Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Gate Rune & Dunan Unification Wars Wars Review

Before Final Fantasy VII put RPG overall into mainstream, Suikoden became one of the first quality role-playing champions released outside of Japan. The game's main ego is based on the level of Chinese literary classics: a young wanderer and his friends gather together to form 108 stars of destiny, build a grand rebel outpost, and eventually overthrow an evil empire. Suikoden's success will inspire multiple sequels, including the immediate follow-up Suikoden II, which is regarded by many as a shiny gem in the PS1 RPG library.

However, with fame and praise, there is a price tag: The original copy of Suikoden II runs for hundreds of dollars, even with several famous, broken game bugs inadvertently introduced in the English version. Here, Konami seems to be waving in the rescue, offering Suikoden I and II together at a low price, and hopefully getting beautiful new HD graphics and bonus features. This was announced in 2022 and now it’s two and a half years due to the delay and we finally have the Suikoden I&II HD Remaster – I don’t know how this time has been spent cooking in the oven all the time.

First, let's talk about the game itself. Many years ago, I played both titles on PS1. The original Suikoden was the most exciting game for me because it has been twenty years since I last played it and I have forgotten a lot. I'm happy to rediscover a pleasant, breeze RPG with fast-paced story, turn-based combat and fascinating sense of humor. It's short and due to the lack of loading time and increased combat acceleration options, you can easily do all the optional content in 15-20 hours.

Even though Suikoden itself is a high-quality outing, it still appears in a short way: the plot's breakthrough pace still shocks a lot of the story and character development (and the shocking lovers are almost shockingly ridiculous prophecy), while the rebels against the big rebels are that the big story points in the big stories appear on the big bread. Suikoden II is a bigger, better game in many ways, especially storytelling: characters and plots usually have more time to breathe and develop, making the bet higher and having a greater impact on the twist – and more, you can see and learn more about many characters from the first game. There are 108 characters to recruit in each title, so some on the team won't get much screen time, but Suikoden II does a better job of making everyone in your army feel important. This is also a longer game, as you can expect your game time to last about 30-40 hours from start to finish. This is one of my favorites on PS1 during the launch and it is still great to date.

Like most HD retesters, the large upfront selling point is HD visuals: high-resolution 2D graphics and widescreen environments. The environment and character portraits have undergone a major makeover, the background looks incredible and detailed, while the portraits are repainted and recolored by original artists Junko Kawano and Fumi Ishikawa. However, this is the first major stumbling block to the collection, but some questionable decisions were made when redone the graphics.

While some elements look great, the actual sprites are not getting the same treatment. They are the same as the original version, just sharper to HD displays. In the HD-2D title of Square-Enix, there is no extra effort or graphic scam that can blend these pixel sprites with detailed backgrounds, so you can constantly conflict with characters made from razor pose pixels that look awkward and dispersive consistently. In battles where camera discs and zooms are common, asset mismatch is particularly noticeable. I know Suikoden has a lot of characters and it might be a lot of work to re-draw all the sprites in HD, but the method used here means that the characters and backgrounds don't blend naturally.

But, besides graphics, what kind of upgrades can you get from these recreators? Unfortunately, there is not much attention. Some of the additions – for example, game galleries and game-specific tweaks in faster, more free-movement in Suikoden I – have been around in PSP re-release and never left it out of Japan. The only significant changes to this release (besides visual updates) are the combat acceleration option, the dialogue log returns 100 text boxes, fast to unit loading time, and many bug fixes in both games.

Of course these are not Bad Added, but they are your absolute minimum minimum meaning for remakes. Some very obvious changes in quality of life are completely unresolved.

For example, Suikoden I's item management is known to be bad – you can't see if a person can equip the gear when giving it to them or taking it out of storage, you can't exchange items with a character holding the maximum amount, and you can't store or withdraw multiple items at once. These are the amenities you take for granted in a modern RPG, but were not standardized in 1996. This can quickly get messy when you have dozens of roles with separate inventory to manage. Has this changed in any meaningful way? Well, an important item (the flashing mirror of a quick trip) is transferred from the stock space that takes up the character to your plot bag – that's it. In addition, there are other grips. Why do I have to readjust my battle speed Every battle? Where are all the extras for Suikoden that I posted on Saturn of Japan? The whole package is just a halo of missed opportunities, which is especially disappointing for me given my years of delay.

For now, this is the packaging for two great games that can be served. In addition to some interface problems, most of them are cultural relics from the game era. Wrong With Suikoden I and II – they are still as good as ever. However, it is difficult to get rid of this critical feeling of the imbalance between this remake visual effect and the weird contrast and the general lack of minimal quality of life improvements. Suikoden is an amazing series that deserves all the love it gets, and how expensive the original title becomes, any way people can enjoy them is welcome – but both games should indeed be reintroduced by the red carpet, rather than the cheesy doormats.