Usage Instructions
Step 1: Prepare Game Files on PC
Install Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It on Steam. It's an excellent free visual novel game with about 4 hours of gameplay.
If you need a translation, please find a suitable translation patch on Steam or elsewhere and install it as required. Note: This port does not guarantee that translations will work correctly, but the Chinese translation patch I tested worked fine. Hopefully patches in other languages will work as well.
Right-click the game in your Steam library and select Manage -> Browse local files.
Copy the game/ folder from your Steam game directory to the root of this repository (the folder containing scripts_for_vita/).
Step 2: Run Optimization Scripts (Required)
⚠️ You MUST run one of the following scripts

Option 1: True Lossless Version (Pure unpacking and video removal, no other optimizations)

python scripts_for_vita/run_true_lossless.py
Only performs unpacking and removal of WebM videos, without modifying any images or GUI. Keeps game resources completely original.

Option 2: Lossless Optimization (Optimizes for Vita resolution to make text more readable, may cause some translation patches to behave abnormally)

python scripts_for_vita/run_lossless_w_gui.py
In addition to Option 1, this also optimizes the GUI scaling and image sizes from the original game's 720P resolution for PS Vita.

Option 3: Compressed (Smoother gaming experience)

python scripts_for_vita/run_compressed.py
In addition to Option 2, this performs lossy compression on images and audio to achieve the smallest file size, reducing Vita IO pressure for a smoother gaming experience.

If there are uninstalled dependencies during execution, please interact and install them automatically. Wait for the optimization to complete before proceeding to the next step!

Step 3: Copy Optimized Files to Vita
Download the VPK file and install it on your PS Vita
Copy the optimized game/ folder (just processed by the script) to ux0:app/ZATO01986/
Run Z.A.T.O on your Vita (first launch may take 5-10 minutes)
Have fun!
Known Issues
First-time loading: Due to resource caching and Python precompilation, the first launch may take 5-10 minutes. Subsequent launches will be much faster.
Resource loading stutters: When loading new resources not in cache (images, audio), the game may stutter. This is a hardware limitation of Vita IO speed.
No video support: Ren'Py Vita currently doesn't support video playback, so all videos will be removed by the remove_op.py script (fortunately, this game only contains an opening animation). The original opening animation is quite well-made and highly recommended to watch.
Memory limitations: Some high-resolution resources may cause memory issues. If you encounter crashes, please use the compressed option.
Save Data: Save files are stored in the standard Ren'Py location on Vita. The game uses the same save format as the PC version. Saves may become invalid if you change the game/ folder, or possibly after the first installation. I haven't fully verified this.
Detailed Script Descriptions (For those interested in how the porting works)
Workflow Scripts
run_true_lossless.py
Execution order: unpack_and_decompile.py → remove_op.py

run_lossless_w_gui.py
Execution order: unpack_and_decompile.py → remove_op.py → optimize_gui.py → optimize_images.py

run_compressed.py
Execution order: unpack_and_decompile.py → remove_op.py → optimize_gui.py → optimize_images_v2.py → optimize_snow.py → optimize_audio.py

Standalone Function Scripts
unpack_and_decompile.py
Unpacks .rpa resource files and decompiles .rpyc files into editable .rpy scripts. Automatically detects and installs required dependencies (rpatool, unrpyc).

Processing steps:

Finds and extracts all .rpa files
Decompiles all .rpyc files
Deletes residual .rpa files
Deletes decompiled .rpyc files
optimize_gui.py
Scales GUI elements to fit the PS Vita screen resolution (960x544). Scales the original resolution 1280x720 by a factor of 0.75. Automatically creates .backup backup files.

Main modifications:

Scales all GUI configuration values (text boxes, buttons, borders, etc.)
Adjusts font sizes to maintain readability
Modifies gui.init to 960x544
Adds scrolling support (viewport) for dialogue text
optimize_images.py
Losslessly resizes images to fit the PS Vita screen while maintaining original image quality.

Target directories: game/images/ and game/gui/
Uses LANCZOS resampling to maintain image quality
JPEG save quality 95%
optimize_images_v2.py
Lossy palette compression version to reduce IO pressure. Uses pngquant (automatically downloaded) or built-in MAXCOVERAGE algorithm for better compression ratios.

Compression strategy:

Transparent PNG → 64-color palette
Large PNG files (>150KB) → 128-color palette
Small PNG files → 32-color palette
JPEG → quality 60
optimize_audio.py
Automatically selects the best compression strategy based on file type and size to reduce IO pressure. Automatically downloads ffmpeg if not installed.

Compression strategy:

BGM (>1MB): MP3 64kbps / OGG quality 3
Sound effects (<100KB): MP3 96kbps / OGG quality 5
Voice (voice/*): MP3 80kbps / OGG quality 4
WAV/Other formats: Converted to OGG
optimize_snow.py
Optimizes snow particle effects for better performance on Vita. Modifies game/snowblossom.rpy.

Optimizations:

Maximum particles: 50 → 25
Depth layers: 10 → 5
Caches screen dimensions to avoid per-frame config access
Uses local variables to reduce property access
Optimizes boundary check logic
remove_op.py
Scans and removes WebM video references (Vita doesn't support video playback).

python remove_op.py # Default: scan and clean
python remove_op.py --dry-run # Preview mode: show actions to be performed
python remove_op.py --restore # Restore mode: uncomment WebM code
python remove_op.py --scan-only # Scan only: show discovered WebM files and references
Processing content:

Scans all .webm files
Comments out lines containing movie_cutscene
Deletes .webm files (not deleted in restore mode)
generate_sys_imgs.py
Generates PS Vita system images (for LiveArea) from game resources. The results of this script are already packaged in the vpk, provided here for reference only.

Generated files:

scripts_for_vita/sce_sys/icon0.png (128x128) - Game icon
scripts_for_vita/sce_sys/livearea/contents/startup.png (280x158) - Startup image
scripts_for_vita/sce_sys/livearea/contents/bg.png (960x544) - Background image
scripts_for_vita/sce_sys/pic0.png (960x544) - Cover image
Credits
Z.A.T.O. // I Love the World and Everything In It: I love this game
Ren'Py PSVita: Thanks to this, I could port this game to Vita
RenPy-Vita-8: Thanks to this, Python3 Ren'Py games can be successfully ported
Kimi K2.5: I used this LLM to write the code and documentation for this repository
Hope this repository can help others port more Ren'Py games to Vita

Name

Version

Released

Hits

DL Link

QR