Konami recently made a lot of JRPG enthusiasts very happy with its latest announcement.
During the Tokyo Game Show held on Friday, Sept. 13, Konami announced during its panel that it is well underway with the development of HD remasters of its classic role-playing games Suikoden and Suikoden II.
The remastered title will feature both games in a single collection, named Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars. This collection of HD remasters for both games will be released sometime in 2023 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC (via Steam).
The Suikoden series had its beginnings on the very first PlayStation, where the games made their name in the scene for being robust RPG experiences that let players experience over 100 playable characters through the course of the mainline games. The games also featured innovative construction aspects as well as beautiful 2D animations and artwork for its time.
Suikoden has been critically acclaimed ever since and is regarded to be “one of the best RPGs of all time.” With the remasters, Konami plans on improving on the already celebrated aspects of the game while still retaining the game’s essence. From what can be seen in the footage of the game released so far, the “remasters” could even be considered remakes, considering the amazingly drastic changes.
For starters, all character portraits have been upgraded to HD by Junko Kawano, freshly designing all of the character portraits for the remasters. Kawano designed the original versions of the characters of Suikoden back in 1995.
The atmosphere within the game has been improved with better lighting, shadow animations, clouds, and flickering flames, with the general pixel sprites and environment art getting an overhaul. The direction of the cutscenes in-game has been reworked, giving a fresh feel to the core, nostalgic scenes of the game.
The remasters also add in previously unheard audio elements, such as field sounds and battle sounds. Environmental sounds such as wind, insects, footsteps, and running water in rivers have been added in. In addition to this, all sound effects are now in HD. The dynamic nature of battles is greatly enhanced due to the impact of the 3D effects in conjunction with the realistic sounds added in.
Other miscellaneous new features such as double-speed battles, auto battles, dialogue logs, and various quality-of-life improvements have also been added to the game.
