That was more of a cool mechanic than anything. A macro thing that was a neat addition to an RPG, because their friendship or relationship values would affect optional scenes you'd see, how likely they were to get pissed if the other fell in battle and so forth. It was one of the things that drew me to it as well, and it's completely different from the marketing, and the game itself, revolving around badly written romances specifically written for players (specifically females and gays) to get their rocks off.

(Edit: By 'macro thing' I mean you were sort of managing the relationships, you weren't down in the trenches.)