In Konami’s pretty successful efforts to relaunch their legacy IPs, it was only a matter of time before they revisited their main RPG Franchise: Suikoden. We are currently in the era of the gaming revival, with so many remasters and remakes dominating the market. This sounds negative, but I’ve always been pretty fond of alternate interpretations for games. I had never played the original game, and had played Suikoden II so long ago that I basically didn’t remember anything about it. We were quite overdue for Suikoden to come back, so I was pretty excited to give them another shot.
It seems like Suikoden I and II got very different amounts of budget allocated towards them. Suikoden II is the all-timer classic, so I get why they put all their efforts there. Both titles here feature completely redone backgrounds, cleaned up or redrawn character art, battle speed options, newly rendered opening movies, and new localization passes for the English script. The script definitely feels like less of a full overhaul and more of a touch-up, but I think the efforts were strong and uplifted the narrative of both games.
Suikoden I’s original version seems to have held back the remastering efforts here. All of the character art was presented in a very low resolution, and every background without fault was created with the same top-down perspective. All of the art was redrawn by the original artist Junko Kawano, and it’s pretty solid. The backgrounds are detailed as well, but there seems to be something off with the perspective that’s hard to really put my finger on. It makes a lot of the screens look uncanny, and this was something that took a bit of getting used to. In that way it does feel faithful to the original, perhaps to a fault.
Suikoden II’s presentation was able to be a lot more dynamic by default, giving the artists for the new backgrounds a lot more freedom. Instead of redrawing the iconic character art by Fumi Ishikawa, they decided to just rescan or upscale the art from the original Suikoden II. The higher-quality portraits look great, and I’m glad they didn’t decide to redraw them. There’s a bit of a discrepancy between the two games, but given that it was obvious the source art was much higher resolution to begin with, I see why they took this approach. The backgrounds feel like they handle perspective much more naturally, and the visual effects on screen bring them up to the level of just about any modern sprite-based RPG. Everything in Suikoden II works wonderfully.
Overall, I think it was impressive how the remasters of both games are able to recreate the exact feeling of playing the original versions. One of these is an impressive enough prototype, with the other being a gorgeous leap forward that stands tall as one of the best RPGs of all time. While it would have been nice to see a re-imagined version of Suikoden I, playing it faithfully has its merits. Preserving the gameplay clunk has preserved the soul of the original, and I think the tiny frustrations lead to some of the first game’s better gameplay moments.
The first game is the simplistic blueprint that would be fleshed out into a proper foundation with the sequel, but playing through it for myself was a mixed bag. I respect the game for having a scale as large as it does, with the sprawling world filled with 108 party members to track down and recruit into your resistance. Seeing your base grow and your army become more capable due to your direct actions is satisfying. The gameplay itself falls flat in a couple of regards, largely due to just having what I call First Game syndrome.
The ideas definitely aren’t the problem here. Building a party out with characters you have to track down yourself and managing all their equipment is a strong gameplay loop. The battle system itself is where these ideas aren’t allowed to breathe. You can bring six characters into battle, where things play out more or less how you can expect of a turn-based RPG. The encounter design of the first Suikoden on the whole is just a bit bland, with not too much to make you change up your tactics besides a handful of bosses. They simply get the job done. Something worth mentioning is that at the time of this review, there’s a design oversight that speeding up battles will also awkwardly speed up the music. This will get addressed in a future patch. There are also War Battles and Duels to highlight more dramatic moments in the story, as you and your army try to overthrow the empire. These seem interesting, but they really boil down to memorizing or guessing certain dialogue cues in a game of rock-paper-scissors. I appreciate them for being different from just normal boss battles, however.
While some might criticise the cumbersome item management mechanics, I think that ended up being a highlight for me. There is no Bag system here, so managing gear for every single party member became a meta game of sorts. It was fun to decide what to prioritize for a given dungeon, how much space to leave for new gear and how many healing items I should bring. While the game itself is relatively easy, the occasional difficulty spikes that kept me stressed just enough to always be mindful of my inventory. It’s not too hard to go back and forth between your base, but that little bit of friction pushed me through Suikoden’s slower segments.
Despite my frustrations with battles, there are some forward-thinking features worth praising. Experience growth is balanced extremely well, and you’ll know when you’ve reached the expected level for a dungeon or area when your party stops gaining level ups. Around this point, you will get an option in battles to Let Go enemies, which means you can get a guaranteed Run Away button from that battle. This is great for dungeon runs where you want to leave and make it all the way to the boss. When the game forces a lower-level party member on your team, it’s also pretty easy to get them leveled up to the rest of your team, thanks to how EXP scaling works.
The characters themselves are charming but feel flat. There is a decent story here, but nothing that truly amazes or surprises. Everything functions, and it’s hard for me to say you’ll have a bad time. However, when I finally did hit credits after obtaining every party member, I was left pretty exhausted. This is an important stepping stone of gaming history and worth playing for those interested in old RPG design. There is a lot to like here, and the gameplay loop is fun. I just can’t say I’ll bother replaying it again.
Basically every single thing in the sequel is better. The writing feels more nuanced, yet with more of a bite. The characters feel more nuanced, even the returning ones which were charming yet paper-thin before. Suikoden II’s main antagonist, Luca Blight, is also dreadfully evil and memorable which adds a lot more excitement to the main conflict. There’s even an extra bit of story for those who bring over a 100% clear save. The gameplay isn’t as easy, with battles having meaningful challenges that demand more of an understanding of the mechanics. Characters can be customized further than before, meaning you’ll naturally feel more involved with how battles play out. The war battles are now even full-on grid-based engagements instead of just rock-paper-scissors. Suikoden II is truly an experience that speaks for itself, and one I think is well worth playing.
The Nintendo Switch version has only one real downgrade from the other versions, with the frame rate being locked to 30. I was expecting this to be a bigger deal leading up to launch, but frankly, it’s something that’s hard to really notice or be bothered by for a game like this. There were never any frame dips I noticed during my time playing, so for a turn-based RPG with no real timing issues, this is practically a non-issue for me. These games felt responsive, and I imagine that the recently announced Switch 2 version will feel even better.
There’s definitely a substantive quality gap between both games in this collection, but ultimately, this is a worthy collection to keep on your shelf if you’re fond of original PlayStation RPGs. I’d spent so long wanting the PSP collection to make it west, and it’s great to have that finally with a few extra bells and whistles. I wish there could have been some kind of extra graphics options here to preserve the original pixel aesthetics for the backgrounds, but serious praise needs to be brought to the work the team put into Suikoden II’s remaster. That alone feels worth the cost of admission.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch
Review copy provided by Konami Digital Entertainment
