A more "Golden-like experience" for Persona 4

[Jou Ka]

Hello. Noob here. So if I ask something dumb, just say it straight out.

For some time, I've been thinking about creating (actually, having. Since I'm not a modder lol) a experience more similar to Persona 4 Golden, in the Vanilla version.

For all the mods already available out there. There are two that already do this:

- The P4G Chie Voice Mod by "ShrineFox" and "Qlonever"
- Time To Make History BGM Mod by "ShrineFox" too
- and a still WIP of portrait upscaling by "pigeonpoet"

and the widescreen patch helps too

after seeing all that, I was thinking if it could be even more like Golden

Well, I'm not exactly asking anyone to do all this, because it's way too much (but of course, I would appreciate if someone did at least one of these). But I want to know if it's somehow possible to make these mods and additions and how difficult it is. All for Persona 4 Vanilla:

- Any way to put the P4G font?

- Possible to change the text box too? To match the one in P4G.

- Changing the All Out Attack portraits? Again, something from Golden. It's just that the ones there have such a different art style

- Could I make some balance changes in the game like the ones done in Golden? For example: adding the Garudyne and Agidyne skills that Naoto got for her Persona there. It made her much more viable (specially in Boss Battles) there thanks to that. Also, changing skills SP cost. Like Megidolaon from 60 SP to 38 SP. It would grant a more similar experience, of course

and lastly

- TV Static Removal? P4G has a mod for this. Could there be one for P4 too?

not going to ask anything else. Because outside of that. I assume it gets impossible to add or unnecessary (like Teddie's VA. They are very similar. So...)

Well, this is it. Honestly, with all I asked. It would be just better if I actually bought myself a Vita and Persona 4 Golden, instead of asking for hard, time-consuming things like these

but anyway, thanks in advance. Sorry to bother

[Greymanz]

I too have been interested in backporting some of the graphics changes made in P4G. Of course, to do this youd actually need the sprites from P4G to backport, and so far I havent found a total dump of P4G's sprites. Im sure one exists though.

To extend your suggestion, I hope that we'd be able to backport the texture changes to the environments that P4G had. P4G's level of detail in environments is much better (assumedly due to more VRAM to use up) and I was wondering how much of the models, textures, etc could be ported backwards.

[Jou Ka]

oh, that's exactly something I wanted to suggest too. But I thought maybe it was way too much...

But it's true. The textures in P4G are much, much better. When you compare both games, P4 Vanilla looks grey in comparison to how nice and colorful P4G is.

I tried changing some settings here and there on the emulator... Changing the colors of my TV...

but nope. It's not enough. Gets better. But the textures in Golden? Honestly, if anyone were able to put those in P4 Vanilla, along with the text box and the font. Nobody would be able to tell the difference between both games at first glance

[ShrineFox]

Thanks to the HostFS modification, at least on PCSX2 we can finally add files to the game, so there does seem to be the potential of converting events (if we knew enough about PM1/2 files to make any necessary changes... not sure if the format or endianness is different). There's also the issue that RMD model importing isn't a complete rebuild like GFDStudio is capable of with P5's GMD models. Best we can do is replace existing meshes and re-use their rigs. There's also no animation importing for P3/4 at all yet, so new fields and character models currently have no way of accurately being carried over. Hopefully someday someone with a lot of patience and an understanding of RMD and Amicitia's code can add that feature.

I do think a bustup mod is possible though, they'd have to be scaled down to P4's size and converted to a lossier format but it might still benefit from the sharpness and color. We'd be better off using the texture loader from the same modified PCSX2 build people are using for AI upscaling if we want to benefit from the full quality and resolution of the new textures.

The Teddie voice port is also possible the same way as the Chie one, but potentially a lot of work for not a lot of difference which is why I haven't really prioritized it myself

[DniweTamp]

- Any way to put the P4G font?

well I tried importing P5R font and here's how that looks like

[DniweTamp]

Also here's Golden backport

[DniweTamp]

released both of them

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=246

[Greymanz]

Thanks to the HostFS modification, at least on PCSX2 we can finally add files to the game, so there does seem to be the potential of converting events (if we knew enough about PM1/2 files to make any necessary changes... not sure if the format or endianness is different). There's also the issue that RMD model importing isn't a complete rebuild like GFDStudio is capable of with P5's GMD models. Best we can do is replace existing meshes and re-use their rigs. There's also no animation importing for P3/4 at all yet, so new fields and character models currently have no way of accurately being carried over. Hopefully someday someone with a lot of patience and an understanding of RMD and Amicitia's code can add that feature.

I do think a bustup mod is possible though, they'd have to be scaled down to P4's size and converted to a lossier format but it might still benefit from the sharpness and color. We'd be better off using the texture loader from the same modified PCSX2 build people are using for AI upscaling if we want to benefit from the full quality and resolution of the new textures.

The Teddie voice port is also possible the same way as the Chie one, but potentially a lot of work for not a lot of difference which is why I haven't really prioritized it myself

Would it be possible to backport some of the environment models and textures? I know a lot of the signage and sharpness of textures was upped for P4G so it would be interesting to see a backport of the various graphical improvements of Golden before we eventually upscale said textures in the texture replacement build. Itd be a small change but I swear I can notice minor improvements to environments across the board, and itd be really interesting to see said improvements on the higher screen res of PCSX2.

I personally never though adding new events would be possible. Does this mean we could add the ski event with enough effort, or even add Marie into the game? I didnt know HostFS gave us such a strong degree of control where we can actually add new files to the game instead of adding replacements.