Bonds are vital in Rise of the Ronin because growing close to characters has valuable rewards. It is also one of the best ways to get special skill points, which every character gives. Though there are certainly obvious means of doing this, you can raise character bonds in ways you might not expect.
All Ways to Raise Character Bonds in Rise of the Ronin
Giving gifts is the most obvious method of building character bonds, but a cooldown gets in the way. There are other ways, but not all of them let you choose the related character directly.
Gambling
It’s a bit harder to figure out who will be affected, but there are characters whose bonds will rise because you play a few rounds of Odds & Evens. It’s hard to tell if this still counts if you end your gambling sessions by catching a cheater, but if you quit normally, there will be a bond boost.
Dojo
If your ally is a fighting character, you can spar with them in the Dojo. If you win the fight, your bond with them will increase. You can’t keep challenging them repeatedly, but you can move on to someone else and fight them again later.
Bond Missions
With the exception of one character, every other ally in the game (and even some you can’t take on missions) will have a Bond Mission. These aren’t missable, and it is highly recommended that you complete them as you go instead of returning to clean them up later.
Finish Ronin Missions With Allies
This one is obvious but can be tedious, as the game has 32 allies and only so many missions. You can’t just bring them out in the mission for the bond increase, either; you have to run the whole mission. This isn’t a terrible idea on quick missions like the Naosuke Ii fight, but it will get boring fast.
Combining every means of increasing character bonds above should quickly get you to level four with them in Rise of the Ronin. If there is anyone you’d like to focus on specifically but aren’t sure what to do, ask us in the comments, and we’ll look into it.
