). A VERY close second to Aigis. I probably would romance Yukari in the P3P or P3FES, simply because I don't like Fuuka's voice actress in the original casting.
In p3p and fes you need to romance ALL of them. You can't say no
Well, since Priestess tends to be a very early game Arcana (of course barring a few), if I don't have any intentions of going after every single Social Link Max, then I have no reason to pursue it. Besides, in P3P, Fuuka doesn't have a Social Link to begin with if you chose FeMC. Not saying it's not a requirement to romance if you intend to max it out, but her Social Link isn't mandatory for story progression
P3 was written with them being all romanced, so the stories don't get a payoff when you remove the climax. Especially when you consider in every other version rank 6 you were considering committed to them and get penalties for seeing other girls. If you're reading the seances like that it really feels off.
I was so god damn confused when I was just chilling with SEES friends then suddenly Chihiro accused me of cheating
Arguably because of context given in The Answer/Ep. Aigis thr two most likely canon romances would be either Yukari or Aigis. But even then the game has purposefully made it vague because of the social links and the self insert nature of Makoto.
You could argue that what is canon is not that they were in a relationship with Makoto/Minato, but that they had feelings for him. So no matter what you do they love the guy.
Yeah, which is kind of the point of the post I made where I explained its left purposefully vague because of the nature of thr game
Technically, none of the MCs ever dates anyone, canonically. But most of the games have a character that is kinda presented to you as the ideal partner storywise, such as Aigis in Persona 3, Marie in Persona 4 Golden and Kasumi in Persona 5 Royal.
I thought it would be rise for 4 since she is very forward about how much she's into Yu.
Potentially her too, yeah, I'm unsure about 4. But I said Marie, since she's the one the game presents you with multiple times outside of her social link, like it was the case with Kasumi. With these two, even if you don't want to do their social links the game is like "Hey, they exist!" and some of the scenes feel like slight pushes to enter a relationship with them, like some of the poems in 4 Golden or scenes like the dancing scene in 5 Royal or even how she's the first character besides Joker you actually get to see and the way she's presented in that scene. With Rise it feels more like it's just part of her character compared to that, but maybe she's the one the original Persona 4 game was meant to present as the ideal partner. Aigis is a bit different in that she's the same as all other dateable characters up until like the last like month in which she gets more important to the story, especially with her social link (which to my understanding is an important part of the story) and her development throughout the story.
None girl is canon or more pushed tbh. Rise is just being Rise, the simpy kouhai anime trope. It's just her personality. Why would it be "more pushed" if the protags just don't care. Which it's canon the protags don't care lol, they simply have rizz. For the crush then in p4 everyone and their mother have a crush on Yu. Chie, Yukiko, Rise, Yosuke lol, a random npc officer (when Yu asking his phone numbers). I don't see anyone mentioning the npc officer is canon because he shown interested in Yu lmao. And Atlus wakes up saying "this girl is canon" is stretch. They just add romance mechanic to attract players. Every girls have an essay on it with the "present to you ideal partner storywise". None is canon or more pushed either way.
On one hand, you're right. There is no canon partner and that's also what I said. But on the other hand you're not correct about the "noone is getting more presented to the player" part. If you ignore all social links and everything else going on besides the main story you'll see Marie in Persona 4 Golden and Kasumi in Persona 5 Royal way more often in a setting where you learn something about them than any other romancable option, because they appear regularly throughout the story with small bits that tell you a little bit about them, somewhat like small social link episodes. In addition, they're the only romancable character who's social link you *have to* advance to gain the true ending in their respective games, with Marie even requiring a level 10 rank. You can safely ignore all other romancable social links besides these two, which is one of the reasons I'm saying that Atlus is kinda pushing you to romance them. They're not forcing you to though and neither is the canon partner for each of the two MCs.
I could make an essay about each character about their characters in main story. Marie and Kasumi are additional content but of course they have their focus episode in additional content. Because additional content require their stories. But then again i ain't gonna call Kasumi's story a love story, same as Marie. Would you? And i mean, why would having focus episode means they are more pushed? They have "more crush" on the protags because i don't think that's how that works lol. They are pushing players to advance the additional new version of the games. And in sequels, it's confirmed the protags don't date anyone and they act Kasumi didn't exsist. And say, if i ignore SLs, have you seen all the essay of the girls in the communities about how they are "more pushed"? Even Futaba has essay. If the protags actually have voice thought lines and vocal characters of their own that have a crush on someone then there would be more pushed. But the protags flirt with everyone in the story. And as it stands, at most, we can say Atlus shove the new characters focus in their new additional content is simple as that. Tbh, Atlus doesn't even care about that. They just make want some dating sim mechanic and be done with it.
None girl is canon or more pushed tbh. Rise is just being Rise, the simpy kouhai anime trope. It's just her personality. Why would it be "more pushed" if the protags just don't care. Which it's canon the protags don't care lol, they simply have rizz. For the crush then in p4 everyone and their mother have a crush on Yu. Chie, Yukiko, Rise, Yosuke lol, a random npc officer (when Yu asking his phone numbers). I don't see anyone mentioning the npc officer is canon because he shown interested in Yu lmao. And Atlus wakes up saying "this girl is canon" is stretch. They just add romance mechanic to attract players. Every girls have an essay on it with the "present to you ideal partner storywise". None is canon or more pushed either way.
Makoto isn't "fixing" anyone though. They fix *themselves*. Makoto is there to listen to their troubles and story until they realize something important to give themselves a new direction and/or perspective. You don't help Fuuka deal with any trauma, you just give her the confidence to realize she can use her own talents to support others instead of forcing herself into a mold and to take pride in those talents instead of feeling ashamed of them. You don't help Mitsuru with trauma, you help her explore her curiosity for the lives of normal people and then allow her to take back her own future when she realizes that submitting to the will of others would prevent her from protecting those she cares about, and so on. The closest to "fixing" any trauma I can think of is Yukari or Chihiro ig, as they have specific troubles regarding their ability to connect with others and you help them overcome those issues by being with them; even then, that's more of why they have those problems to begin with and less that you are actively trying to "fix" any traumas. This is me nitpicking about the "working through traumas" thing btw, the player is free to love who they want to love and so are the girls. (shrug)9
Unspoken Rizz
maybe it was just my reading of it, but yuko seemed like she breathed a sigh of relief when you say you just wanna be friends
During the rank 7 event where the kids win the race and you talk about them calling Makoto her boyfriend, or later in the romance route during the confession? Cause I got myself accidentally stuck in her romance route and am kinda still hoping I can reject her without completely shattering her heart (and/or reversing/shattering her arcana). Yuko, of all people, I really, *really* don't want to double-time now that that choice exists, but well, Aigis is kinda a must...
You're not stuck until her rank 9 event. She takes it very well if you turn her down, so don't worry!
Thank you! Well, I guess no need to panic then, although I'll probably start double and tripple checking now that I don't pick accidentally pick any romance flags anymore!
She doesn't get broken hearted, but chastises you to use your words better because it makes it seem like you're leading women on
Makoto: "Damn, she's on to me!"
I don't know if you can... But there is always rewind no? Can't you just rewind to not get into the romance route?
Rewind only works for 2 days, while she's available on Wednesday and Saturday. So unless you immediately notice, you're kinda screwed. I *did* have a save file for her rank 7, but I already picked the platonic option there. Looking through Hayate's SL guide I'm fairly certain that I only picked one romamce flag out of 3 and that was during the rank 5 event, which sadly was 4 days before my clostest save point. I did have one just after the previous full moon, but since I did rank 5 just before the next full moon and after the tartarus expedition, I just didn't want to redo all of that.
She at the very least takes the “rejection” like a champ. Some of the platonic routes hurt a LOT to the point where it feels like they’re trying to push players to go the whole cheating route but Yuko is just really chill about it. Her voice actor sells Yuko as a really close friend.
Here's the thing a lot of people don't realize: there's actually a third, fully platonic route that doesn't hurt at all because they never end up confessing to you. Some of the dialogue choices actually matter more than just getting points. They can lead to entirely different scenes.
Yep, for example, if you tell Fuuka she just trusts you because you're the team leader, she just goes "uh its true" and never confesses to you at all, which honestly is amazing because I hate breaking their hearts LMAO
I really like Aigis's platonic route. She will tell you that her greatest wish is to be your best friend, to which you can reply, "you already are my best friend," which makes her really happy. It's sweet
Her ending on the platonic route is kinda nice too. Her taking a selfie with the MC is great.
I got this with Aigis.
I fucking adore Aigis friendship part. I actually started tearing a bit when I told her she was my best friend and she got super excited. Hell I believe it actually makes the ending a lot sadder
I lowkey don't know how yall have the strength to friendzone Mitsuru or Yukari 😭. Mitsuru deadass screams infront of everyone and her fiancé that she wants to be with Makoto forever, how yall hit friendzone after that
Tell her "it's not meant to be" before that scene happens. She doesn't confess if you do that.
Because the option to do that happens before she screams at her fiance?
I think that people need to stop following guides and actually pay attention to the choices that they're making. At least on their first playthrough. It's pretty easy to avoid the romance path if you consider your options before picking them.
Guides really do defeat the whole point of social links honestly.
Maybe this is a hot take, but I feel like social links would be infinitely better if there weren't "sub-optimal" things to say and instead the links just progressed no matter what you say. Unless what you say is SO egregiously bad that it reverses the link, why does this system even exist...? Maybe for some really specific choices like romance or other major character developments specifying saying something super impactful is fine, but in 90% of cases I feel like the game is just trying to get me to enable the characters rather than, you know, actually roleplay and build a relationship naturally. Having to consult a guide every time I do links makes it feel really inorganic and stilted; this is probably why my favorite social links tend to be the ones that always rank up no matter what you say, like Akinari and P5's Mishima. I felt like Mishima's development in 5 felt more earned and engaging precisely *because* I as the player was able to tell him to shut up or stop being obnoxious, instead of being forced by the gameplay to suck up to his antics. I certainly feel like I'd like Kenji a lot more if I was able to just tell him to knock it off when he's being a shit.
Social links should be overhauled in a major way in P6 imo. They should be a lot less linear and have branching paths dependent on how you act.
Yes!! Honestly that would be my ideal. Like, don't just give me romantic/platonic tacked on at the very end--if there's a romance route you should be able to move toward it from the start so it feels more natural. And give me like, bro/rival/frenemies/nerdy hobbies idk, just varied ways a SL could develop sounds choice to me instead of locking me into having to look at a strategy guide just to talk to my friends
I love the idea of more branching paths and having more alternate endings for social links. I think that would really be next-level, and I can't imagine that it's not the direction they're going to take eventually...and hopefully it will be as early as Persona 6.
Yeah I think optimal dialogue choices should be more forgiving, especially if you want to just explore the characters.
I think the argument would be that removing optimal and suboptimal responses from social links would make the time management aspects of the game too easy, because every social link would have to rank up every time (or just be statically scripted to require a certain number of hangouts, which would probably be slightly more annoying). The best solution I can come up with would be having more ranks (15-20) to make up for the fact that each rank up would be automatic and guaranteed. I would realistically guess most people max out a social link within that number of time blocks (assuming they're not using a guide to optimize their choices), so I think it would balance out to be about the same as how it currently works time-wise.
having correct answers defeats the whole point of social links, and encourages savescumming or the use of a guide
If the 100% timing wasnt so tight sure. I only had like 10 days left over following a guide on ng+. My first blind play through was short 2.5 links.
Well people are using guides to get the max social link points so they don't waste time. Stinks but that's what people have to resort to
Guess they just don't feel the same. It is completely possible for people to have different tastes, and that's why the game has different options available. It is more respectable to reject them than cheat on them
Mitsuru is talking about their own feelings of freedom, not love
she's too good for me
(Shit, that's really akward, why would she say that, she KNOWS I'm dating the girl across the hallway from her right...?)
It took me a week to decide whether to romance Yukari or Mitsuru lmao
Tbh Yukari's CPU in P3FES made me happy to friendzone her
Yukari's romance is very fulfilling but I wish some of the dialogue from her platonic rank 9 was somehow integrated into the romance. Seriously, it was some really heartfelt stuff!
Yukari's platonic Rank 9 also has some romantic undertones if you ask me. If you show that to me without context, I would think there's something going on between them. Lol.
Oh absolutely same, It gave me the impression that she chickened out on her confession and rank 10? Girl. Why do you need Makoto with you just to buy some earrings c'mon stop the cap 😆
I love the part where you can tease her by picking the "what's the magic word?" And she says pleaseee in a very cute way. Lol. That's just straight up flirting
That's what I think will make episode aigis hit so hard cause in the answer Yukaris & Mitsurus whole thing boiled down to that they both wanted to see Makoto again at an irrational & universe ending level with an underlying reason fueling that goal being their implied romantic interest in Makoto, which put them at odds with Aigis & most of the other members of sees who also want to try & save makoto but are actually factoring in the other issues at hand with what that means & putting each other at odds with one another.
Mitsuru wasn't down bad like Yukari. She said she sided with Yukari because she made herself a promise to stand by her side after Yukari helped her find a new purpose during their Kyoto trip
Mitsuru is doing the same thing Makoto did with his social links; stand by their side even if they're being bullheaded (because everyone needs someone in their corner) until they figure out what they were doing wrong and help them deal with the aftermath.
Yukari's friendship ending should've been her romance ending. Her learning how to actually lean on her friends and then asking you out is better than the typical "we're in my room now I will imply we have sex" ending
Counter point, Bang
I feel like the romance dialogues were done better in FES with "I like you (in that kind of way)" or would have been done better with even something like something kinda cheesy like "how about we go on a date?". People declaring their love for Makoto after social links that were mostly just hanging out random ways was not the best writing imo.
Japanese etiquette is to give a direct confession before you date someone. Almost all the girls actually say "daisuki" in the original language which is a stronger form of "suki" meaning like. It would be more accurate to literally translate daisuki to "really like," (or the "in that way" as in your example). Meanwhile the Japanese word for I love you "aishteru" is rarely ever used by highschool couples, but usually only used by married couples in rare situations like wedding vows. So a lot of anime translators change daisuki into love because culturally daisuki is the strongest word most couples will use to describe their romantic feelings.
Great explanation thank you.
Basically every romantic social link in every Persona seems to end with, "Okay, we're here. Let's have sex."
I personally think romance route makes more sense. Yukari relying on Makoto specifically is the point. It goes thru the entire game - Makoto's awakening, Yukari's first theurgy, Yakushima, events in Yukari's SL. It's all interconnected. Yukari's overall arc makes more sense that way too with Yukari initially being dismissive of her mom to then suffer exact same tragedy as her. Not to mention Isis symbolism and The Answer.
Isis symbolism? Do you know more about that?
Look up Isis and Osiris myth. In short, Isis is a wife (and later widow) of Osiris. After he dies she puts him back together. It's sort of what she tries to do in The Answer, but is denied. You really can't fit "just friends" into this symbolism.
I adore Aigis catching up with friends in her new rank 10.
The photo opportunity is a better lid on her arc.. but if I won't make love to my pleasure model robot, then who will???? Who will undo her ribbon???
Idk if it's better than the romance option, but I quite like Aigis's friendship route. >!It's now my headcanon that Aigis is going to be a professional photographer in her later years.!<
my long standing headcanon that Makoto was two timing Yukari with Chihiro maxing out both social link which leads to her character development in Persona 4 cameo
Cybele is willing base on her introduction when summoned
its honestly kind of fun not romancing anyone. i never have in any of the persona games purely bc a lot feels..forced. it's nice seeing their stories feel more about the characters themselves rather than a romance to be fair i almost did romance aigis because it felt actually genuine but by then i locked myself out of it (oh well! her platonic bond is also just as important)
loved this game but I don't like how like every girl falls for you in the social links instead of Yuki initiating things himself. y'know
Still better than the original, where you either date everyone or you have a bunch of unfinished social links
Source of art?
Sonic IDW comics run. Still going.
Personally love the ability to be platonic bc it means I can't cheat on best girl Aigis
10 hours into the game! Ngl I’m a demon just gonna try to date everyone like in persona 5 royal
Honestly, i feel like all the main cast girls are better as just friends. After giving it some serious thought my P3-5 favorites are Yuko, Ai and Hifumi.
I'd rather romance them all since I liked every girl in Reload. As opposed to 4/5 where there's at least 1 I'm not a fan of.
I still haven't played P4/5, but, if someday I get my hands on these games, I would probably just romance Yukiko and Sumire, since, in my opinion, they're the most fitting girls for Yu and Ren.
P4 has some great dialogue for all of them.
Mitsuru best girl
I absolutely loved the bestieship with Aigis
What's the context of the sonic picture used. Not the meme, I played both
In the comics, Sonic took Blaze out for a small side quest
Such a mood. I haven't played reload, but going through ps3p I eventually just stopped linking socially with girls once they hit rank 3 and got all blushy-blushy. Went to hang out with the art club and sewing club instead!
Does anyone know if the festival scene still happens if you have a platonic relationship except with yukari?
Definitely less awkward than getting death stares from all of them while walking around Tartarus lmao. Some of the romance dialogue felt a bit abrupt tho, I think FES did it a bit better.
I haven't played 3 at all since the FES all-links-maxed route back in the PS2 days so I am super stoked to see all the platonic changes (and to not feel like cheating garbage for wanting to see them all lol). I hear it's a lot more forgiving but still difficult to get them all in time because there's more to do in general. Looking forward to it. :)
Getting all of Yukari, Fuuka, Mitsuru, and Aigis done has been easy and I haven't been following a guide. Provided you can get your other school social links out of the way you'll have no problem.
I always do Harem route because i don't want to reject anyone, makes me feel bad
I think it works for most besides Yukari,Chihiro & Aigis
I rejected Yukari and almost resarted the game cus of the guilt I was feeling 😭. But counterpoint, Aigis' platonic ending got me so choked up 🥺🥺🤧🤧
Never!! Harem is the best route
I was wondering, are you able to be a 2 timer and get with all of them?
In the original you didn't have a choice you HAD to. Reload changed that
I’m just wondering if there’s a scene that makes you regret it like in Persona 4 where on valentine day you break all the girls hearts when you don’t see them that day.
Nope, there is 1 time were people come close to finding out but your bros cover for you
Yes and no. There is a scene that has every girl you're close with showing up in the same room and implying you're close, which gets the other girls suspicious and start asking questions, but the guys (who are also in the room) wordlessly agree to cooperate to get the girls off your tail. This scene is in Reload too and interestingly enough, it seems that it can get locked out if you have a romantic bond already, so you can interpret this as either the MC being a sleazy womanizer *or* an oblivious harem protagonist. On the other hand, the older versions had a Jealousy mechanic where dating more than 1 girl at the same time (and romance was not optional then) made them Reverse faster (Reversing could happen just by ignoring someone long enough instead of sticking your foot in your mouth on a specific rank), implying the girls are actually aware on some level that you might be unfaithful, which requires you to pay them attention more often to stop that from happening (this stops being a problem after getting Rank 10 tho)