Suikoden 1&2 HD Remasters: What To Expect

Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars are now officially on the horizon. With that being said let’s talk about what we can expect from them.

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The Story

With Suikoden 1 the story revolved around an emperor who was once an epic hero turned villainous tyrant. Due to this his empire falls into chaos and begins to decline. There begins to be an uprising from a group known as the Liberation Army. Tir McDohl gathers the Stars of Destiny to shape the course of the future. It has everything you want death, betrayal, and much more.

This one takes place 3 years after the events of the first game. With Suikoden 2 you and your best friend are betrayed and used to be sacrificial pawns in a dispute between Highland and the City-State of Jowston. 2 best friends see the end goals for the future, but it might lead them down different paths. Riou will gather the Stars of Destiny in an attempt to put out the fires of war.

Remaster Features

There have been improvements implemented for Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars. These features are:

• All background illustrations have been upgraded to HD
• Updated effects breathe new life into the pixel art animation
• New environmental sounds effects to immerse yourself in this fantasy world
• Battle SFX are also now HD and add a new level of realism
• Newly added auto-save
• Auto Battle Feature with the ability to increase battle speed by 2x or 4x
• Conversation Log so you can go back and reread the conversations

JRPG fans know how useful some of these features are. Also, Junko Kuwano from Rabbit&Bear Studios (Eiyduen Chronicle) former Suikoden team member helped redo character portraits for the first game. If you need to grind, being able to increase the speed is a godsend. Not that these games require much of that. The auto-save feature can help people tremendously as well.

Pre-Order Bonus

With the recently announced release, Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars pre-orders are live. The pre-order bonus will be a little DLC pack that you can choose to use or not use when starting a new game. This pack includes a Prosperity Rune, Fortune Rune, and 57,300 bits/potch. The Prosperity Rune will increase the amount of buts/potch gained. The Fortune Rune will increase the amount of experience gained.

Then you have the 57,300 which is a lot to start with in the games as someone who’s played them many times over the years. I learned from a Suikoden fan and YouTuber named Culgan that this is a weird amount and has to do with a Japanese word game. So in my mind, these are very generous but not super necessary, but super helpful.

Release Date

A couple of days prior to when we found out the release date I actually posted in the JRPG Reddit asking people’s thoughts on these games as it was almost a year to the day of the delay. Many people had varying opinions which was expected, but then a couple of days later BOOM a Nintendo Direct. Thanks to the Nintendo Direct we got the information that they were finally slated for release on on March 6th, 2025. Little fact that’s 3 days after my birthday. Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars will be release on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Little Prediction

I will start this off by stating that this is only a prediction nothing is concrete. Thanks to Culgan once again noticing that the Amazon storefront had images of both the original game images as well as the Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars images. There was also a question asked to Takahiro Sakiyama about being able to use the original visuals and he said, “No Comment.” Now it wouldn’t be their first time to be able to switch between visuals of a new and old version.

2 games that come to mind are Halo and Dragon Quest both have done it. So that’s my prediction after seeing all this I’m banking on actually happening. Culgan also noted later Amazon has since scrubbed all original images of the games form the page.

Should You Play

So my final thoughts for Suikoden 1&2 HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars is that everyone should give it a try. Especially if you are a JRPG, Turn-Based, or fans of older games like this in general. This series has everything you could ever want death, war, betrayal, surprises, sacrifice, and being that ultimate hero we all might aspire to be. I truly believe the 2nd game is the best game ever made and the 1st one is great as well. So I implore you to give these a try and it might breathe a new breath of life into this series. These games are why I am a gamer!