Why Direct Commands Make The Most Sense For Persona

 Newer Persona fans may not realize this, but in the original version of Persona 3 and the FES remake, you could only control your player character, and could only give general instructions to your party members(for example "Conserve SP"). All this changed in the fourth game, which gave players the ability to control all their party members, a feature that caused some controversy when it was included in Persona 3 Portable. I'm firmly on the side of it being a good thing, as well as a necessary part of gameplay.

Part of the problem is that the AI party members don't always make the best decisions. It can be hard to tell what their priorities are without investigating the game's code, but they often choose their moves poorly. One meme involves Mitsuru using Marin Karin instead of healing the player, resulting in a Game Over. To elaborate, Marin Karin is a move that has a low chance of charming the enemies and making them your allies. It sounds good in theory, but the chance of success is too low to be reliable, so most players would prefer to pick her ice skills, her healing abilities or even her physical attacks..

In a related issue, you aren't able to choose which skills your party members get. For example, Mitsuru. will not allow you to get rid of the mostly useless Marin Karin skill, and will also replace Ice Boost(+25% to Ice damage) with Ice Amp(+50% damage)  despite the fact that the two skills stack.

Second, there are a few battles that become much more difficult without the ability to control your party members.

  • Chariot and Justice: If you defeat one while the other is still alive, it will use Samarecarm on its partner, reviving it with full health. If the AI is controlling your characters, you have to make sure that it doesn't kill one half of the duo until the other is weak enough to die in one or two attacks.
  • Hermit: It has a deadly electric attack called Giga Spark that has a long charge time. Guarding the attack will significantly reduce the damage and prevent it from affecting those weak to electricity (Yukari, Aigis), but that's easier with a manual party.
  • Nyx Avatar: Specifically, the last phase. It can use an attack called Moonless Gown that repels all attacks. Cautious and shrewd players can take advantage of this period to heal the party, apply buffs and charge up, but players with AI parties will have to worry about their members not killing themselves.

Third, the ability to automatically control party members makes more sense in an RPG with real-time combat. For example, in the Final Fantasy VII Remake, battles happen in real time, and the AI controls your teammates, although you can switch between party members as necessary, especially when deciding how to spend their ATB charges. Persona 3, however, is entirely turn-based, and those RPGs generally require you to take the time to think over your moves carefully before acting. There's a certain amount of sense in forcing you to decide how your party members should act, but the game works best when every decision counts, and you're responsible for making the optimal moves on each party member's turn.

Lastly, it can be rather frustrating to have much of your control taken away from you. In a battle with a full party of four against five enemies, you will only be in control one out of every five to nine turns, and will spend most of your time watching your allies and enemies fighting.

To be blunt, letting the AI control most of your party no longer has a place in the Persona series, and perhaps it never did. Rather than require players to trust their AI-controlled teammates to do the right thing, Atlus should instead challenge them to make the best use of their abilities, thereby giving players more freedom and responsibility for their own success

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