Does Persona Need Social Links?

Patreon:   / tony4you   Twitter: Tony4YouYT 0:00 Intro 1:12 Persona 3 7:02 Persona 4 13:50 Persona 5 21:41 Persona 1, 2 Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment 25:14 Conclusion 27:27 Outro Footage from Johne Awesome, RandomPl0x, and Buffmaister Persona’s social links are amazing, as one of the biggest draw to the series, they develop characters far past what the main events of the story could handle. The one on one time you get with these characters can really enhance your appreciation for the individual and the role they play in the story. With that being said, are they really necessary for Persona as a series? Does persona need social links is a question I never gave much thought to, but one I can't get out of my head ever since I asked it. For as much love I can heap onto them there are criticisms of the system that are equally as valid as any praise. I wanted to go back from the very inception of social links of Persona 3, to the last game in the series, Persona 5 Royal and give an honest discussion and critique of this system we’ve all just come to expect will be a part of the series forever. We’ll also dive into the first 3 persona games with 1 and the 2 duology to see how characters were handled there as well. I’ll discuss some general talking points for social links as a whole and then go through the games discussing the overall social link system for each one, as they can vary wildly in quality I will pick a few I think bear mentioning, but not each one in depth as that is another video entirely. Let’s dive into it and find out if Social Links are as great as I think they are. For this social link and confidant critique and analysis I will be discussing the best persona social links and the worst persona social links of each game in the series. We'll discuss not just if social links are good in general, but judging the social links of persona 3, persona 4, and the confidants of persona 5. We'll talk about how the social links effect each game's narrative quality and some standouts for each game. We will analyze social links on a case by case basis and decide the impact they had on their respective games. I may come across as overly negative at some parts and I may repeat myself in others but it comes with the territory of a persona critique video, especially when talking about the entire persona series. Persona 1, Persona Innocent Sin, and Persona Eternal Punishment were all talked about as well in a large part due to the differences they have in story telling despite how they lack social links. Persona 3 portable, persona 4 golden and persona 5 royal were all also mentioned so all the female protagonist lovers, Marie lovers, and Kasumi lovers will get their due diligence. Every persona social link deserves it's time in the sun, but for the sake of the video only the standouts are talked about. There might be more positive social link examples for certain games, and more negative social link examples for others, but I try to be as objective as possible in this persona critique and persona analysis. The question of does persona need social links is a question that demands a lot of time and due diligence so hopefully by the end of the video I'll have conveyed my points well enough.