Editing Shin Megami Tensei (section)

==Social Links: The Power of Intimacy==
One of the defining differences mechanically between the core SMT games and the Persona spin-offs, at least from Persona 3 onwards, is the presence of the Social Link mechanic. Basically, scattered throughout the game-world are various NPCs who represent different Major Arcanas in the [[Tarot]], by repeatedly interacting with them, you will increase your affinity for that Major Arcana, climbing levels until you max out that Social Link's potency at level 10. To get the good ending for any Persona game, you need to max out all the Social Links before the in-game timer reaches the end.

This is easier said than done because there are only so many times per each game day that you can improve a Social Link, and often that requires you to decide between improving a Social Link (which may even require you to decide which of several ones you can pick) and one of several other activities, such as dungeon crawling or grinding for the [[Ability Score]] boosts you often need to progress or unlock a Social Link. In general, you'll probably only get one Social Link improvement a day, though Persona 5 allows you to get two per day. The "casual" approach to Persona games is thus to focus on grinding ability scores first until you get a bad end, then use your New Game+ and the higher starting scores to be able to focus on boosting Social Links primarily or even exclusively.

Actually gaining points to a Social Link requires watching a cutscene and picking a few prompts; the "right" prompts will give you varying amounts of "bonding points", from 1 to 3 (and having a Persona of the same Arcana in your active personas list will give you a +1 bonus whenever you earn points). Actually gaining these points can be trickier than you think, because you have to take into account the personality of the person you're trying to bond with, the symbology of their arc as it relates to their Arcana, and, often the hardest part, the Japanese mentality behind the programmers. There may also, depending on the games, be some events or options you can use to further boost precious Social Link points, but you can't actually progress up a Link level without choosing the "hang out with this Social Link" option.

In Persona 3, bad answers can actually ''lose'' bonding points, or even "Reverse" a Social Link, making it impossible to gain any progress in that Link until you spend several encounters together undoing your social fuckup. Whilst realistic, this mechanic absolutely sucked balls given the already tight constraints on when you could interact with Social Links and how much time you have to get them all maxed out, and so it was dropped from all subsequent Persona games.

Incidentally, the "Japaneseness" of some Social Links and the Social Link Reverse mechanic led to one unfortunate character from Persona 3 being absolutely ''despised'' in the West, due to how counter-intuitive her Social Link can be.

So, what do you get for all this effort... aside from unlocking the good ending, that is? Well, firstly, every level you have in an Arcana due to a Social Link translates to bonus EXP when fusing Personas of that Arcana. Also, maximizing a Social Link is needed to unlock the most powerful Persona of that Arcana. But there's also two particular Social Link categories that have unique benefits; the Velvet Room Attendant Social Link is needed to unlock the more advanced Fusion options, so you literally can't get the best Personas without bonding to her. Meanwhile, the Social Links with your party members buff their abilities in various ways, and maxing them out will cause that party member's Persona to evolve into a new, stronger Persona.

Persona 5 also adds further incentive by giving each Social link at least a handful of unlockable powers as a reward for going through with it. For example, boosting the Sun Social Link will boost your ability to negotiate with defeated Shadows, culminating in the ability to recruit Shadows that are higher leveled than you, when ordinarily they would refuse to side with you if your level is lower than theirs.