Suikoden I & II HD Remaster: Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars review — Go and write your own fates

Suikoden and Suikoden II are absolutely classics, but it’s been a whopping 30 years since the first game came to the United States, with Suikoden coming out in December of 1995 and the sequel arriving in December of 1998.  Between then and now there have been 11 mainline games and offshoot side stories, with 7 of them making their way to North America.  While the third game continues to be a personal favorite of mine, the first two games are foundational PlayStation 1 titles that established my deep-seated love of JRPGs.  We’ve been waiting a very long time for these games, so I’m eager to tell you what’s new.

If you’ve never played Suikoden, the name translates roughly to “Fantasy Water Margin”, loosely based on the classical Chinese novel Water Margin which is then translated to Japanese as Suikoden (水滸伝).  Water Margin is the story of the outlaw Song Jiang and his 108 companions (or “stars of destiny” in this game) and their exploits.  Song travels China, gathering soldiers to fight a corrupt government using extraordinary powers.  In Suikoden, the themes are similar, with the games focusing on politics, war, corruption, the gathering of “True Runes”, collecting the “108 Stars of Destiny” and ultimately large scale army battles.  Both games exist in the same world, with a handful of characters making repeat appearances, but ultimately you can play either one without having played the other.  

Given that this is a remaster, there are a number of upgrades and quality of life improvements.  The most obvious, of course, is the graphical uplift.  Remember in 1995 and 1998 we were using 4:3 televisions running 640×240 resolution. If you’re old enough to remember how awful that was, I promise you it’s actually worse. Somehow, however, the Konami team managed to wring the PlayStation for every drop of power, stuffing in some gorgeous textures and building impactful scenes out of all 33 Mhz of juice that little disc spinner was capable of delivering.  This remaster sees all of those 4:3 ratio scenes re-rendered at 16:9 for modem machines, breathing new life into the pixel art.  Judge for yourself

As you can see, it’s a complete overhaul of just about everything.  Lighting, environmental effects, smoothness of animations, entirely new character and monster sprites, and even fresh hand-drawn character portraits, bringing new life to every conversation. Backgrounds have also gotten a retouch, showcasing the parallax scrolling nicely.  This is a fantastic refresh as it preserves the feel of the original, while bringing it up to today’s standards. 

Beyond the graphics, you’ve probably also noticed a solid upgrade in the audio department. Sound effects have been enhanced and re-recorded to give the game more punch.  The soundtrack seems to have gotten a bit of a retouch as well, but that could be the nostalgia talking. 

Beyond the obvious, there are a handful of meaningful quality of life improvements.  First and foremost, you now have an auto-save before major battles.  Sure, there are often orbs to pick up a save before you head into the fight, but the game now makes sure you’ve got a way to back up.  In other JRPGs of the time you could get trapped in a fight and be unable to escape to level up (Lookin at you Final Fantasy Tactics), but this ensures that doesn’t happen here.  You’ll still visit an Inn to save your progress, but now the game will at least give you the courtesy of saving every so often.  It’s not frequent, so you’ll want to rest and save to ensure you don’t lose progress on a wipe.  

I was happy to see another quality of life item – dashing is available from the very start of the game, allowing you to get around far faster than in the original releases you'd have to recruit a specific character or attach a Holy Rune to one of your party members to be able to run, and even then it was restricted to dungeons and town maps.  Now you are free to run around as much as you want.  Freedom!

Another happy quality of life item is a new conversation log system. Now you can scroll back and revisit a conversation log to see what somebody said.  This is handy if you were to pause your game, come back, and have no idea what you were doing. In the Suikoden I capture you can see that I clearly ignored Kraze’s orders, gave him a smart alec answer, and then promptly got lost.  

There are still a few bugs to squash. Twice I had the game fail to load up entirely, kicking up a black screen and forcing a full game restart.  Thankfully the team has patched twice in pre-launch, so there’s a good chance it could be ironed out before you ever even see the game.  There are the occasional grammatical errors throughout the game, but they are even more minor than they were in the initial release.  

Suikoden I and II are a lot about relationships and questing, but eventually you’re gonna tangle with foes. A new 2x battle speed and auto-battle makes taking out fodder enemies fairly easy, reducing the grinding feeling dramatically.  It’s a welcome addition, as is the ability to move diagonally.  It seems like such a minor thing, but being able to cut the corners marks the movement feel more natural.  

I do wish one element made its way backwards from the second title to the first – Optimization.  In Suikoden II, you can buy equipment, throw it on right then, trade in your gear for potch while still in the vendor window, or throw it back into your bag, and even click “Optimize” to allow the game to equip what it believes is the best equipment in your possession.  It’s handy for keeping you moving instead of digging around in menus, so I was sad to see that it hadn’t made its way backwards to the first title.  

If you’re a fan of the series and playing these games, you’re likely going to try to go for a completionist run.  That means collecting all 108 characters (and yes, you can permanently miss some in both games – check a guide if you need to) and finding all the hidden dialogue options and a handful of good and bad endings.  Each run of Suikoden will take roughly 25 hours, with the second game clocking in at easily double that.  That makes this package deal even better as you can carry your save file forward from the first game to the second once you’ve beaten the game.  

All Suikoden games eventually provide a base or castle to call home.  Once you reach this point you’ll spend more than a few cycles scouring the globe to find all 108 stars.  Many of these characters can use a Unite skill with one another to unleash incredible damage.  An early-game example from the second game could be Rina, her sister Ellie, and their friend Bolgan.  The trio are a troupe called the "Fire Bringers", and they travel around the world performing as a circuit act.  In combat, Bolgan will use his fire breathing skill while the sisters both support him from behind to unleash a great deal of damage.  In the first Suikoden game you might combine Kai and Tir for some no-cost rapid attacks.  The great news is that there is no "right answer", as the games encourage you to recruit and experiment to your heart's content.  

Expanding your forces is just one use for the castle, as it also serves as your upgrade zone. Your castle is fairly run down to start, but opening an inn, recruiting a Smithy, building a storehouse, and other shops will eventually give you access to improve it to the next level, allowing you to further expand its capabilities with things like a card game area, a party change room, and so much more.  It scratches the completionist itch in me, and it’s easily one of my favorite parts of every game in this series.  

You aren’t just building this castle as a place to call home – it’s also where you’ll stage your army for war.  The two games utilize very different mechanics for their army battles, with the first game using a modified paper-rock-scissors approach, whereas the second game is more like a standard JPRG approach.  By way of example, in Suikoden you’ll field Magic users, Charge units, and long range Bow users.  As you play you’ll see how these interplay and what wins against what. These can be bolstered by Ninjas to try to suss out the enemy’s next move, Thieves to try to steal resources, Strategists to increase the power of Infantry Units by 50%, and more.  I won’t spoil more than that – you can discover the other unit types yourself. Suikoden II instead has a grid system and utilizes turn-based battles.  You can bolster your armies with support units like healers and  bodyguards.  Both are engaging in different ways, making all the recruiting and build-up worthwhile.  

Suikoden I and II are both bona fide classics, and easily one of the most revered JRPGs of their time. They tackled topics like morality during war, friendship, religion, love, loyalty, and so much more, and they did so while telling a compelling story with awesome combat. In many ways it was ahead of its time, containing many features that wouldn’t appear in other games for years to come. Seeing Konami come back to this series to breathe new life into it is encouraging.  Suikoden III is one of my favorite games of all time, and this is one step closer to a remaster for that game as well, and perhaps, if we’re very lucky, maybe one day, a return to this amazing series.