Supplemental: Social Links, or Friends With Statistical Benefits
This is a post I've been meaning to write for awhile but we've only just recently seen the full extent of ways we can game this system, so I held off a bit. I'll be updating the post in pieces and as we unlock new links, since obviously I'd rather not spoil anything before it has a chance to come up (and in the former case this means I'm not writing a whole bunch at once.)
Social Links are the backbone of Persona 3's streamlined social simulator gameplay. A number of interpersonal connections as well as some story segments cause the formation of Social Links, gamifying the concept of friendship and assigning a numerical rank to how close you are to people. Beyond providing a wealth of extra detail to the secondary cast of Persona and maybe helping your protagonist learn some things about life, Social Links also provide power in the form of fusion bonuses. Each link represents an Arcana, and each Persona underneath that Arcana will gain additional experience when fused. Naturally, Personae that are fused and have high level social links backing them have much more power out of the starting gate than anything you could hope to find from Shuffle Time. The bonus EXP is as follows,
Rank 1: 1 Level Up
Rank 3: 2 Level Ups
Rank 5: 3 Level Ups
Rank 8: 4 Level Ups
Rank 10 (Or Rank MAX): 5 Level Ups
Aside from the gap from level 5 to 8, every 2 social link ranks from Rank 1 yields another Level Up for a fused Persona of a given Arcana. In P3 Vanilla and FES, fused Personae actually gain the full amount of Experience displayed for the fusion performed and can end off much closer to a level up for it, making the in-between ranks have mechanical benefit. For some reason starting with Persona 4 and back ported in Portable and Reload, any EXP gained in excess of the last level up a Persona gets from their fusion bonus is just lost, though Reload introduces the Lovers major Arcana card (grants extra EXP from Social Link bonuses when performing fusions) that can actually get some value out of this normally lost EXP at least. Perhaps it goes without saying but just so it's clear, Personae fused without a Social Link established for their Arcana gain no bonus EXP from fusion, though they still inherit skills at least. Naturally, this makes Personae of certain Arcana undesirable to use as not every Social Link is established within the timeframe you can expect to be able to actually these Personae. One final benefit of Social Links is that when a Link is maxed out, it unlocks a new Persona for fusion. These Max Rank Personae are among the best in the game, and are well worth a look if you qualify for creating them.
So we know the benefits of Social Links now, but what actually are they? Like I said, they are a gamified reflection of your bonds with others, and are established through a variety of means. Social Links will form the bulk of your daytime activity in Persona 3 (and some nighttime activity), with almost any day where you are given the choice on what to do being dedicated to them. Every Arcana in the game save for 2 has a specific representative for it, and you can dedicate your limited time slots to hanging out with said representative and hopefully obtain a rank up for their Social Link. Social Links come in 4 flavors.
Automatic: Automatic Social Links are ones that are established purely through plot progression. No conscious effort is required on the player's part to advance these, merely getting through the game will cause Automatic links to go up. Naturally, this is the rarest type of link, with only 3 of this type existing in Persona 3. The Fool Social Link is an example of an Automatic Link. Another notable thing about Automatic links is that they occasionally skip levels, such as the Death Social Link going from Rank 1 to Rank 3 when it first levels up.
Semi-Automatic: Semi-Automatic links are ones that you do have to initiate on your own time (and often they have social stat checks you need to pass to initiate them), but do not require any particular special care taken to complete them beyond that. When you engage in a Semi-Automatic link, it will always Rank Up regardless of anything. The Devil Social Link is an example of a Semi-Automatic link.
Streamlined: Streamlined links are ones that do require specific actions from the player to advance as fast as possible, but if said actions are taken then the link will complete either within 10 social link events or very close to 10 social link events. Emperor in FES and Portable is a very good example of a streamlined link: If you have a Persona of the same Arcana in your stock for every Social Link event and always pick the correct dialogue choices, the Emperor social link will complete in 10 social link events like a Semi-Automatic link would. There are a handful of links that can manage this kind of progression in FES, though for the most part the archetypical Streamlined link will be something like Hierophant or Hanged Man, an out of school link that requires 2-4 additional time slots dedicated to it to complete. Portable and Reload, due to mechanical changes, have the vast majority of their links qualify as Streamlined ones, for different reasons.
Standard: Standard links are the ones you'll most likely want a guide for. Simply picking the right options and having a matching Persona is not enough for Standard links, you will hit roadblocks that can take multiple timeslots from your very limited calendar time if the only way you are choosing to progress these is by hanging out with their representative like normal. The Justice Social Link is a good example of a Standard link: towards the back half of it we will find low point yields from the correct dialogue choices against high point requirements for the next rank up, and we'll want to look for additional means of getting extra points into the link.
So now we know what kind of Links we can see, but what's the actual progression for a Social Link? As you progress through the game, you'll be notified of the existence of a potential Social Link through a variety of means. Some Links will be forced on you by the game, sometimes pre-existing bonds lead to the formation of new ones as people you are Social Linking with will give you leads on other potential people to hang out with, and sometimes you'll just talk to a major character after a story event and find them ready to Social Link with you now. Once a Link is formed, the representative of the Link will be available to hang out with, each rep having specific days they can be interacted with for Social Link purposes. If hang out with them when they have enough Social Link Points, the hang out will be a Rank Up event, advancing the Social Link to its next story beat and enhancing the effects it has on Persona Fusions.
I've mentioned Points a few times now, what's that about? Every Social Link has a "Score" tied to it that determines whether or note a hang out is a rank up event, and this score is always reset to zero when you trigger a rank up event. When participating in the rank up event, you'll be faced with dialogue choices. Certain choices yield Social Link Points, with "better" choices giving you more points. If the points gained from picking the right choices matches or exceeds the Score needed to get a rank up, then the next time you engage in a Social Link event with someone, it will be a rank up event again. If you didn't get enough points, and there will be times where you won't get enough points no matter what, additional actions will need to be taken to get the next rank up event. Usually, this is done by just hanging out with someone normally and getting a generic event that has no dialogue choices and instead awards a set amount of points depending on if you have a matching Arcana Persona or not (more on that below). There will be plenty of times in FES and Portable where you do this, but it has limitations: namely that it can only be done on a Social Link reps normal schedule and sometimes it still isn't enough to secure the points for a rank up event. Luckily, there are other means to get more points for our Social Links.
The first and biggest one, as I've mentioned repeatedly: Having a Persona that matches the Arcana of a Social Link rep in your stock grants a bonus to points gained from social link events. Specifically, it awards a 51% bonus to any point increase you get, with the result rounded down in the case of a decimal. Portable specifically also adds a new function to the Charm social stat: When Charm is maxed out in Portable it will also provide a 51% bonus to all point gains, which stacks with the matching Arcana bonus. Now for any Streamlined link, these bonuses on their own are enough to either guarantee rank ups, or at least ensure that you only need to devote one extra timeslot to a Social Link to get that next rank up. For Standard links though, it pays to know the full extent of ways you can get points outside of rank up events. Now when you participate in a Social Link event but it isn't a rank up event, you will get +10 points if you don't have matching Arcana Persona, +15 points if you do/have Max Charm in Portable, and in Portable specifically you can get +22 points with a matching Persona AND Max Charm. There are a litany of other events that yield this same point bonus, and they include:
Drawing a Relationship Fortune at Naganaki Shrine
Meeting a Social Link character when going on a Walk with Koromaru (Note that in FES and Portable, SEES members who are also Social Links never get this bonus)
Attending the Summer Film Festival with a Social Link rep
Accepting a date invitation from a nighttime/holiday phone call (This one does not exist in Reload)
The first one is probably the main way you'll be getting bonuses outside of a character's normal schedule in FES, the second and third are very situational but are also located at consistent points on the calendar so it's not too hard to route them in once you know about them, and the last is special. In addition to the points you get from accepting a phone invitation, the date itself is excellent for gaining points. When accepting a phone invitation, the next day you have off from school will automatically be a date with the person who invited you (usually this will be Sunday, but there are some holidays that you can get date invitations for). The date event will present you with a dialogue choice, much like a rank up event, and picking the right choice yields a +30/+45 point bonus! Additionally, dates with your female classmates will prompt you the option to give a gift (In Portable, this was changed so that you can give gifts to Men and Women when playing as the FemC). Giving a gift a girl likes is +10/+15, while giving a gift she loves is a staggering +50/+75! Now there were a couple times in Persona 3 Vanilla where the latter was necessary, but there is no link in FES and Portable where the points from just giving the right answer isn't enough. With some good scheduling, it is possible to get the points to rank up from accepting a phone invitation, get that rank up event, and the use the ensuing date when it comes up to get the next bunch of points you need to get the next rank up! This does come up a few times in FES, so don't neglect this avenue for Social Links! In Reload on the other hand, dates are essentially pointless as the general point requirements for every rank up event have been reduced heavily, resulting in most links qualifying as streamlined ones.
As for some final miscellaneous points before we get onto the links themselves. Any points gained in excess of the amount required for a rank up are useless since the score resets to zero when you finally trigger a rank up event. Say we have a link that has two rank up events in a row that require 30 Social Link points. Going into the first rank up event with 60 points in tow does not mean we will automatically get the succeeding rank up event. This behooves you to initiate rank up events as soon as you qualify for them. Thankfully, there are different ways you can gleam this information: in FES a character that is ready to rank up will approach you during lunch time at school on a day where they can engage in a social link event (this does not apply for out of school links, but those are baseline Streamlined links with oodles of free time to approach them, so it hardly matters). In Portable and Reload, the game will simply tell you if the character is ready for a rank up when you talk to them ("You feel your relationship will become stronger soon..."). Is it possible to lose Social Link points? No, but you can gain them slowly or damage your relationships. Picking the "wrong" dialogue choices in rank up events obviously yields less-to-no points, and occasionally you'll come across what I call "land mines" that will cause your Social Link to reverse if you pick them. A reversed Link provides no fusion bonus when creating a Persona of the affected Arcana, and you either need to draw a relationship fortune to fix it or participate in a Social Link event where you try to smooth things over with the person you upset. Most of these land mines are obvious, but there is one infamous one in Vanilla/FES that tons of people have tripped over. Speaking of Links reversing, FES exudes a bit of extra pressure here. Our in-school social links (e.g. Kenji, Kaz) have a 90-day limit to interact with them. This can be participating in normal Social Link events or even just drawing a relationship fortune, but if there is no activity on a social link within 90 days, the link will reverse. That's just for links with Male classmates though, for Female classmates this limit is 60 days. Additionally, the MC's social links with female class mates in Vanilla, FES and Portable automatically become romantic and introduce a Jealousy mechanic. Once a link becomes romantic, engaging in a Social Link event with another Female classmate reduces this count by 15 days, making it very precarious to juggle multiple Social Links with Female classmates at the same time. I'm not sure if Social Links that take place outside of school fall under this mechanic for Reversals, but you're given designated weeks where these are the only Links you can pursue every other month so it hardly matters if they do. For one final reversal related mechanic, double-booking for a date on a day off will result in an automatic reversal for whoever you decide to stand up. Naturally, if you've already planned a date, do not accept another one should you receive a call. It's worth noting at this point that maxed out social links are unbreakable, and cannot reverse once established. This can lead to a funny situation where you can accept multiple phone dates for the points it gives, max out one of the Social Links in the interim until the day of the date, and then stand up the person you maxed out with no fear of the link reversing.
Phew! Now to go over the specific Social Links, how we establish them, their schedules, and what Personae they affect. Some Arcana are easier to advance than others and some are tied to simply better Personae, so this information can be handy to know if you have a purely practical approach to this game!
The Fool
Fittingly for the card representing the journey's beginning, The Fool is our first Social Link. It's also a non-indicative one for the system as a whole, as it is an Automatic Link with no specific representative. Instead, The Fool represents the bond between SEES as a whole. A cute little detail is that as you gain new members for SEES, their names will populate the list for who this Link represents when you check it in the Social Link menu. Like said previously, The Fool is an Automatic Link the increases when you pass by certain days on the calendar. Once established, it usually increases in response to defeating a Full Moon Shadow, but there are some outliers to this. The dates this link increases are,
Establishes at Rank 1 on 4/20 (Blaze It)
4/21
5/9
7/7
7/22
11/2
11/4
11/28 (Skips Rank 8 and goes to 9)
12/31 (Only if
you choose to fight on)
In addition to the usual fusion bonuses a Social Link provides, the early rank ups for this link vaguely coincide with mechanical upgrades, stopping at Rank 5 for additional goodies. In FES, Rank 3 coincides with learning the Knock Down Tactic, Rank 4 coincides with learning the Full Assault Tactic and Rank 5... doesn't coincide with anything but it's the last rank you get before learning the Same Target tactic from beating Chariot and Justice. The Conserve SP Tactic just goes unrepresented. In Portable, Rank 3 coincides with gaining the Co-Op attack mechanic, while Rank 5 unlocks the diving save mechanic. Contrary to what you might read in some places, the ability to endure fatal blows is NOT tied to this link, that's a separate upgrade. Reload, rather disappointingly, does not have any extra mechanical benefits associated with this link.
You probably noticed right away that this link gets to Rank 5 relatively quickly and the stagnates for a long ass time. For a fairly long stretch of the game, Personae under this Arcana will only gain 3 levels off of fusion, I suppose a fair trade for the automatic nature of the link. Are there any worthwhile Personae under this Arcana? Well for FES and Portable,
FES/Portable Fool Personae
Orpheus: Level 1
Slime: Level 12
Legion: Level 22
Black Frost: Level 34 (Special Fusion)
Ose: Level 44
Decarabia: Level 50
Loki: Level 58
Susano-o: Level 76 (Special Fusion, unlocked at Max Rank)
Note there is one more Fool Persona that was added in FES and retained for all future versions of the game, but he is special and will be covered at specific point down the line.
Fool Personae can only be created via Triangle Spread or Special Fusions in FES and Portable, so you won't actually end up seeing them all that often when fusing junk off. Are any of them worth it? Ehhh. Fool Personae have the unique trait of having the Universal inheritance type (with the notable exception of Orpheus, who is a Fire Inheritance type), meaning there is no limitation on what skills they can get from fusion and they do not favor any particular skill when it comes to probability of inheriting them. This makes Fool Personae fairly customizable, but that also entails grappling with Persona 3's awful fusion inheritance system, which I'd rather chew glass than spend a ton of time on. Fool Personae as of FES are more notable for their use as weapon fusion material, as they create 1 Attack Power 99 Accuracy weapons with unique effects. I go over the full extent of these in the Antique Shop post, but notable ones include Legion providing +100 HP and Black Frost providing +10 MA. Beyond that, none of them jump out and say "I'm Awesome!" and most of them are unremarkable generalists with no interesting skills picked up to potentially fuse into other things. Decarabia is required for the Best Friends fusion spell, but that spell is very situational and I only know of one fight where it is extremely good. Things are a bit different in Reload,
Reload Fool Personae
Orpheus: Level 1
Slime: Level 12
Legion: Level 26
Black Frost: Level 37 (Special Fusion)
Ose: Level 41
Decarabia: Level 54
Loki: Level 69
Susano-o: Level 77 (Special Fusion, Unlocked at Max Rank)
Triangle Spreads are gone, so you're much more likely to stumble upon these guys by happenstance, and there are some pretty notable picks here! The Arcana is pretty low-key (no pun intended) until you can create Black Frost who is now creatable as soon as you reach his level. In addition to enabling the ever useful King and I Theurgy, Black Frost is a phenomenal Persona that picks up our first Tier 3 magic in Bufudyne and Agidyne. He also picks up useful passives like Fast Heal and Dark Boost, on top of having excellent resistances and picking up Resist Light to patch out his only weakness.. Customization is also much easier in Reload since you can now pick what skills you get directly, so that Universal inheritance type means that Black Frost and most any Fool Persona are now very easy to kit through a mixture of smart fusions and skill cards. Ose also has had the extremely useful Life Aid passive added to his skill list, making him a great way to access that skill and pass it around if you haven't built up an Eligor. Ose also has the fringe perk of being an excellent Slash attacker, so there's extra incentive there to create him. The final notable Persona is Loki, who in addition to coming with the 4 -dyne spells, picks up the Spell Master passive that halves SP costs. Loki also has helpful passives like Single Target Boost and Soul Shift, making him pretty great for general exploration purposes! All in all, a pretty solid Arcana considering you don't need to take any special care with its Link.
The Magician
Our first "real" social link, and one that is also hoisted upon us automatically in all versions of the game, albeit at very slightly different times. (4/22 in all versions except for Portable where it starts on 4/23) As you'd expect from an early game link, the Magician lowballs it by being a Streamlined link that only requires one additional Social Link event to Max out, and said Event can be done in a way that doesn't lose any time. You will need a matching Persona and the correct answers most of the time, as you'd expect of any link, but you'd have to make a mistake to lose any calendar time to this link in FES and Reload. Before going forward, let me lay out how I'll represent the progression for each Link. For FES, the progression will look like this,
Initial | 1(22) | 15(28) | etc.
The first rank of every Social Link does not have any dialogue choices for you to select, nor are you expected to gain any points to get Rank 2. Starting from Rank 2, you will need to be selecting the correct choices to advance the link in the minimum amount of time required. The first number is the point requirement for the succeeding Rank Up event, while the parenthetical number is the maximum amount possible from the Rank Up event itself. I will always be using the numbers that assume you have the matching Persona, so be sure to keep that in mind! Note that all Rank 2 events either require 1 or no points to get to the next Rank Up event, so every Social Link is pretty casual for scheduling starting out.
For Portable, this format will largely be the same with one distinction,
Initial | 1(22/33) | 15(28/36) | etc.
The second parenthetical number represents the maximum points possible if you have a matching Persona AND maxed out Charm. The second number doesn't really matter until around July where you have your first realistic chance to have maxed the stat, but it's good to keep in mind from that point on. Pretty much any Streamlined link can also be completed in the minimum with just one of these bonuses, so it takes some of the stress off of needing to have specific Personae all the time for Social Linking.
Now for Reload, I don't have any resources that actually tell me the numbers involved for Social Link progression beyond the numerical Ranks of each Rank Up event. So instead, I'll be representing the progression like this,
Initial | O | O | X | O | etc.
An O means that all the points to get to the succeeding Rank Up event can be gotten from Rank Up dialogue choices you are currently on. X means that the dialogue choices alone won't get you to where you need to be, and more will need to be done in order to get a Rank Up the next time you participate in a Social Link event. A bit inelegant, but rarely will this require more than a matching Persona and a relationship fortune in Reload as all Links progress way faster in this version. With that out of the way,
Kenji Tomochika represents the Magician Social Link for the Male Character, and in FES & Reload he will invite you to hang out on 4/22, automatically initiating this link for you. Kenji is available to Social Link with on Tues., Thurs. and Fri. assuming school is in session and an exam isn't coming up within a week. His Rank Up progression is as follows,
Initial | 1(14) | 15(29) | 15(22) | 15(22) | 15(22) | 22(21) | 22(29) | 22(22)| Max
Initial | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | Max
Kenji proves to be a very basic fellow, and this is hammered in with his Link progression. Only in FES do you have to sacrifice one extra timeslot to max him out at Rank 7, and that is easily accomplished at no real time loss by simply going to Film Festival with him during the Summer. In Reload, that is unnecessary and Kenji is a true Streamlined link that just requires the right dialogue options with a matching Persona. Fittingly with how easy it is to max this Link out, the Magician Arcana governs a bunch of useful early game Personae, giving mechanical incentive to hang out with Kenji if you're just looking to be pragmatic. Things are a little different in Portable though, as the FemC wants nothing to do with Kenji. Instead,
Junpei Iori represents the Magician Social Link for the FemC in Persona 3 Portable. In an effort to give more characterization to the Male members of SEES, all of them have claimed a different Arcana to represent as a Social Link for the FemC, although amusingly not all of them have been given Arcana that matches the Arcana of their Persona. Junpei is not one of those outliers though, instead bucking convention by having a decidedly more complex Link than Kenji. Junpei will automatically spring his initiation event on you on 4/23, and is available to Social Link with on Tues. and Thurs., a slightly narrower timeframe than Kenji that proves to be more limited than you'd think due to Junpei's progression.
Initial | 0(37/56) | 0(66/101) | 30(14/22) | 30(22/34) | 35(22/34) | 35(66/101) | 40(66/101) | 40(37/56) | Max
As you can see, Junpei starts out fairly undemanding, but rapidly hits you with back to back Rank Ups that necessitate additional time slots dedicated to him in order to keep things going. It's important to note that only on New Game + do we have the possibility of getting that Max Charm bonus for Rank 4, so that one actually requires either two social link events or two relationship fortunes to clear the points required for Rank 5 to happen! Fortunately things smooth out a bit after that, and by Rank 9 you should have the maximum Charm required to get the necessary points for Maxing out. Because Junpei is only available two days of the week to hang out with, he'll be common early recipient for Relationship Fortunes. Serendipitously, due to the Hermit link now being a School Link, the FemC has very little to do on Sundays and Holidays starting out, so these are easy time slots to spend on Junpei. This is an early indicator of the general trend for SEES Social Links in Portable: Since several links have been swapped out entirely or moved to a Night time slot, the remaining daytime links generally demand more of you to advance them. All that being said though, Junpei isn't too difficult to Max out relative to Kenji, and because of the more limited options the FemC has to spend her daytime, he'll probably Max out even faster than Kenji like he has already in the LP proper.
As stated previously, Magician is the archetypical Early Game Arcana. Many of the Personae feature within find themselves within pre-defined niches and make great fusion fodder for creating future specialists down the line, should you be willing to farm the assets needed to pull them from the compendium. In FES and Portable, our prospects for the Arcana are,
Nekomata: Level 5
Jack Frost: Level 8
Pyro Jack: Level 14
Hua Po (Special Persona, must complete an Elizabeth Date to fuse): Level 20
Sati: Level 28
Orobas: Level 34
Rangda: Level 40
Surt: Level 52 (Unlocked at Max Rank)
Unlike Fool, and like many Arcana available in the Early Game, Magician has no Special Fusions. Magician Personae have very straightforward and obvious uses: several of them unlock the Elemental Boost Passives. Jack Frost carries Ice Boost, and at an incredibly early point for the stage of the game he is creatable. Hua Po carries Fire Boost, and Orobas, while a bit late in comparison, is also an easy way to access Wind Boost. Aside from Orobas and Jack Frost, most Magician Personae are Fire based, so they are the premier Fire Casters for a good chunk of the game, especially if you do Triangle Spread upgrades with them. In particular, Sati makes a good mid-game source of Fire damage due to her innate Agilao and Maragi. The real centerpiece of Magician, though, is Surt. Surt makes putting up with Kenji entirely worth it, and makes Junpei even more of a GOAT than he already is. Surt is absolutely cracked, coming in with innate Fire Boost, learning Fire Amp, Maragidyne, and he also is the only Persona that learns the Tier 4 Fire spell Ragnarok. Surt is a must-have for maximizing Fire damage, and due to the Arcade Games and Stat Cards that exist in FES/Portable, he is inarguably the best Fire Persona in the game. In both of these games, you have ample time to cap out his MA stat, and since he comes with everything a Fire caster could care about by default, there is no reason to fuse past him in The Journey. Now over in Reload,
Nekomata: Level 3
Jack Frost: Level 8
Jack 'o Lantern: Level 15
Hua Po (Special Persona, must complete an Elizabeth Date to fuse): Level 19
Sati: Level 29
Orobas: Level 39
Rangda: Level 50
Surt: Level 60
Futsunushi: Level 74 (Unlocked at Max Rank)
Reload made an effort to make the various Arcana less obviously tiered relative to each other, so most have either picked up a new Ultimate Persona or have had their general levels raised up a bit. Both in Magician's case. Despite this, due to the expedited Level curve of Reload, most of these Personae serve the same function they do in FES and Portable. Surt is no longer the end all-be all for Fire casters since he longer has innate Fire Boost, and the retooled Incense system paired with extra Night activities means it's less practical to just max him out and call it a day. He does still have exclusive Level up access to Inferno (formerly Ragnarok), so he's worth creating to fuse that around but it's safe to say his best days are behind him. Futsunushi goes against the grain of the Magician Arcana by instead being a Slash specialist. The most notable thing about him is that he picks up the Unshaken Will passive at Level 81, a passive that makes you immune to all ailments save for Poison, Freeze, Shock, Down and DIzzy, and was previously found only on Sun Asura. This is something to consider, though the only thing you want that passive for is a bonus boss that requires capped out levels anyway. For conventional purposes, there is an accessory that just makes you immune to all ailments and can simply be purchased.
The [High]Priestess
Everyone's favorite captain of the obvious,
Fuuka Yamagishi, is the representative for the [High]Priestess Social Link in all 3 versions of the game. While Fuuka is not the first possible romantic partner for the MC you'll encounter, she's the first one we'll be covering so she's a good object example of the general progression for these links. Note that while she's not explicitly a romantic option for the FemC, all shared Social Links with female SEES members follow pretty similar scripts to the MC's and tend to be pretty thick in Sapphic vibes due to this. It's a shame they didn't commit to that.
For being the first female SEES member you can establish a Social Link with, Fuuka has a remarkably complicated set of unlock requirements. Obviously she needs to have entered the story and joined SEES. At that point, not long after you'll be prompted to join a Culture Club. Pick the one you want to tumble 4, and Fuuka will just happen to be a member of the same club. At that point, she will be available to converse with on the second floor hallway of school every Monday, Friday and Saturday. If you have maxed out your Courage stat, you will be able to initiate Fuuka's Social Link and progress it on the previously mentioned days. The earliest all of these can be fulfilled is 6/19, which is the deadline to max out Courage if you want to start Fuuka's Link right away. It's not too difficult to accomplish if you know what you're doing, but it can be easy to fail this if you don't know the best ways to maximize courage. For Portable, this is actually way simpler. Fuuka will want to form her own club on 6/15, and you only need Rank 2 Courage to agree to her proposal. Onto progression!
Initial | 1(22) | 15(22) | 22(22) | 30(29) | 30(22) | 0(35) | 40(29) | 0(55) | Max
As you can see, once Rank 5 is reached, there is not a single event where we can get the points we need for the next Rank Up just from the event dialogues alone. Rank 9 in particular affords you know points, putting Fuuka in the unique spot where even a successful date will not get us a rank up and we'll need to supply her with a gift she likes to get that little bit of extra. Pretty much all Romantic social links follow this progression, and if you are just pursing them via the regularly available Social Link events, they will burn way too much time. It would take 4 hang outs or 4 Relationship Fortunes to get from Rank 9 to Max, even with a matching Persona! Now for Portable,
Initial | 0(15/22) | 15(37/56) | 22(30/44) | 22(37/56) | 30(22/34) | 30(22/33) | 35(0/0) | 40(22/34) | Max
Much easier to progress, particularly because by the time we'll reach her we will also be adding in the max Charm Bonus to our point gains. In fact, that combo nearly makes the Social Link a streamlined one right up until the end where we get some major point gates with a lack of dialogue choices to blow past them. Past that, Fuuka's cooking club also supplies us with gifts in the form of the treats we bake with her. These can be handy for bypassing other point gates in other links should you go on dates with them, or even help you bypass Fuuka's own point requirements if you route it right. For Reload,
Initial | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | X(?) | X | X | Max
For Rank 8, I'm not actually sure if there's a point gate or not, but there will be a huge lull in activity for Fuuka's Social Link as a new mechanic introduced in Reload makes it ideal to save the back half of Social Links with female SEES members for the end of the game. Due to more generous point yields (or maybe just lower requirements) for Social Links in Reload, Streamlined is the new standard and any means of ekeing out extra Social Link points is usually enough to clear any point gates you may come across if you're picking all the right answers.
The [High]Priestess Arcana is another archetypical early game Arcana, though not one I think is quite as good as Magician. Priestess Personae mostly focus on Ice and Healing Magic, with some outliers such as Unicorn and the FES/Portable version of Kikuri-Hime. Speaking of the FES/Portable Priestess list,
Apsaras: Level 3
Unicorn: Level 11
High Pixie: Level 21
Sarasvati: Level 27
Ganga: Level 35
Parvati: Level 47
Kikuri-Hime: Level 53
Scathach (Unlocked at Max Rank): Level 64
Early game, Apsaras is half the extremely useful Cadenza spell, so if you're like me you'll often have her in the back pocket for casting that spell in FES. Unicorn is one of your earlier means of using Hama skills, but early Hama skills are too inconsistent to care about. Past that, the next most notable Persona is Sarasvati, who learns both Bufula and Ice Boost. With a Max rank for the Priestess link, you can do a triangle spread with High Pixie and Ganga to create a Parvati who will also gain Bufudyne off the level ups. Parvati is a solid ice caster for most of the rest of the game, and does form one half an interesting fusion spell, though she doesn't pick up Ice Amp so you may need to fuse her up if you don't want to commit to Varuna Bracers. Kikuri-Hime is another means to access Cool Breeze, though she's far from the best due to how relatively late she is picked up, and she's uncharacteristically a Fire casting Priestess at a point where you already have access to the broken Surt. Scathach is very whatever, no special skills I care about and an unfocused skill set that picks up Myriad Arrows, Mabufudyne and Magarudyne. Overall, not an Arcana that has anything I think is amazing, though Parvati has potential. For Reload,
Apsaras: Level 2
Unicorn: Level 11
High Pixie: Level 20
Sarasvati: Level 32
Ganga: Level 41
Parvati: Level 48 (Special Fusion)
Kikuri-Hime: Level 61
Scathach: Level 75
Reload shifts the focus of the Priestess Arcana much harder towards healing, with many of its reps now picking up multi-targeting healing skills when they previously didn't. Sarasvati is among your earliest options for accessing the extremely useful Mediarama spell, and it is well worth your time to make her. Kikuri-Hime is now an Ice caster and also picks up Mediarahan, making her also a pretty good pick up once you reach the necessary level. Other than that, the Arcana is actually pretty similar to how it was originally. Scathach is once again a weird generalist with no particularly interesting skills. It is worth noting that customizing any Persona you want to be an unbeatable tank of death is much easier in Reload due to the retooled skill card system and the much easier to use inheritance system, but I do place some value on Personae who don't take much work to be made awesome. It's hard to justify advocating something like, I dunno Ganga, when Black Frost is right there.
The Emperor
In all versions of Persona 3, The Emperor is represented by
Hidetoshi Odagiri and is associated with Gekkoukan's student council. This is the first "club" link we'll be covering in Arcana order, though the first actual club link you can initiate is Chariot. Odagiri is somewhat unique in that though he is a school related link and follows the normal calendar restrictions those have, his association with the protagonist is largely professional and your only option to earn points for his link outside of Rank Up events is relationship fortunes (Okay Reload has a second option, but it's available very late in the game). Mitsuru will approach you on 4/27 and give you the option to up your membership for the student council, though you can put it off for awhile if you want to work on other links that are available at the time. The student council meets on Mon, Weds, Fri and Sat(except in Portable where Saturday is dropped). Odagiri is also sort of the platonic ideal of a streamlined link, as in all versions except for Vanilla and one rank in Portable, having a matching Persona and picking the correct answer will let you complete the link in 10 interactions. From FES to Reload, the Rank up requirements are,
Initial | 1(22) | 1(7) | 15(22) | 15(22) | 15(22) | 15(22) | 22(22) | 22(22) | Max
Initial | 1(22/34) | 1(7/11) | 15(22/34) | 15(22/34) | 15(7/11) | 15(22/34) | 22(22/34) | 22(22/34) | Max
Initial | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | Max
As you can see, Odagiri is pretty easy to max out due to his frequent availability and low requirements. He does need an Oracle burned on him for 1 day in Portable, but the FemC has almost nothing to do on Sunday's until the Sun Social Link enters the picture so that's not really a big deal. For the most part, I don't plan to cover Vanilla progression for these write ups since Vanilla is not the main focus of this LP, but I do want to cover interesting niche cases, and Odagiri is definitely one of them. In Vanilla, his progression is a lot more obnoxious.
Initial | 1(22) | 10(0) | 25(22) | 25(22) | 25(22) | 25(22) | 25(22) | 25(22) | Max
Remember that without a matching Persona, those 22's are actually 15's and that the point bonus you get for attending a non-rank up social link event without a matching Persona is 10. Also note that Relationship Fortunes don't exist in Vanilla and Odagiri never rings you up to hang out. That's right, in Vanilla not only does every single student council meeting have forced downtime after a rank up, there is no point in the link where having a matching Persona actually makes it go any faster, resulting in a link that takes almost twice as long to complete. It also has the unique distinction of being the only dialogue choice driven Social Link in the series where giving the correct answers matters, but having a matching persona doesn't. It's not a semi-automatic link like Devil or Sun, it's not a sidequest driven link like Hermit in 4, it's not like time limited Social Links added in re-releases that are essentially Semi-Automatic with choices in them to screw yourself out of finishing it, it's a just a weirdly annoying link to route in. Onto what Personae we get from this!
For FES and Portable, we have,
Forneus: Level 7
Oberon: Level 15
Take-Mikazuchi: Level 24
King Frost: Level 30 (Special Fusion, requires an item from an Elizabeth request to create)
Naga Raja: Level 36
Kingu: Level 46
Barong: Level 52
Odin: Level 57 (Unlocked at Max Rank)
Emperors serve as our early game Elec access, though many of the Personae found within also double as decent physical attackers. The main outlier is King Frost, who requires a sidequest to be completed to create him anyway. Emperors also have a solid function as easy ways to access good skills that you can then fuse down onto more powerful Personae. Forneus picks up Auto-Sukukaja, Take-Mikazuchi has innate Auto-Tarukaja, Naga Raja has Matarukaja, Kingu has Mediarama and Barong has the very situational Null Poison (but the situation you want it for is absolutely critical). Take-Mikazuchi is also part of the extremely overpowered Thunder Call fusion spell, but the main draw of this Arcana is its Ultimate: Odin. Odin picks up one of the most broken spells in the history of MegaTen in general, Thunder Reign. Thunder Reign is the ultimate Elec spell that deals more than double the damage of Ziodyne, obviously already a good thing. What puts it over something like say, Ragnarok, is its secondary effect: It has a 100% chance of Shocking anything not immune to the status. Remember that Shock guarantees all physical attacks against the affected enemy are now Critical Hits. This is unbelievably broken for multiple reasons. Aside from ratcheting up your party's damage, almost nothing in the game is actually immune to Shock, including the Reaper who can easily be cheesed with this skill. Anything not immune to Knock Down also can be smashed down with All Out Attacks, and if it some how survives you can just fire off another one with the next critical hit in line. It has a bit of RNG to contend with in non-story battles due the randomness of turn order in those, but if you're willing to just reset on The Reaper until you get a good turn order then that hardly matters. The only limiting factor is that Odin himself only picks up Elec Amp and not Boost in addition like Surt does with his passives, so you need to fuse it into him to maximize the damage of Thunder Reign itself. That's relatively easy to accomplish though, so it's not that big of a deal. Due to the excess amount of free time you have to play Arcade games in FES, there's also not really any reason to fuse Odin upward once you have him, so he essentially is just the best Elec Persona in the game. Now for Reload,
Forneus: Level 7
Oberon: Level 16
Take-Mikazuchi: Level 23
King Frost: Level 34 (Special Fusion, requires an item from an Elizabeth request to create)
Naga Raja: Level 43
Belphegor: Level 53
Barong: Level 63
Odin: Level 74 (Unlocked at Max Rank)
Pretty similar, actually, with some of the later reps having their levels slid back a bit. This is hardly noticeable though due to Reload's different level curve. Belphegor is a new addition, being a pretty solid Dark caster, and King Frost now has the added benefit of being one half the extremely powerful King and I Theurgy, though obviously you don't need to have him specifically on hand to cast it after you fuse him initially. Thunder Reign has been nerfed a bit, being a 60% chance to proc Shock instead of 100%, and more things actually resisting that status like you'd expect. He's worth running through to get the spell, but changes to how your nights are spent and the replacement of stat cards with incenses means that like with Surt, you'll likely fuse him up not long after creating him.
I'll be updating this post incrementally. There's quite a lot to say as we get into the weeds of more complicated Social Links, so this may very well end up being a two part mechanics post by the LP's end!
