Every Persona 3 Reload Social Link - Ranked

2 – Mamoru Hayase

Hayase is probably not a common number two pick, but he’s one of my personal favorites. One of the main reasons for this is how grounded his story is. While others have issues stemming from their desires not being fulfilled, certain social positions, and a myriad of other things. Hayase’s Link is centered around a very material reality: affording to live.

He’s a character who has to balance the expectations of an entire town with the material needs of his family and basic things like rent and food. Meeting him was a nice reward for losing multiple days to mid-summer track practice, and his Link gives us some of the only real rivalry scenes for the player character in all of Persona 3 Reload. The ending to his Social Link, in which he moves away for work but finds a way to keep running track with his coworker, is a satisfying twist of circumstance that again falls in line with some of the messages of the Persona franchise as a whole.

The pressure he felt was because of how much everyone supported him, so he felt incredible guilt in choosing to take care of his family. But ultimately, he learned that support from those who truly cared for him was not conditional on him becoming a college track star, and the people around him were still able to give him some outlet into the sport he loved even while he did what he had to. I think learning to make the best of bad and completely unfair circumstances is a lesson a lot of people resonate with, and it’s done quite well in the game.