Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars brings back two classic JRPGs in one beautifully enhanced package, starting with Suikoden I. Originally released in 1996 on the PlayStation 1, Suikoden I tells the story of an unlikely hero—you, the player—serving in the Imperial Army. As the son of a renowned general, your journey begins with simple tasks, but things quickly spiral into chaos. Alongside a ragtag group of friends, you find yourself entangled in a dark conspiracy after acquiring a powerful “Rune” with destructive capabilities.
Suikoden 1’s story is its strongest aspect. Players will slowly grow attached to the main cast of characters and as you play through the game, you’ll befriend a lot more characters that will assist you in your journey. Each of these characters is very well written and the game’s storytelling, while a tad slow by current gaming standards still holds up quite well.
Thankfully, Konami has included some quality-of-life improvements here. You can fast-forward battles for example and this really alleviates a lot of the frustration and grind with traversing the game’s world. Suikoden I don’t overstay it’s welcome either since you can easily breeze through the game with the fast-forward option in battles and complete it in around 16-20 hours.
The battle system in Suikoden 1 is extremely straightforward with players using a turn-based system where they will issue commands to their party of 6 characters. Each character will take turns to attack or defend and can use special attacks too. These are quite flashy and seeing them in all their pixel glory is great.
The OST to Suikoden I has some memorable music too and the sound effects have been updated to bring them up to modern standards.
A great quality-of-life feature also introduced to the game is the conversation log. Now you can easily scroll through conversations in the game and see and read through what just happened at your own pace. This is great especially if you take a break from playing the game and come back later and you’re lost as to where to go or what to do.
Suikoden I is a solid JRPG from an era long gone by but the storytelling and the overall charm of the game cannot be underestimated. It’s still a good game but more modern gamers might find it slightly too slow with its plot progression and convoluted conversations at first. It’s also quite easy to get lost backtracking and not know what to do so the conversation log is a lifesaver in this regard.
Moving on to Suikoden II. This is a title that is a massive step up over its predecessor. Everything about Suikoden II will grip you from the get-go. Players will take on the role of a soldier in the Unicorn Youth Brigade on the outskirts of Jowston. While in your camp, you unfortunately get sucked into conflict and are forced to flee with your pal Jowy. The game really kicks things up a notch quite quickly which is a direct contrast to Suikoden I which takes quite a while to get going with its story.
What immediately also stands out in Suikoden II is the immediate step up in visual fidelity. The environments in Suikoden II are flat-out gorgeous and the pixel art is truly beautiful to look at. Every single scene in this game looks great and doubly so because the visuals were updated for this remaster.
Character attacks look amazing and the unite attacks you can pull off together with another party member look fantastic and more importantly, feel fantastic. It’s great to utterly destroy some enemies with unite attacks and since there are a lot of characters that can be added to your party throughout the course of the game, there’s plenty of variation to get through as you mix and match combos.
The game also has a lot more content than its predecessor and will take you a lot longer to get through because there’s more emphasis on storytelling and there are more areas to traverse. Some characters do make a return from the first game and it’s great to see this in-game when it does happen. The battle system is almost identical to its predecessor with the addition of a few minor tweaks here and there that make things easier to manage.
Graphically, Suikoden II is definitely more appealing than the first game and this works in its favour. The soundtrack is also excellent with plenty of music tracks that you can enjoy throughout the entirety of its longer 45-hour+ story.
Suikoden II also features more quality-of-life improvements over the first game such as a much better managed inventory system, easier-to-navigate menus and a grid for battles for positioning your characters better. The fast-forward option is present here too thankfully and this alleviates much of the frustration from having to grind out battles in the overworld.
Everything that was slightly annoying or not that great with Suikoden I was pretty much smoothed over and improved in Suikoden II. The storytelling is the star of the show since it’s done a lot better this time around with its greater focus on war and the characters involved in the conflict. Be prepared to get emotionally invested here. It’s going to happen!
Overall, the Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars package might come across as slightly barebones since there isn’t much bonus content (apart from a Gallery) but Konami have updated it quite a bit under the surface. The fast-forward option, visual fidelity changes, updated sound effects and slight quality-of-life changes bring these old classics back to life and hopefully will lead to the later Suikoden games being remastered too.
Both games are extremely straightforward to play and lack the bloat we see in modern JRPGs. If you’re a fan of classic JPRGs from the 90s, give this package a chance to shine. The storytelling is excellent and these are both great games with Suikoden II shining a lot more than the first title.
Suikoden I&II HD Remaster – Launch Trailer | PS5 & PS4 Games
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