Finally, after spending the last few years in an unfortunate purgatory on PlayStation Vita, Persona 4 Golden is out now on PC. Several Persona fans who, for one reason or another, didn't get to experience the fourth entry finally get their chance to play. Persona 4 was first released on the PS2, two years after the PS3 released. Then it was re-released on Vita, not on a mainstream console. Regardless of the hardcore fans that wanted to play the game, Persona 4's exposure was almost always hampered by its platform before coming to PC.
But, as with the gloriously peculiar and unique world of PC gaming, Persona 4 Golden is now open for tinkering with the modding community. Well not open per se, but like any other big game on PC, there will almost certainly be a slew of mods coming for the JRPG soon. Whether it's a few balance or randomizer mods to change up the difficulty of the game, or a massive overhaul to the game, here's a wish list of Persona 4 Golden modes to come to PC.
P4G: Texture and Model Overhaul Mods
First and foremost, this particular mod would make a lot of sense for Persona 4 Golden on PC. Despite how great the game does look with a higher resolution and better anti-aliasing, the game still utilizes the same textures that were present in the original PS2 release of Persona 4. Minor graphical enhancements are usually the first mods applied to newly released PC titles, ranging from color reshades and brightness/contrast edits to full on texture updates. There's even some Golden mods from the Vita that are compatible with the PC version out now on GameBanana and Nexus Mods. Eventually, full on texture enhancement and asset replacement will be available as Golden modders experiment with the game files, and that'll go a long way in bringing the game to life on PC.
Obviously, that's not to say the original graphics are bad, as it's an evolution of the iconic art style pioneered in Persona 3. But Persona 4 originally came out on PS2, and since then, there hasn't significantly changed any textures in any subsequent releases. With a lower resolution and less anti-aliasing on less powerful devices, this was never a problem due to the limitations of the PS2's graphical fidelity. But now on PC, where a large variety of players will be playing the game at higher resolution and greater framerates, there are certainly aspects of the game's graphics that can feel dated. Any low-poly environments like trees along the road will definitely show their age, and while many will enjoy the nostalgia, it's practically begging to be modded.
P4G: Balance Changes and New Content Mods
Another popular mod type for JRPGs like Persona are difficulty/balance mods. Hardcore fans who've pushed through a long RPG multiple times on the highest difficulty sometimes want to dive even further into that diretion, so randomizers and high difficulty mods are the way to go. Balance mods typically involve the changing of damage types and values for various enemies throughout the normal playthrough. Of course, modders can dictate what changes they want to make, but usually balance mods are in service for making customized hard modes from hardcore fans that are particularly challenging.
Assuming the mods want to go even further, there's always adding in fan-made or cut content from the game. In terms of Persona 4 Golden, there's plenty of cut content that fans would want to see. For one thing, there was a planned Yosuke romance that was cut from the game, according to unused audio files in Persona 4 Golden. There's also the unique content that modders and creators implement into the game, such as new abilities, skins, or scenarios, either from other Persona games or something completely original. This is where the modding community truly shines, and while these types of modifications are much more complex and harder to insert into the game, eventually mods will be able to make Persona 4 Golden a completely different and beautiful beast.
The Usual Modding Absurdity
And then there's the absurd mods, because everyone in the modding community likes to dip into memes and in-jokes. Randomizers in particular are pretty common silly mods for most RPGs. Randomizers are typically for the absurd playthroughs, ranging from meme-worthy to absurdly difficult. The concept of a randomizer mod is to take every enemy type in the game and apply a random element to each battle. In the case of Persona, that would mean every single enemy encounter would contain a randomly selected enemy from the entire game, bosses potentially included as well. This can lead to some...interesting interactions throughout the playthrough. Some of which have already been implemented in Persona 4 and Persona 5, and dominate the two games on sites like YouTube.
Plus, with all the aforementioned types of modes above, there's also plenty of joke-versions of these memes as well. Everyone knows about those model swap mods in games like Resident Evil that swap Mr. X with Thomas the Tank Engine. Considering Persona games typically generate memes of their own regardless, modders could have a field day with editing the files of Persona 4 Golden. It's impossible to even dive into all the possible changes modders could make to the overall game, but like modders usually do, there'll certainly be some absurd surprises down the road for Persona 4 Golden's life on PC.
Persona 4 Golden is available now on PC via Steam.