Raising your Bond with the other OSF Members in Scarlet Nexus is actually pretty simple. Given how the game’s Bond mechanics share a lot of similarities with other JRPGs, like the Persona seires or the more recent Fire Emblem games, you might think that it’s complex, but there’s not much to it. Meanwhile, the story of Scarlet Nexus is very complex, so taking a break and leveling up your connection to the squad is a nice change of pace.
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Once you raise your Bond enough with a certain character, you're then able to go on their Bond Episode, the result of which will raise their Bond Level. Each Level that you ascend with a character will give them or their SAS Ability new effects, such as lasting longer, triggering Combat Visions, and more. So, here are all the ways you're able to raise their Bond.
Select Them As An Active Party Member
When you start Scarlet Nexus, you can only have two comrades equipped as "Active Party Members" at once, hence two SAS Activations that allow you to "borrow" their abilities.
But, as you go through the story, you’ll eventually unlock the ability to have four SAS Activations equipped while still keeping the two Active Party Member limit. At this point, it becomes important to keep track of which party member is equipped as solely a SAS Activation, and which one is equipped as an Active Party Member.
The reason for this is that Active Party Members gain minor amounts of Bond the more you have them equipped in battle, and their SAS Activations recover faster and last longer as well.
Gift Them Gifts, Preferably The Right Gifts
This is the main method for increasing a specific character’s Bond Level, and it involves raining presents down upon them. After a certain point early on in both Yuito and Kasane’s campaigns, you unlock the ability to exchange certain resources (such as the "Suppression" and "Environment A/B/C" Crafting Materials) for Gifts at the Merchant. Then, once you go to any of the Hideouts, you'll be able to talk to any members of your current party spread throughout the Hideout and select the option to give them a Gift.
A lot of these gifts are obvious as to which character they should be given to (books on electricity for Shiden, workout stuff for Gemma/Luka, and so on), as long as you’ve been paying attention, but there are some that are a lot harder to guess. Thankfully, we’ve broken down which gifts are best for which character already.
All this to say that you’ll mainly be focusing on gift-giving for raising a party member’s Bond Level, just keep in mind that once you give them a gift once, repeating that same gift has almost no benefit and the recipient will just stare at you confused since handing them the same Gift over and over doesn't really make much sense.
Thankfully, there's a relatively hidden in-game counter in the Exchange Menu that tells you how many times you've given a gift to each character, so if you forgot what you've given out, this is a big help.
Complete Their Bond Episodes
And lastly, the Bond Episodes are the events that most often switch the character’s Bond from Rank One to Two and so on. These are most commonly activated through the Hideout, where'll you see a "Bond Episode" option pop up when talking to a character if their Bond Episode is available. But, they can also be triggered from Brain Messages too, so make sure to check for these messages often.
A lot of these Bond Events just have you fighting enemies with the specified character or include an additional scene alone with them. They're nice, but the lack of agency in Yuito/Kasane's choices makes it a bit harder to connect to the cast.
In any case, make sure to check your messages often, talk to characters after every gift given, and keep an eye on who is in your Active Party, and you should be well on your way to maxing out all the Bond Levels.
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