Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Review

Suikoden II is one of the best JRPGs of the late 90s.

That is not up for debate. It’s a game I have fond memories of, and I’m thrilled that gamers can now play it on modern hardware, and not just because if you can track down an original copy you’ll need to remortgage your house to afford it.

I think fans would have been happy with just a remake or remaster of Suikoden II, but since this is a remaster of the Japan-only PSP collection, you get the first Suikoden too, baby.

Suikoden was the first game by the late, great Yoshitaka Murayama, for a JRPG released in 1996, it’s pretty impressive. There are 108 different characters you can recruit to your party, three different battle systems to get your teeth into, and an epic continent-spanning narrative that sees your character rise to lead a rebellion against a corrupt empire.

The bulk of the fighting is done via a fairly traditional turn-based 6v6 combat that has you using magic and attacks to take out enemies while keeping an eye on your formation. It’s the usual fighters at the front and healers at the back affair, enhanced by a neat little system that lets certain characters team up to perform stronger attacks if they’re next to each other in the formation.

At certain points, you’ll take part in one-on-one duels and much grander war battlers. These work on a basic rock-paper-scissors system. In duels, you can either attack, defend, or attempt a special move. Attack beats defend, defend beats special moves, and special moves beat attack.

Thankfully you’re not completely in the dark since your opponent tends to telegraph what their next attack is likely to be.

Meanwhile, in the war battles, your troops can use charge attacks, bow attacks, or magic attacks. Charging stops archers from firing bows, your bowmen hit wizards before they finish casting magic attacks and your magicians can vaporise a charging army before they get too close.

Though the duels and war battles certainly mix things up, they feel rough around the edges and aren’t as polished or engaging as the more traditional 6v6 combat.

Thankfully the HD remaster has had a few little tweaks that improve the experience over the PlayStation original. It runs a lot smoother, the tweaks to the 3D graphics make the pixel art shine, and you can now speed up battles to make grinding a little less onerous.

It also autosaves at various points too. However, I wouldn’t rely on it because it can be quite sporadic and the old save points tend to pop up just before big battles anyway.

Overall, Suikoden is a decent JRPG with solid ideas that don’t quite come together. Suikoden Il, however, smooths out the rough edges of the original and expands on it in every way, resulting in one of the best JRPGs ever made.

That being said, If you’ve never played either before I would highly recommend starting with Suikoden since it’s a fairly brisk 20-hour appetizer that helps you appreciate the main draw of the collection all the more. (You can also recruit the main character from Suikoden to your cause in Suikoden II. (If you have completed save data from the original.)

Suikoden II remains as engaging and thrilling as it was in 1999. Picking up three years after the original, with a mostly new cast, the greatly expanded sequel somehow manages to be double the length of the original but tells a much more personal story, with far better pacing.

This time players take on the role of the adopted son of a hero who saved Jowston from an invasion from the Kingdom of Highland. Along with his best friend Jowy Atreides, he is given half of the Rune of Beginning, a legendary object destined to be reunited when the owner of one half of the rune defeats the other.

On top of this, Jowston is once again threatened by the neighboring kingdom of Highland, led by the blood thirsty, and cruel heir to the Highland throne, Luca Blight.

Suikoden II is the kind of sequel I love that doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, but instead removes the rough edges and polishes what worked in the first game to a crystal shine.

The bulk of improvements are made to the combat with the magic rune system now allowing you to equip three runes to each character, making it more versatile. While a grid-based movement system has been added to turn-based battles to give them a little more tactical flair. Though the duel and war battles remain mostly the same, some minor tweaks have been made to help them feel more impactful.

There are also tons of nods and winks to the previous game with several returning characters and moments that reward players who slogged through Suikoden first, while further fleshing out the setting and lore.

The overall package is decent and includes the usual concept art galleries and other goodies you expect from these remaster collections.

The presentation is also solid with the 2D sprites seeing a decent HD uplift while the 3D backgrounds have had a similar level of spit and polish that is respectful to the original art but doesn’t look like a straight port.

The gameplay has been altered much from the original games save for new difficulty settings and the ability to speed up battles. Personally, I would have liked a rewind button like in Konami’s Castlevania collections, but I can understand why they didn’t this time.

The games also autosave now, but I would have preferred the ability to save anywhere since it feels a little random.

Final Thoughts

Fans of 90s JRPGs who missed it the first time have no excuse not to give Suikoden II (and its half-decent predecessor) a crack now.

Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is not only the most economical way to experience these classic JRPGs, but also the best, thanks to some clever upgrades and, on the Switch and Steam Deck at least, the ability to play it natively on the go.