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No. 170041
>>170028
That's probably because when P3P came out, and they got the chance to rewrite the social links for the girl, they already had the experience of P4 under their belt, which made better use of the game engine's narrative structure.
>>170018
Here's the problem with that idea, though: there's no functional reason to do that at all. I'll try to be a little clearer; I'm kinda muddling up my points.
Here's an example: Say you have a hack and slash, and the button-spam light combo kills most of everything. There's plenty of other combos, and plenty of upgrades and this and that, but you have no real reason to ever do those things. People naturally drift towards efficiency.
P3:FES is kinda the same way: There isn't a sliding meter or a different outcome for playing a different way, we don't have a Paragon/Renegade meter in this game. There are answers that give you more points to the social links than others. When you have a quantifiable system, you end up with choices that are "best" or "correct."
(That's probably why they said they're planning on a new game engine for Persona 5.)
Plus, there are rewards for completing social links (ultimate Arcana persona) and rewards for completing all the social links (more story events in the epilogue, and more specifically, Orpheus Telos.)
If there's a reward for doing something, then it's also a penalty for not doing it, which is something I think most of us are naturally conditioned against. Completing a social link is basically how you play the game.
Roleplaying, choosing differently, becomes intentionally choosing the “wrong” choices. From the mechanics of the gameplay, you’re harming yourself.
The other bit is that you’re given so little time to do all of this. In fact, even on a NG+ playthrough, I would still need some form of guide to help with the social links, because the big thing the guide gave me was the ability to start Yukari, Fuuka, and Mitsuru as soon as they were available. I was at maximum Charm, Academics, and Charisma by September or so, lacking one of these stats wasn’t the reason I messed up.
P4 improved this, really, if you follow a max social link guide with P4, or P4:G, you’d end up with a few months totally to yourself. You could actually indulge in “spending time” with your girlfriend because, fuck it, you have time.
That’s a kinda funny picture, now. “I completed all the social links, now I can just spend all my free time boning.”
>>170037
I would argue that's actually a strength, personally. It added something to the gameplay that was more immediate and noticable than Social Link points towards fusing personas.
Besides, I totally didn't give a shit about Kenji, Tanaka, Pol Pot Junior Odagiri, or Nozomi. Mamoru was human and likable, if a little bland (Though thank you for Helel, buddy.) Other S. Links were girls I cheated on and people who were nice, but acted like idiots thanks to my guidance. Bunkichi and Mitsuko were nice people, but I had very little to do with resolving their situation, they just thought I did, and they reached the solution on their own. I was there with them, yes, but that's all I did.
Bebe was delectable.
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