Social Links are a vital component of The Journey, as they directly influence the starting levels of Personas created via fusion in the Velvet Room. In addition to that, Social Links also give you a better understanding of the NPCs you interact with throughout your quest. There is two different kinds of Social Links in the game, those that level up automatically as you progress through the story and those in which you have to make an effort to level up by hanging out with them on your own accord.
Why are Social Links important? As said above, they influence the starting levels of Personas that you create via fusion in the Velvet Room. Each Social Link is associated with one of the Major Arcana, just like with your Personas. Whenever you create a Persona with the same Arcana as one of your already established S. Links, that Persona will receive bonus experience related to the level of the Link. A level 1 S. Link will give a fused Persona 1 level, a level 3 S. Link will give 2 levels, a level 5 S. Link will give 3 levels, a level 8 S. Link will give 4 levels and a maxed out Social Link (level 10) will give 5 levels.
For the Social Links you have to worry about, most of them have a point-based system that it uses to keep track of the levels. There are two types of regular meetings for the Social Links, meetings that will advance your level and ones where you spend time with your Links. If you get the meeting where you have conversations with your Links, then that Link WILL level up to the next level. If you get the "spend time" meeting, then the link will NOT level up.
The charts under each Arcana can be a bit confusing at first, but knowing how a Social Link works will alleviate that confusion. As said above, if you get the meeting where you get to give responses, then the Social Link will level up. During the conversations in which you level up, you'll have the option to give responses that can grant you points towards the next level. For example, during the conversation with Kenji (Magician) that will level the Link to rank 4, the points from the correct responses will go towards level 5.
Availability
One of the main problems for Social Links is that they aren't available every single day of the week. To further complicate things, there are Social Links that are only available during school days and those only available on days off. Note that school Links are not available the weeks before and during exams. The following chart shows which days of the week that the Social Links are available.
| -- | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Magician | -- | O | -- | O | O | -- | -- |
| Priestess | O | -- | -- | -- | O | O | -- |
| Empress | -- | O | -- | O | -- | O | -- |
| Emperor | O | -- | O | -- | O | -- | -- |
| Hierophant | O | O | O | O | O | O | -- |
| Lovers | O | -- | O | O | -- | O | -- |
| Chariot | O | O | -- | O | O | -- | -- |
| Justice | -- | O | -- | O | -- | O | -- |
| Hermit* | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | O |
| Fortune | -- | O | O | O | -- | -- | -- |
| Strength | -- | -- | O | -- | -- | O | -- |
| Hanged Man | O | O | O | O | O | O | -- |
| Temperance | -- | O | O | -- | O | -- | -- |
| Devil** | -- | O | -- | -- | -- | O | -- |
| Tower** | -- | -- | -- | O | O | O | O |
| Star*** | O | O | O | O | O | O | O |
| Moon | O | O | O | O | O | O | -- |
| Sun | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | O |
| Aeon | O | -- | O | -- | O | O | -- |
*Devil and Tower are only available at night
**Hermit is only available during holidays in which you have access to your room, although you almost always have access to it on Sundays
***Star is available everyday until you get to Level 9, then it is only available on school days
Matching Personas
Social Links are both highly beneficial and reliant on Personas. While Social Links can help level a Persona via fusion up to 5 levels, Personas can help level up a Social Link. As said above, all responses given can give you points towards that next level up for a Social Link. If you have a Persona of the same Arcana as the Social Link, then you'll gain an additional 50% in points when giving that response. Using the example above, the correct response in the second set of questions in the Magician Rank 4 conversation, you would get 15 points; if you had a matching Persona, you'd get 22 points instead.
"Sunday" Meetings
Once you have established a few Social Links, you may notice that you'll get phone calls at night before going to bed from the people asking you to hang out with them on Sundays or holidays. You can refuse them by saying you're busy from the start with no downsides. If you say yes to listening to them and then say yes again to hanging out, then the next free day (usually Sundays) you will hang out with that person. You can only hang out with one person at a time and if you agree to hang out with one person after already agreeing with another, then the first plans are cancelled and that S. Link will go into Reverse.
Sunday meetings are special meetings that can help boost you closer to that next level up meeting. You will NEVER level up a Social Link during a Sunday meeting. The point boost can be very high, depending on the response given when on the meeting; you also get 10 points (15 with a matching Persona) for just agreeing to hang out with a person on a holiday. Note that if you are meeting with someone on a Sunday, you will not be able to access the Tanaka TV shopping channel or anything else in your dorm; the meetings only take up the daytime hours of the day.
Reverse/Broken Links
Just like in real life, your friends will get mad at you for neglecting them. In Persona 3, this will also happen in the form of a Social Link going into Reverse. Luckily, only a select few Social Links can go into Reverse; basically, any of the people that can call you at night have the possibility to go into Reverse if you neglect them for too long. The guys (Magician, Chariot, Fortune and Temperance) are set at 90 days and those 90 days will never change. However, the girls (Priestess, Empress, Lovers, Justice and Strength) are set at a maximum of 60 days, although that limit can be reduced.
At certain ranks within a Social Link with one of the above girls, the game will mention that they will get jealous if they see you going out with another girl. What this basically means is that the number of days in which you can neglect a girl will go down by 15 if you go out with another of the girls above (to 15 days at the most). At which rank they will get jealous depends on the girl, but those ranks are marked with a (*) in the following charts. You can also go into Reverse with a girl if you use the wrong response in the conversations.
Neglecting your Social Links isn't the only way to make them go into Reverse. If you double-book a holiday meeting with them, the first person you agreed to meet will go into Reverse. Basically, if you make plans to meet with someone and then agree to meet another person, then the first plans will be cancelled and that person will go into Reverse.
There are two ways to repair a Reversed Social Link. The first way is by using the Fortune Box at Naganaki Shrine. This will instantly fix a Reversed Link without any problems. The other way to fix a Reversed Link is by finding them in your school (they usually have different spots where they stand if Reversed) and answering with the right response. Note that if you answer incorrectly while you're being serious with one of the girls, then they will go into Broken status. You won't be able to repair Broken status by the Fortune Box, but you can repair it by talking to them and giving the correct responses to the several questions.
| WARNING |
|---|
| If one of the dating Social Links get "broken," then you will not be able to use any Personas from that Arcana until you repair it. |
