PERSONA FUCKING FOUR

FUCK YEAH PERSONA SHADES

I'll go into more depth once the battle video uploads but generally here are the changes so far:
Game seems generally harder.
You can fully control your teammates (thank fucking god)
No more kiting, which was essential in hard mode FES, drag a monster far enough from it's starting point and it will teleport back instead of turning around with its back wide open.
Backstabs are infinitely harder, monsters have eyes in the back of their head it seems and WILL ! mark even if you approach directly from behind.
The purple foes have a wide arc of turn meaning you can miss the initial stab and get enemy advantaged yourself.
Guarding reduces damage and also PREVENTS YOU FROM BEING DOWNED if you are hit in weakness.
There seem to be a lot of ways to cover your weakness, second boss used a spell that changed her weakness of wind into half damage, then she'd pop off with zionga or what not, one more turn because I forgot to defend with Yosukie, and then status effect +30 damage him or so.
Also, shuffle has changed to some weird spinny atom type deal.