Suikoden 1 is so easy to breeze through that I would do it once to get Tir unlocked and prep the way for the "real" game of Suikoden 2
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108 HD Doodles in the Water Margin: They're Remastering Suikoden!
- Thread starter JBear
- Start date
Absolutely hilarious bit from the just-concluded Suikoden stream: the remasters include a menu toggle for preventing Clive's storyline in Suikoden II from expiring due to the series of real-time deadlines in following it to its conclusion.
You can also watch Suikoden II as an anime once that comes out. Though for myself, Aki Shimizu--who authored the Suikoden III manga back in the day--returning to adapt the also-announced mobile game Star Leap as a comic is probably more interesting, because unless there's some console or PC-based version of it, I likely won't be able to play it. They're clearly courting existing fans with it too by setting it shortly before the first game, within the existing continuity.
You can also watch Suikoden II as an anime once that comes out. Though for myself, Aki Shimizu--who authored the Suikoden III manga back in the day--returning to adapt the also-announced mobile game Star Leap as a comic is probably more interesting, because unless there's some console or PC-based version of it, I likely won't be able to play it. They're clearly courting existing fans with it too by setting it shortly before the first game, within the existing continuity.
That's a good change. I'm glad they're putting these kinds of quality-of-life rom-hacks into the game. As much as I simp this series, and as easily accessible it already is, that quest was always a punch in the gonads.
I found myself surprisingly down/upset by all the news coming out of this.
As someone who was just desperately hoping for them to announce a S3 remaster and was reasonably convinced it was going to happen, that entire stream was a series of increasingly hilarious rug pulls. My hopes were like a sine wave, rising over and over only to be dashed again. The next step... is a S2 anime. But then the next step... is a mobile game. But just one more thing... there's a stage play. Best moment was devoting five entire minutes to chat stickers.
Are you really surprised Konami doesn't know how to manage its properties? Lol.
Reviews are coming in for the Remaster package, and so far the overall tenor seems pretty positive. There's some performance issues on the Switch version it seems during a handful of instances like when there's a lot of particle effects on screen, but I haven't read anything about bad bugs or glitches. Seems like the biggest criticisms I've read/heard so far is just some of the innate gameplay mechanics, that were part of the original games. (Things like no party inventory in Suikoden I). Which frankly I'm glad they've preserved. I'm looking more and more forwards to it...!
Just starting out.
- kind of a huge deal to be able to play a version of the first game with diagonal movement and ability to run inherently applied (wonder what the Holy rune does now, if anything). Probably the best addition the otherwise technically slipshod PSP port compilation (which this is based on, features-wise) made.
- the script seems much revised on a line by line basis. The original localizers certainly must've worked under heavy time and resource crunch, so both of the PS1 games always teetered on the brink of non-sequiturs, missing context and odd terminology (Mathiu the "military surgeon"). The content hasn't changed in the revision, but it flows more legibly while coming across as the text those familiar remember.
- don't love a lot of things about the battles. The battle screens have a more muted aesthetic that isn't particularly true to the saturated colours of the original; the damage numbers being conveyed in a nondescript thin white font is a poor substitute for the thick, pinkish numbers they used to be; and lastly, the fast-forward function distorts the audio as well, which is something that should never happen in bespoke remasters like this that aren't just an emulation wrapper.
You still need it to run on the world map iirc
I'm glad to hear they improved the script while still keeping the intent of the original lines. That's exactly what I was hoping for from this remaster.
I’m personally glad a lot of the gameplay jank of S1 survived so I can have a more authentic experience. But I worry it will turn off new players.
I think the new backgrounds are ok but I really wish I had a toggle to go back to the originals.
Playing this game 2ft away from a 55” oled is kinda rough. Definitely will need to sit further back. I hear there are performance issues on Switch but I bet it looks great on handheld.
I think the new backgrounds are ok but I really wish I had a toggle to go back to the originals.
Playing this game 2ft away from a 55” oled is kinda rough. Definitely will need to sit further back. I hear there are performance issues on Switch but I bet it looks great on handheld.
Becksworth
Aging Hipster Dragon Dad
I'm just shocked that Konami of all companies was keeping their old art assets well enough preserved to do decent remasterings of PSX era cutscenes.
If you’re talking about the CGI intros and other pre-rendered cuteness, I’m pretty sure they remade them from scratch.
Wrapped up Suikoden earlier. The script revision is solid throughout, and about the only thing I miss are certain memorable turns of phrase that people familiar with the original pass probably have fondness for; "giant woman", "I feel so good" and "No way. Woof" are all absent and reworked into arguably more coherent but not as memetically impactful statements. For all the obvious criticisms that you could outline in the way these games read on PlayStation in English, there nonetheless never came a point in them where I was lost on what dialogue was conveying, what character motivations were, or what some detail of warfare or political maneuvering was about in specific... so the benefits of the new localization are mostly there to be enjoyed by new players who will not know any other version.
Kawano's new portrait artwork is neat to see for an artist adapting her own work from many years before, and the end results are more convincingly authentic than other such modernizations have gone, like for instance Hirohiko Araki riffing on his older material where the realities of an artist's current style completely consume the stylistic foundations of the original work. The original art is more interestingly textured and especially coloured for my tastes, but it's a fair reinterpretation throughout.
Kawano's new portrait artwork is neat to see for an artist adapting her own work from many years before, and the end results are more convincingly authentic than other such modernizations have gone, like for instance Hirohiko Araki riffing on his older material where the realities of an artist's current style completely consume the stylistic foundations of the original work. The original art is more interestingly textured and especially coloured for my tastes, but it's a fair reinterpretation throughout.
From what I've seen, I will say that the PS1 textures, portraits etc for Suikoden 1 look considerably better than their remastered versions. Actually, it seems like Konami had planned to include a version with the original art alongside the remaster, but unfortunately couldn't get it finished in time. Hopefully someday...
For those curious, like I was before: Holy runes don't exist in Suikoden in this version anymore, as sprinting is a native feature of the game now; put a Killer rune or the like on Gremio and Viktor and revel in it. The True Holy rune is now the much less confusingly named High-Speed rune, and it has a new function: recruiting Stallion (he doesn't need to be in the active party) adds an additional and higher battle fast-forward multiplier to toggle between. The fastest elf outran the game mechanics themselves.
If playing on PC, applying the Suikoden Fix is neat. Pick and choose what features you want from the lot; for myself I enabled quite a few, of which music speed-up during battle toggled off, the pretty aggressive vignetting toggled off and dash as a toggle are particularly good tweaks.
Darkened screen corners in displaying the game. They're pretty much always applied (plus there's an oval-shaped imprint around the center of the screen that's really visible much of the time). It's a common option in games that use such an effect (like the postprocessing-heavy HD-2D branded RPGs) to have an option to toggle it off, which I would rather do as I don't think it does much for the presentation of games like this.
People have been posting screenshots of them going through the Suikoden 2 remaster, and, wow. I knew it was a pretty game, but had forgotten just how pretty it was. Still waiting for a sale before I get these, but those screenshots tempt me to get it right now.
Too bad about the upscaled portraits in II. I'm guessing Ishikawa isn't particularly active these days in the way Kawano is and this is what they had to resort to instead of a more artisanal revision to old material. But given that other long-retired series creatives like Miki Higashino have recently returned to doing work in the industry, who knows what the future might hold.
It's a wrap, oddly phrased achievement description and all. Overall these are good versions of both games that retain the most striking aspects of their visuality--the character and creature sprites and their animation--and provide valid alternative means of adapting the rest in ways that do many similar things to the HD-2D brand of presentation but with more restraint for the better. Hard mode just felt like a very meager HP bump for enemies and nothing else; I was surprised difficulty modes were implemented at all, as the series's design sense in this era doesn't really benefit from charging up its mechanical friction... which barely exists to begin with.