4/5 ★ – truewalrus's review of Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars.

I'm a huge lover of the Suikoden series, but as someone who last played a Suikoden game almost 20 years ago, there was a little bit of tentative fear that what I remembered was tinted with rose colored glasses. In some ways, that is the case, but it's safe to say that the Suikoden I&II HD Remaster has renkindled my love of Suikoden. The HD Remaster feels almost loyal to a fault. It's been so long since I've played the first two games in the series that it was somewhat of a struggle to identify what exactly had even been remastered. The sprites and backgrounds obviously got a makeover and the in-battle fastforward was a welcome addition, but other than that, both games felt lacking in the quality of life updates. Navigating the home castles was still a chore, attempting to find missables was still nigh impossible without a guide (or a 2nd or 3rd playthrough), the UIs for party members, equipment, and inventory management were all still awful, and there are multiple points where progression is stopped due to RNG gambling mechanics just to force you to farm more money. There were tons and tons of avaialble QOL features that could have drastically improved the experience without affecting gameplay at all and while I can understand attempting to not change the vision of the original games, the original games are 30 years old. To not bring 30 years of QOL updates in a remaster feels like a strange decision. There were also tons of available QOL features that could have drastically improved the experience that DO affect gameplay. For one, the wars in Suikoden 2 are notoriously terrible relying entirely on some random calculations and playing out as slow as molasses. Almost any change to these battles would have been a welcome one. Another welcome change could have been some sort of warning system when passing by on missable characters or sidequests, because without a guide, it is frankly impossible to not miss out on things. Fortunately, despite all of this, Suikoden I and II hold up really well. There's tons of innovative mechanics that, to this day, still have not been captured by newer RPGs. The music and writing still shines through. Despite the huge cast, many characters do end up memorable. Building up the castle is still gratifying. Suikoden 2's story and characters are still incredible. And now, this HD Remaster is the ultimate way to play these games, so it's hard to be harsh on it. It's brought two of the greatest games of all time to a modern audience and it hasn't ruined the experience, it's only improved it. When looked at that way, Suikoden I&II HD Remaster can only be called an overwhelming win for Konami, for Suikoden, and for fans of the Suikoden series. I can't wait for what's next.