Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Gate Rune And Dunan Unification Wars review

Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Gate Rune And Dunan Unification Wars is an unwieldy subtitle for a pair of comfy and often cheerful RPGs, but it’s one you could easily see on the slipcover for a thick slab of historical fiction.

It scans. Suikoden is never so striking as when military drums sound up beneath sweet singsong flutes. When farmers and teachers and fishermen throw down rakes and books and rods to take up arms for the chance to someday farm and fish and teach again.

These are stories about authority and rebellion (and swinging talking swords at vampires); about borders and boundaries, palaces and crawlspaces (and launching caped squirrels at armoured axe rabbits). They’re stories about leaving the oppressor for the thin-fingered but firm embrace of the oppressed, and who you leave behind (and listening to two Kobold puppies argue whether jam or butter tastes best on bread – “It’s always been jam since of the beginning of time”). They’re about waging wars winnable in proportion to hearts won to your cause. Sometimes that’s an enemy general spared from execution. Sometimes it’s a twirling tavern performer who’ll only dance with you if you wear the correct toe shoes.

They are childlike stories about leaving childhood behind, all while holding tight through muck and bloody marshes to childhood’s unworn principles. For me, they’re also about returning to childhood. I played Suikoden when I was perhaps ten. How do you review memory and expectation? It’s beyond me, that’s for sure. There’s plenty to chew on in that title alone.

Actually, you know what? Let’s do that. Let’s review the title. I’ll have to break it up, of course: It’s quite long.

Suikoden

The original Japanese title, Genso Suikoden (pronounced swee-koden, no matter what Psycho Mantis tells you) is “Fantasy Story Of The Water Margin” – a Ming dynasty Chinese novel about 108 outlaws who stage an uprising against an oppressive government. The significance of the number 108 is fascinating but beyond the scope of both this piece and my own full understanding, but its significance to Suikoden is that each game has 108 recruitable companions, known as the Stars Of Destiny.

They can’t all join your six-strong adventuring party (sometimes with another great mate for joint attacks) but they’re all useful. A sly merchant might be bobbins with blades but beezer at convincing enemy soldiers to switch sides in the large army battles you’ll fight infrequently. An inventor might bring nothing to battle, but he’s justifiably chuffed to share his newfangled “elevator” with you – so it’s goodbye stairs as he joins your hideout. Innkeepers. Cooks. Blacksmiths. Welcome to the revolution. Fast travel? A map? You’ll need a teleporting witch and a cartographer, although the games make these more vital recruits quite easy to find.

Many aren’t easy to find, but the journal-and-marker free sidequests you’ll embark on to recruit these more enigmatic Stars are easy to appreciate. It was a different time, man. You’ll either love the sense of mystery or else look up guides, and even that’s great because you’ll likely stumble upon a slice of ancient internet in the process – at least until the new wave of walkthroughs paves over all the ASCII-embossed gameFAQs, chomping on plump cigarillos and telling you it’s just progress, kid.

“I’ll need to give the children a year’s worth of homework,” says the teacher, preparing to fulfil his old role as a military strategist. A farmer will join you if you don’t trample his saplings on the way to talk to him. An inventor wants a quiet life. Your hero spins and punches the air to victory chimes whenever you snag another Star, but there’s always the sense you’re collecting future casualties. They know. You know. Miki Higashino’s triumphant instrumentals made my soul soar then and still do now. And who knows? Maybe you’ll find all-new reasons to root for tales of working-class kinship and uprising.

I & II

Suikoden I is generally considered somewhat of a footnote to its longer, grander, more fleshed-out and prettier sequel, and Suikoden II is better by most metrics save the one where Suikoden I is my favourite. It’s simpler and shorter, tighter and more focused, but it mostly just means more to me because I played it first.

Still, Suikoden II is beautiful and powerful and has maybe twice the Kobolds. The army battles go from turn-based rock, paper, scissors to Fire Emblem-lite grids complete with potential permadeaths. You can fit three magic runes on each character now. There’s a fishing minigame. Innkeepers will do maths for you instead of saying “it’s 120 potch per person”. The menus are cleaner. There are many more bespoke pixel animations. Its environments are gorgeous where Suikoden I’s are sharp and a little crude.

Play Suikoden I first, though, because many characters return in the sequel, and also because there are special mystery bonuses in II if you transfer your save having recruited all 108 stars. You should also play it if you’ve never touched a JRPG before and want something simple and friendly you can clear in maybe nine hours: a breezy, magical speed date that might make you fall for a whole genre.

HD Remaster

Konami – who I’ve always said were the best, in case they wanted to send me a plush Kobold or whatever – have been showing off features for months, but what’s missing here? First up, they don’t include much of a hint system or any kind of “go here next” notes, so you’ll need to pay attention: objectives can sometimes be obtuse. They don’t include the original script, for better or worse, but I’ll refrain from reviewish judgement, not having done a full line-by-line analysis. There were many errors in the originals, and there are now just a couple of typos. They also don’t include an autosave system in any way that’s at all useful.

They do have manuals accessible from the in-game menu with very good world maps. Suikoden I has new character portraits by the original artist, and they’re mostly great – Viktor looks much less unfortunate. Suikoden II’s portraits are cleaner and somewhat uncanny for it. Both games run well. Single button autobattle is a godsend, as are double and triple speed options. All told, the remasters achieve the most noble goal they could have: they make these games easy to play.

Gate Rune

The animations for the rune magic you’ll use in battle are one of the more lavish indulgences in a game that otherwise does lots with little. This was one of the OG Playstation’s firsts. Its speciality is punching above its weight, but when it can’t do that it gets creative. You play the son of a great imperial general and your first quest is to collect taxes from some bandits. When a slimy aristocrat’s lackey joins you for the outing, the pop-up that usually tells you someone has “joined the group” reads “Kanaan is tagging along”. It’s a game full of gripping, powerful scenes where simple anime sprites shudder and shake to convey emotion, and it works every bloody time.

As does Suikoden II’s simplicity. When you receive money after a battle, a pop-up will say “received 1873 potch”. There is nothing games can achieve with million dollar mocap and dour dadliness that they didn’t already here thirty years ago, where a child gives you her savings to buy a birthday present for her father and a pop-up says “received a very precious 70 potch.”

Dunan Unification

Yes, you can easily switch between both games in the main menu. Finally, the unification Dunan deserves.

Wars

Suikoden’s third type of battle are one-on-one-duels. They’re rock-paper-scissors but before each attack your opponent will say e.g “hmmm, time for something sharp… and snippy!” and you’ll whip out the chalkboard to deduce the correct response. They are the slightest of Suikoden’s three flavours of fight in complexity but also capture its most enduring theme: the story of war is the story of the people that fight it.

Things will get dark, then sunny again, then dark once more. The journey will be long and weathering. That’s fine. These are the sort of characters for whom every meal is a delicious feast and who never complain on long walks. I said that these are stories about leaving childhood behind, although not about putting away childish things: they know that what gave you strength then can be the most priceless source of it going forward. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Suikoden since childhood. I’m writing about games so many years later because there are some childish things I cannot and do not want to put away. Play is precious like that.

Some memories of mine about play: In Sarajevo town retired men haul giant queens and rooks across oversized chess squares on the pavement. In Chongqing they play tiles at dusk on the street in Summer with tall, cold beers. As a child I play dice gambling game Chinchirorin with Tai Ho the fisherman, hoping to win a boat trip to the castle in Suikoden I that will become my hideout. So. This is what adventure feels like, I think. I would like to do more of this, I later go far away and everywhere find play. It’s what we do between the wars.

I was half expecting Suikoden to feel childish but it doesn’t. Instead: a prodigious, precocious sprog. A genre in its infancy and prime at once. Sheer fuckin’ magic. Two of the most uplifting, absorbing, tragic and sweet JRPG stories ever penned. This is what the human soul is best at.