In Persona 3 and onward, various Social Links exist to allow you to spend time with your party members and other acquaintances, deepening your connections with them over several in-game events and making you stronger. In order to get from one event to the other, you must build trust with them by spending time with them and choosing the correct responses, but sometimes, the game halts your progress until your social stats meet certain requirements. The game tracks your progress in social statistics, from intelligence to courage; sometimes, you will need a certain social stat to keep up with your friend, and other times, you will need it to compensate for their deficiencies.
Here is a list of some of the more onerous stat gates. They are ranked according to how high the requirements are and when in the game they become available. While the requirements usually take precedence, a high stat requirement will take precedence over a lower one if it is available earlier on.
Each example will have the name of the Confidant, when it is first available, the event and the stat requirement(along with other requirements). For the stat requirements, keep in mind that Rank 5 is the maximum rank for Persona 4 and 5, while Rank 6 is the maximum rank for Persona 3.
10.Mediating with Sojiro (Persona 5)
SL/C: Hierophant
Available: September(see below)
Event: Rank 7
Stats: Rank 5 Kindness
I struggled to choose the tenth place entry, but I ultimately decided on Sojiro's maximum Kindness stat gate.
While Sojiro's Confidant becomes available early on in the game, it will come to a standstill if you reach Rank 4 before Sojiro's daughter Futaba joins the party, since she plays a major role in his Confidant. At Rank 7, Sojiro and Futaba will have a dispute, and you must mediate.
Oddly enough, you will earn Kindness points from completing this event, like other Confidant events with Sojiro, despite the fact taht you no longer need it.
9.Asking Mitsuru Out (Persona 3)
SL/C: Empress
Available: November 21
Event: Start of Social Link
Stats: Rank 5 Academics and top place on at least one exam.
Mitsuru isn't the easiest person to get close to. She's serious to a fault, has high standards for herself and for others, and tends to shoulder her own problems. As such, it's natural that she's the last Social Link to become available in the original Persona 3(second-to-last after Aigis in FES and Portable), and has the highest requirements. You need to have maxed out Academics to begin her link and, in a rarity for the series, must have placed first on at least one exam.
As stringent as the requirements are, the fact that Mitsuru's Social Link doesn't become available until late in the game gives you plenty of time to earn the stats(completing it is another story, though).
8.A Message For Naoto (Persona 4)
SL/C: Fortune
Available: Some time after saving Naoto(October; see below for details)
Event: Start of Social Link
Stats: Rank 5 Knowledge and Rank 5 Courage, as well as obtaining the card from the main in the shopping district.
Naoto is the last Social Link to become available in Persona 4, hence why she is low on the list, but she has the highest requirements.
In order to speak with her, you must do a small sidequest. If you talk to Naoto, she will mention that she saw a strange old man in the shopping district. You must talk to the man and prove yourself knowledgeable enough by answering his questions. This requires maximum-rank Knowledge, but since Knowledge determines how well you do on exams, you should have it maxed out by now.
The man gives you a card to deliver to Naoto, and you need maximum Courage to ask her to come with you. Considering that the social link eventually involves the protagonist throwing himself between Naoto and a man who is supposedly armed with a knife, it's not hard to see why.
Again, this is low on the list because the fact that it's late in the game means that you've likely gotten the requirements already.
7.Getting Dojima to Open Up(Persona 4)
SL/C: Hierophant
Available: May 6.
Event: Rank 5
Stats: Rank 4 Expression
As I said above, a lower stat requirement can outrank a higher stat requirement if it comes up earlier on. Dojima is one of the first nighttime Social Links available, but you will need Rank 4 Expression to progress past the midway point of his Social Link.
There are some mitigating factors in his case, since the fact that you need Rank 3 Expression for the previous rank gives you some warning that you'll need Expression to progress with Dojima. Additionally, it's midway through the link, giving you a little time to develop the stat. As such, Dojima ranks lower than some entries, including another Rank 4 stat gate.
6. Double Date With Makoto (Persona 5)
SL/C: Priestess
Available: After completing Kaneshiro's Palace(at earliest, Late June).
Event: Rank 6
Stats: Rank 5 Charm
This one from Makoto's Confidant is relatively infamous with the fandom. To put a long story short, Makoto wants to investigate her new friend Eiko's boyfriend Tsukasa, so she has you pose as her boyfriend to go on a double date with Eiko and Tsukasa. Unfortunately, Eiko claims that Tsukasa set the bar high for you despite the fact that he's obviously sleazy.
This was the first major roadblock I hit when it comes to Persona 5 Confidant stat gates. Despite this, it isn't nearly the worst of them.
5.Asking Yukari Out (Persona 3)
SL/C: Lovers(Male Protagonist)
Available: July 26.
Event: Start of Link
Stats: Rank 6 Charm
This is a good example of how Social Links were more demanding in previous Persona games. For starters, Yukari, despite being in your party since the first time you enter Tartarus in late April, isn't available for male protagonists until after she opens up to the male protagonist during the trip to Yakushima in late July.
The second problem is, despite becoming available only a few months in the game, Yukari requires maxed-out Charm. Persona 3 has only three social stats with six ranks, compared to the fourth and fifth game's five stats with five ranks, but one thing they have in common is that maxing them out is no easy task.
The female protagonist route manages to make Yukari much more accessible, by having her be available earlier on and requiring a lower Charm rank.
4.Asking Fuuka Out (Persona 3)
SL/C: Priestess (Male Protagonist)
Available: June 15.
Event: Start of Link
Stats: Rank 6 Courage
The good news about Fuuka is that she's available earlier than Yukari. The bad news is that this means that you run into her stat gate(Courage) significantly earlier, which is why she edges out Yukari.
Like Yukari, Fuuka's Social Link is easier for the female protagonist, since while it isn't available any earlier, the Courage requirement is lower. Unfortunately, the aforementioned Mitsuru doesn't get any easier for the female protagonist, but by the time she becomes available, you should have finished with all the other Social Links.
3.Asking Nanako About The Form (Persona 4)
SL/C: Justice
Available: May 2.
Event: Rank 6
Stats: Rank 5 Expression
Nanako's Social Link is both easy and hard. The good news is that she becomes available early on and there are many opportunities to get points with her. The bad news is threefold- you have a deadline for her Social Link, you must often spend time with her without ranking up, and there are two Expression checks. The first tests whether you are good enough of a communicator to talk with her about death. The second is to see whether you can get Nanako to talk to you about a parent teacher meeting form, since she's afraid to bring it up with her father.
The second check requires maximum Expression, despite the fact that it's available early in the game. The only other event that requires maximum expression is the final event of the Hermit Social Link.
2.Returning the Gun to Iwai (Persona 5)
SL/C: Hanged Man
Available: As soon as you can go out at night(May 9)
Event: Start of Confidant
Stats: Rank 4 Guts
Iwai's Confidant is one of the first nighttime Confidants available, but it requires levels of Guts that you won't get until summer at earliest.
Basically, after the first Palace, you go to sell Kamoshida's gold medal to Iwai, who runs the airsoft shop Untouchable. While there, Iwai gives you a bag containing a realistic model gun, telling you not to look inside, and has you smuggle it past some detectives. You need Rank 4 Guts to tell Iwai that you opened the bag.
I think the Guts requirement for this one should be reduced to Rank 3, to make Hanged Man a bit easier to access early in the game. On the other hand, the fact that the event leading to Iwai's Mementos request requires maxed out Guts makes more sense, since you and Iwai are confronting a high-ranking yakuza member who threatens to kill you both. This leads in to the first placer, one with a maxed-out Guts equivalent requirement earlier on.
1.Tutoring Shu(Persona 4)
SL/C: Tower
Available: May 23.
Event: Starting Social Link
Stats: Rank 5 Understanding
A little over a month and a half into Persona 4, night-time part-time jobs become available. While the pub dishwasher and the hospital janitor(the latter of which ties into the Devil Social Link) have low requirements, the tutoring job requires maximum-level Understanding, and a nearby girl is amazed that you'd need the patience of a saint to tutor the kid. It's likely to be the first requirement for a maxed-out stat you encounter in Persona 4, since it's at the start of a social link that's early on.
As a bonus, once you begin the link, you will have to have Rank 5 Diligence to do overtime and earn extra points with Shu, or else you will have to visit him an extra time.
Conclusion
While some stat checks can be frustrating, they serve important purposes by forcing the player to budget their time well and not neglect their social stats. Still, I think that the gates should follow a reasonable difficulty curve, with early-game Social Links/Confidants having low requirements to start and later-game one having higher requirements.
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