Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars
One of the small miracles of Suikoden 1 & 2 is how many of its 108 stars of destiny feel vivid and well-realised. The games still require some grace: these characters are not exactly very deep or unique in their conception. But they are crisply drawn and engaging, and on such a large scale that's not nothing. Pitching something well is a skill in itself and when so many games struggle to make much smaller casts half as interesting, Yoshitaka Murayama (RIP) and his team deserve recognition.
An example of this is the White Hart Inn and its associated family. This is a secluded inn tucked away in a forest that we encounter on one of the many diversions from Suikoden 2's main plot. The family that runs the inn comprise of a loser dad obsessed with treasure, his beautiful doting wife and their enthusiastic non-entity son (he doesn't even get a portrait). As these games do absolutely nothing to sidestep (often very troubling) cliches, the dad is given free reign to indulge his stupid bullshit obsession, the wife suffers and we all learn a basic lesson of what's important (highly stratified, prison-like family dynamics). Despite the triteness, the experience is charming enough for us to care about this little gang. This affection turns into concern when the region is later wiped out as the plot rolls on and we wonder whether the family survived. Revisiting the inn reveals it has been abandoned, strongly implying the worst case scenario. We're elated when the family turn up later, refugees of a sort, and they come to live at our developing castle/village. Their story continues on with even more developments that ties to some big picture lore.
What gives this its jouissance is how easily you can miss most of it. Your active curiosity is key. A significant value of having so many named characters is that they make every part of the world feel worthy of investigation, often repeatedly, which in turn makes it feel big and lively. This marriage of solid character work with impressive scope is what sets Suikoden apart from its contemporaries, and even most recent RPGs.
Otherwise we have a standard turn-based combat system that's enlivened by the variety of characters, but not massively so. Many of them effectively fit into broad categories based on their range, strength, magic prowess and so on. The most unique qualities come from characters with specific runes (the source of magic in Suikoden's world). Otherwise you'll be picking your guys based on rudimentary things like how cool they look and how hard they hit.
Thinking about this as a remaster, form and content come into play. Both games are concerned with the burdens created by prior generations. The protagonists of each game have famous, decolorated fathers and many other characters wrestle with the consequences of actions taken by the those who came before. Suikoden 1 and 2 HD Remaster itself comes over 25 years of reputation to reckon with. Thankfully it does a solid job at honouring a deserved legacy. The spruce up is heavily weighted towards Suikoden 2, with the first game not getting much more than a glancing makeover, but that makes sense given how much more substantial the sequel is. Both games are really two parts of a whole, with the first game feeling almost like a prologue, or proof of concept for the second to really excel in. Suikoden 2 is the star of the show here - the devs who remastered it made shrewd choices with what I imagine were limited resources. I wish there were more deliberate attempts to address the tiresome aspects of both games, inventory management still being an unremittent ball-ache for example, but like any great JRPG they charm you into rolling with the annoyances. Konami have done right by this abandoned game series here. I hope this points to something new (and not phone-based) on the horizon.