I wanna play the trilogy with a gamepad, but I can't get even the most remote functionality out of my DualShock 4. I've tried launching from the offline backup, launching from GOG Galaxy, adding the game to Steam, launching from Big Picture mode, all of which with and without using DS4Windows. I also can't get XInput Plus to even recognize my controller when I tried the method from PCGamingWiki.

In-game, whenever I try to change control mappings in the options menu, all I can get is whatever I first try to change will be automatically set to Z-Axis. I cannot change mappings to anything other than that, no matter what buttons or keys I press (and yes, this is under the gamepad settings in-game)

Any and all suggestions are appreciated

Games from that time require DirectInput controllers, which the PS4 controller is not, it's a XInput controller.

There are some posts in other threads about controller issues and fixes for them.

As an alternative, keep a old DirectInput controller with square stick movement for up to early 2000s games at hand.