This is a really cool puzzle game and very innovative! It's an actually novel idea, and I ended up having a lot of fun with it trying to figure out ways to navigate around the data.
I ended up having to build a lot of strategies around just a few key cross-gen relationships that I was aware of so I could jump between ID, JP, Regloss and EN. Then there were a few particularly tricky members that did not have relationships with the rest of their gen so you had to specifically plan around it!
It was a very tough puzzle game, but it was one that had me pulling around wikis and pouring over documents in order to guess the database.
There were a few things that surprised me though. For instance, I am a Zeta fan and I thought for sure that Zeta x Ririka would be a link, (Ririka is practically Zeta's mom) but I guess it wasn't there in this database. Or maybe there just isn't a lot of fanart around it.
Anyways, the strategy guide for me is as follows:
1. Generally any members within the same gen are usually relatively connected. There are a few exceptions in the very newest gens (FLOWGLOW) but you can usually hop between members of a gen relatively freely. Therefore as soon as you reach a gen, you should think about which member in the generation can be used as a way to hop "out" into a different generation.
2. There are relatively few links between JP/Regloss and EN/ID so you should have 1 or 2 links in mind for how you will eventually switch branches. Regloss in particular is very difficult due to them being newer so I built my entire strategy around knowing how I can enter and exit regloss.
3. Gens are generally relatively connected with the generation immediately after them, so there are a lot of options to choose from. Once you get into a branch, you can usually just go down the same branch.
4. Mel stands out in particular for being exceptionally difficult in collabs. The only ones I found at all were Mel x Haachama, and Mel x Choco.
Roboco is also quite difficult mainly due to lacking connections with most of her own generation.
For me, my strategy went:
- I first try to reach EN or ID. They are quite internally interconnected and it is comparatively easy to full clear them. I used Biboo -> Kaela as a bridge between the two gens. However, there are other options.
If I ended on EN, I used Cecilia to jump to Sora. If I ended up ID, I used Ollie to jump to Haachama. Generally it is easier to end with ID and go to Haachama
Roboco/Mel in particular is a difficult area. But you can get through these difficult ones by going Haachama -> Mel -> Choco -> Aki -> Roboco -> Sora/Luna/Matsuri. This clears out 2 of the hardest members to find relationships at once.
From this point on, I just go down the gens, 2->3->gamers->4->5->6. I then use Lui to jump directly to Niko, clear out FLOWGLOW and use Su to jump to Hajime.
It was actually really fun to fill out this puzzle! What a cool idea. The only nitpick I think is that the window where you select members is a little too small.