I never actually thought about how AI-controlled teammates could be seen as those teammates actually seeming like their own person independent of the player. That’s actually a really cool way to look at it. While I like your interpretation of what that game mechanic means in the original Persona 3, the first time my veteran Persona player friend told me about that mechanic, I loudly exclaimed that I probably would have hated having to play through that, lol. Different strokes for different folks. You’re dead on that this game is worth giving a shot if you’ve never played Persona before. It’s one of my favorite games of all time now. It’s insane how much of an impact it had on me. Great review.