The Best Way to Play One of the Greatest JRPGs Ever Made Is on PC with Persona 4 Golden

I would have laughed at you if you had asked me whether I thought Persona 4 Golden would ever leave the PS Vita. I would have bet that Persona 5 would be ported to death before Persona 4 received any affection, not because I believed it was impossible. As of little under two weeks ago, Persona 4 Golden Surprise made its Steam debut, so you can see why I'm not a better guy. I've been playing about with the port, and while it's nothing revolutionary, it's quite sturdy.

PC ports from recently arrived Japanese developers have always been, at best, difficult to use and, at worst, completely broken. Given that Persona 4 Golden is eight years old (or twelve if you include the 2008 original PlayStation 2 release), it should not have been shocking that the most current port was identical to the PC Vita version of the game in terms of resolution, frame rate, and lack of keyboard and mouse support. Thankfully, that isn't the case here, but it also doesn't go beyond bounds.

The PC version of Persona 4 incorporates all the features that made the 2012 version unique. Together with your expanding group of pals, you're continuing investigating a string of killings in the Inaba area, managing your social life in between dungeon dives, and gathering personalities to strengthen your position of authority inside The Midnight Channel. Now available on PC, this is the same magnificent five-out-of-five experience. It's wonderful to know that Persona 4 Golden may now, at last, appeal to a far larger audience. However, if the port is a complete disaster, even a great game won't be worth playing on a new platform, and I'm glad to say that this one isn't.

Permit me to be upfront for a second: Thanks to HD and UHD compatibility, Persona 4 Golden still has a PlayStation 2 aesthetic, albeit one that is less pixelated and jagged. The landscapes might sometimes seem very murky since the textures are the same as they were on the Vita in 2012, but there is enough artistic flare to prevent the game from becoming an eyesore. Despite this, we love the higher resolution, which supports 4K and beyond. You can also increase the resolution by 200%, which makes sense given that Persona 4 Golden's visuals, which are almost ten years outdated, can be easily handled by contemporary technology.

Though there are still problems, even the framerate has seen a welcome increase over the initial 30 frames per second restriction. The game can only be played at 60 frames per second while V-Sync is enabled; an arbitrary limit cannot be chosen. While the game may run at an infinite framerate when V-Sync is off, there is significant horizontal screen tearing. Fans who want to play Persona 4 Golden at higher framerates than that will have to accept the screen tearing. Even manually activating V-Sync via the Nvidia Control Panel limited the game to 60 FPS. Moreover, the game's motion blur is enhanced by higher framerates, at least while jogging around the town. For the most part, players would be better off leaving V-Sync on since it's rather disorienting.

Regarding the visual options, they are all really basic. The render scale may be increased to 200%, the anisotropic filtering can be adjusted to be Off, Low, or High, shadow quality can be changed to Low, Med, or High, and anti-aliasing can be enabled or disabled. These settings are not robust, even though that's more than even I had anticipated. However, because Persona 4 is a PlayStation 2 game, even these little adjustments significantly improve the overall visual quality in comparison to what we experienced on the Vita.

The functionality for keyboard and mouse is also integrated quite nicely. The default key mapping isn't perfect, but it's still not horrible, and you may reassign keys as required (though there aren't many alternatives available). The menus really function with mouse inputs, and the mouse and keyboard settings are more than enough. Thanks to the mouse and keyboard options, you may even play the game with only one hand, but controller aficionados will still prefer to use a controller.

Persona 4 Golden for PC was obviously assembled with some consideration and care, even if it is not the most technically intricate version. Since Atlus released Persona 4 Golden for the PC, I hope that in the future, more ports will be able to access this port. Since the game's launch on Steam, it has done well, so maybe Persona 3 and 5 will at the very least receive ports soon.

If not, Persona 4 Golden is still among the best JRPGs ever created. Even after twelve years, the tale still has the same effect on viewers, the cast is undoubtedly the best in the series, and the fighting still looks good. Even if Persona 5 has almost perfected the system, Persona 4 Golden is still worthwhile to play in the modern day. For $20, it's a good price for what is still a long, excellent experience.

Check out Will's review of Persona 4 Golden proper for the original PS Vita version to find out our thoughts on the game. In 2020, his 2012 observations still hold true, and the PC version offers the greatest opportunity to experience Atlus' magnum opus for yourself. Fans may play the game at visually pleasing resolutions and an enhanced framerate with acceptable keyboard and mouse functionality, even if it may not be the most robust of ports. In the end, that's a significant victory for Atlus and the supporters alike.