Rapport System = Social Link?

[ShenmueTree]

From SMT WIKI

"A bond made with another person. Getting to know others is the key to strengthening your Personas."
—Persona 3 FES Dictionary Entry

Social Links, known as Community (コミュニティ?) in the Japanese versions and often abbreviated as "Commu" (コミュ?), are an important gameplay mechanic that appears in the later Persona games. Each Social Link represents a single Arcana, and raising a particular Social Link increases the experience bonus the protagonists receive when they fuse personas of that Arcana. By completing a Social Link, it unlocks the ultimate persona of that Arcana. Social Links can, however, be reversed if players do not spend time with the respective people holding the Link, end up booking two holiday invitations on one day, or gave an improper answer during their conversations. The reverse effect will also continue to last until the protagonist reconciles with them. At some point a Social Link can even be broken, prohibiting the protagonist from fusing personas from the respective Arcana.

Replace Persona with Moveset, and Arcana with Martial Arts and I think social links would be a great fit for Shenmue.

For those that don't know, the way it works is you can build relationships with characters, and the stronger the relationship becomes the more advantage you have in creating and fighting with Personas. These relationships can be reversed if you do something to upset the NPC, preventing your friendship and your skills from becoming any stronger.

I think in addition to having a training area, and buying move sets, a social link system would be a great fit for the series, especially because it demonstrates the dark and light struggle in which Ryo constantly has to face. Should he forgo everyone and everything solely to enact revenge upon Lan Di? Or should he build up friendships and life long lasting relationships on his quest to enlightenment and peace.

Now, you may say this is a crazy idea but think about the old lady in Sakuragaoka in Shenmue I and Fangmei and Aillin sidequests in Shenmue II, it works extremely similarly to a social link, ignore fangmei and she treats you differently, answer her questions incorrectly and she ignores you and becomes agitated, but if you build the friendship you are rewarded with kindness. Now, imagine if by doing the right combination of things to advance your friendship with a character, Ryo actually becomes stronger in a certain style of martial arts, with certain NPCS all having a certain fighting style. Since there will already be a system in place where characters react to player choice and decision in the rapport system, I don't think it's a stretch at all to implement this sort of feature.

[ShenSun]

I always thought Shenmue did have social links, in there own special way. The way you interact with certain npcs and learn about their daily struggles was really well done in Shenmue 1.

The mother of all social links is of course Shenhua on disc 4 of Shenmue 2

[ShenmueTree]

Yeah, Shenhua and Fangmei quests are very similar to social links, except they don't affect your skills in any way so the consequences of not building those relationships are purely "visually cosmetic." If you promise Ren you'll help him look for treasure tomorrow and you go out looking for Chi You Men instead, you gotta pay.

[Himuro]

It really doesn't sound like s links at all though especially given what Suzuki has told us.

[Himuro]

This thread I made has a lot of good info on what may possibly be rapport.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=48047

[ShenmueTree]

How is that not like a social link? He basically says there will be consequences based on what you say and do... which is a core aspect of social links, which at their very core are similar to personality tests. It doesn't mention anything too specific though so there's no telling what sort of bad consequences there may be.

[Himuro]

Social Links don't really have consequences. At worst, you won't rank up the S link, but leveling up s links is pretty easy. All you really need to do for the most part is do obvious goody two shoe things to level up s links in Persona. The dialogue choices are not deep or anything, and the consequences are always immediately apparent: either you level up your s link or you don't - and it's pretty already damn hard to not level up an s link. From what Suzuki said, those consequences from your dialogue choices aren't immediately apparent, and possibly subtle. Moreover, S links are things you level up to get higher level Persona, so it's a game mechanic whose entire purpose is to level and min max so you're always going to try to make the "right" choice when doing s links so you can have the opportunity to level them up. From what Suzuki has talked about, rapports' choices are more in grained in personality, leading to a personal, and intimate game experience. There's nothing intimate about s links, because everyone who plays them experiences the same story. Suzuki said that rapport changes how npc's react to Ryo depending on how he answers. No matter what you do with slinks, pretty much all characters are going to react the same unless you cheat on your girlfriend with someone or something.

A better analog would be like western games such as Fallout, where your personality is crafted through dialogue and this leads to a personalized experience that befits your actual game choices. There's nothing personalized or intimate about Persona 3 and 4. It's about routine and using NPC's to level up Persona. In Fallout New Vegas, relationships can change. You can join on group and then join their enemies and then assassinate the leader of the first group you joined. When you join one group, that makes their enemies hostile towards you. When dress a certain way, they are less likely to help you. Shenmue III's rapport system, sounds more along that manner, except I doubt you'll be able to assassinate people. However, different npc reactions based on previous choices made? Yeah, I can see that being in III.

[ShenmueTree]

I disagree that social links don't have consequences, especially for those that like to see special scenes. Then there is the fact that you can actually BREAK a social link, which is a far worse consequence than just reversing since it actually prevents you from partaking in the relevant arcada.

[Himuro]

I disagree that social links don't have consequences, especially for those that like to see special scenes. Then there is the fact that you can actually BREAK a social link, which is a far worse consequence than just reversing since it actually prevents you from partaking in the relevant arcada.

You can break slinks but it's pretty hard to do