Suikoden I & II HD Remaster - Rune For Improvement (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- Mar 28
- 9 min read
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster
Released: March 6th, 2025
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Systems: PC, PS5, Switch (reviewed), Xbox X/S
108 characters! Six slots to fill. Maybe three actual choices if you’re lucky, because the game keeps picking most of your party for you and doesn’t give a sugared shit how long you’ll spend manually shifting equipment around to account for its frequent shakeups.
Basically… fuck off, Gremio. Fuck off and stop taking up space I’d distinctly not reserved for a clingy creep who watches me when I’m asleep.
Sorry, I know that’s unfair, but Gremio’s insistence on elbowing his way into my group just gets under my skin. It really eats away at me, and I wish he could know what that feels like. I just don’t have mushroom in my team and don’t think he’s a fun guy to use, spore’s the pity.
I understand why Suikoden’s roster is subject to narrative constraints. A character-driven story without a consistent cast would be a hell of an ordeal to make work. Even so, it’s an absolute pisser to have a wealth of options but a drought of choice. I feel Suikoden’s debut entry goes overboard with it, especially with its archaic interface through which one deals with its character rotation.
That said… it’s still a cute lil’ adventure, innit?
Suikoden I&II HD Remaster is a remaster of Suikoden and Suikoden II, in case the name didn’t tip you off. The main conceit of these RPGs has always interested me, and without the double-edged sword of nostalgia for the series, I can say that they’re pretty alright!
Suikoden I, titled specifically as Gate Rune, kicked off the series and delivered unique ideas at the time, chiefly with a huge cast of 108 recruitable characters, many of whom could participate in combat. That said, the game is undoubtedly dated these days, and many potential updates it could’ve benefited from haven’t been added to the remaster.
By today’s standards, the actual plot and writing is downright quaint, full of tropes that subsequent games have trodden deep into the ground. Suikoden blitzes through its storyline with such swiftness a significant conflict can occur and resolve within one brief dialogue exchange - you steal a sword, its owner pursues in outrage, you tell him you’re actually his ally, and all is completely forgiven.
It’s really rather charming in its lack of complication.
The very act of recruiting characters betrays a narrative simplicity - many of them will merely ask if you’re from the Liberation Army and join if you say yes. Said army is a rebellion within enemy territory, so its members are supposed to be fugitives. If the Scarlet Moon Empire were smart, your enemies would wear funny hats and stand conspicuously in taverns until you sauntered in to hire them.
There’s 108 of these buggers so one can expect matters to be condensed, but I’m nevertheless amused by how freely the Liberation Army Commander broadcasts his identity with no regard for consequence - not to mention how readily new recruits abandon their lives to live on an island with pirates, swindlers, war criminals, and Georges.
Goddamn bloody Georges and his bloody goddamn picture matching bollocks.
Yeah, the minigames leave a lot to be desired, at least until you unlock dice gambling right next to a save point and can cheese your way to hundreds of thousands of Potch. Money is called Potch. It’s the name of an opal specifically known for its lack of monetary value.
You start out the son of an Imperial general, having just joined the ranks alongside a retinue of faithful attendants. Shockingly, it turns out the Evil Empire was the Evil Empire all along! After you discover that, you’re fairly quickly trusted by members of the Liberation Army and it takes maaaaaybe a day before you’ve gone from Imperial oppressor to the active leader of the rebellion. Congratulations!
Like I said, it’s quaint.
Similarly, the battle system is about as fuss-free as you can get, which isn’t exactly a bad thing. A formation system has you organize a party of six into two rows, putting short-range attackers in the front and ranged hitters behind them. Fights play out in that style where you select all the commands first and watch everyone act in one go, which I’ve always enjoyed.
While your team can equip armor and accessories, they never acquire new weapons, instead upgrading their signature offense via blacksmiths for linear strength increases. Given the sheer number of potential party members, it makes sense that each comes with their own weapon, and of course you’ll need to recruit better smiths as they improve beyond the skills of an average anvil basher.
Magic is an interesting little deal. You’ll find many Orbs which can be attached to your characters, inscribing on them a magical Rune that unlocks a line of spells, unique attacks, or passive abilities. Spells are organized into expendable slots that replenish after sleeping, similar to Dungeons & Dragons. You only get to attach one Orb to one person, and they’ll acquire higher level abilities as they gain XP.
It’s not until the sequel that this magic system starts getting truly interesting, but the potential is on full show. With some Orbs offering physical attacks that don’t use slots, certain characters coming with unchangeable Runes, and so many recruits with their own affinities or even exclusive Orbs, Suikoden I is the start of something really cool.
Speaking of starting things, this game is the series’ first taste of epic battles in which thousands of soldiers clash… provided you use your imagination. These battles are adorable, represented onscreen by tiny Lemmings-style soldiers in numbers unrepresentative of what’s meant to be on the field. It’s cute, and it’s doing its little best.
Grand strategy this is not. It’s merely rock-paper-scissors with some extra pomp, where you order troops to charge, shoot, or use magic, and hope what you picked beats the enemy’s choice. Your recruits also unlock a limited number of unique commands to gain added advantages, the most crucial being the ninjas and thieves who predict an enemy choices to basically guarantee you the round.
While these battles are nothing to write home about, your attacks being specifically undertaken by teams of characters you’ve recruited makes them feel more special, especially since characters can form unique combos among themselves to increase attack power. Be warned, however, they can also die if they lose an exchange. Permanently.
From its narrative to its combat, Suikoden is a breezy affair, and by today’s standards it’s definitely archaic. I enjoyed it well enough, but at times I felt my attention wavering thanks to slow traveling, repetitive elements, and poorly designed interfaces. Still, that’s the kind of stuff modern remasters can alleviate, right?
Well, not necessarily in this case.
The remaster doesn’t do much of anything to meaningfully update the experience. Many quality-of-life improvements we’ve come to expect from remastered RPGs aren’t present, and Suikoden is in sore need of some.
You can boost the battle speed, though doing so speeds the music up in a way that similar remasters aren’t silly enough let happen. I nonetheless got a lot of mileage out of both speed and auto-battle functions, and would have liked an option to toggle auto mode as a persistent thing rather than manually activate it after inputting my initial commands in every single fight.
There are other changes conspicuous by their utter absence.
Adding a confirmation buffer to stop you paying for an inn when you just want to save? Allowing you to unequip party members who leave for story reasons? Letting you fix your formation after the game fucks with it before a battle starts? Moving faster on the barren world map without sacrificing a party slot to the character who makes you speedier? These should have all been no-brainers.
Perhaps the most grievous issue is the terribly tedious inventory management. Rather than a shared menu of items, anything you acquire is held by individual party members with limited space. Even with the slight overhauls made - like not making the fastish travel item take up inventory space - there’s not much to alleviate the boredom of picking through multiple menus and an exponentially bloated storage vault at HQ every time you want to optimize your stuff.
A number of general fixes are on offer. The protagonist can run without Runic help, and without that feature added I think I’d have found the thing unplayable. The script has had a going over to correct translation errors and bring terminology in line with later games. Autosaves are added. Pretty basic stuff across both games, really. Which reminds me, there’s a whole other game to talk about…
Suikoden’s flaws are made all the more egregious by comparison to Suikoden II which, while still being long in the tooth, is a vast improvement in so many ways and a great game even today.
As someone with limited series experience - Suikoden Tierkris is the one I know best - an hour of playing ably demonstrated to me why Suikoden II is such a fondly regarded RPG. As well as extremely improving upon its predecessor, Dunan Unification War’s story is immediately better written, adding not just great new characters, but developing older ones in satisfying ways. The carrying over of save data adds a nice touch to the plot, too.
Suikoden II introduces us to Luca Blight, whose indulgently gleeful villainy is outright hilarious - I can’t get enough of his hammy malevolence. Then there’s Nanami, an absolute showstealer among the protagonist’s retinue. I’m not sure anyone in an RPG has endeared themself to me with the speed at which she did. Oh, and Gabocha is so cute I wanna just freakin’ die.
Of course, I’m saying nothing that fans don’t already know. The game’s a bloody gem.
Suikoden II’s tale of political intrigue and personal betrayal allows much more freedom when it comes to composing a party. Your limited spaces are hijacked to a less frequent degree, and when the party is added to, there’s an immediate offer to fix its formation - thank Christ!
Party members now have up to three spaces for Runes, so magic’s presence is greatly increased and characters with fixed abilities still have some options. Weapons can get an extra Orb attached for passive enhancements, and unlike the original’s irretrievable Rune Pieces, they can be swapped out of gear at a minimal cost. This all leads to more experimentation, and me not hoarding stuff out of anxiety.
What really stands out is how much better the interface is. Simple fixes like being able to remove and add party members in a single menu, or the storage vault offering a sell function, cut down on a tremendous amount of hassle. This is something that absolutely should have been added to Suikoden I with the remaster.
I’d say the only area in which Suikoden II isn’t superior - and many may disagree - is its war battles. While warring can be described as better in terms of pure mechanical depth, I’m not sure replacing rock-paper-scissors with a skeletal strategy game that occurs more frequently and takes longer to do is beneficial to the adventure at all. I certainly don’t miss the first game’s take, but it doesn’t make me watch little unit symbols shift around a grid all the time.
Both games feature a new slate of background art. While characters retain their old style, environments are jarringly given an all-new style that, if I’m honest, doesn’t look all that great. They are more detailed than the pixelated originals, yet look far less rich, more akin to something you’d see in a browser game. The world is too flat, too clean, and the lack of artistic cohesion between it and the character sprites takes more than a little getting used to.
A number of scenes taking place against unique backdrops provide a bit of an exception. It feels as if some extra effort was put into moments like Neclord’s organ playing and Apple’s search for the coin in the river - these key scenes can be quite beautiful, blending sprites, drawn backgrounds, and limited 3D models in a way that works.
I’ve listened to music from the PSX games to compare them to the remaster and concluded there’s no appreciable difference. That’s not a bad thing, as the soundtracks for both games are solid - perhaps not up there with the true classics, but they’re all cute tunes, and Nanami’s theme is suitably delightful.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is a decent package of two RPG classics, and I must say I greatly enjoyed my time with these games. The lack of bells and whistles is stark compared to other remasters in the genre - some may appreciate the “authenticity” of it, but I can’t help feeling it was to the utter detriment of Suikoden I that it didn’t at least get the UI improvements of Suikoden II.
There was an opportunity here to make Suikoden I a far less dated experience. Not only was that opportunity lost, being packaged with a sequel that addressed so many pains in the ass makes the series’ originator come off even worse. At least we do get that better sequel alongside it.
Here we have a double bill that offers a legal way to play two games that are legendary for being exorbitantly expensive in their original format, and in a world without emulation, that would mean a lot more. As it stands, I’m not going to utterly trash this release, since the games are still great where it counts most. I just wish more had been done to make two classics - for which emulation has for so long been the most viable route of access - worth revisiting at a premium.
As much as the games industry doesn’t want to acknowledge it, the existence of those alternative routes is an inevitable consideration, and that’s especially true for Suikoden.
7.5/10
