Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Steam Deck Impressions – PC Port Features, Performance, ROG Ally, and More
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars has finally arrived worldwide for PC and consoles bringing two PlayStation RPG classics to modern platforms with some notable improvements. Ahead of its launch, I've had a chance to play Suikoden I & II HD Remaster's PC port on my Steam Decks and ROG Ally to see how it scales on PC. While remasters of older games are usually fine on PC, there have been some remasters or remakes that force poorly thought out post-processing and subpar upscaling effects. Thankfully, Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is basically perfect on PC outside of one minor issue that may or may not affect you. I'm going to cover the PC port, how Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is on handhelds, and how you can fix the aforementioned issue if it affects you.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster PC graphics options
Before getting to Steam Deck performance, the PC port is a bit bare-bones.Suikoden I & II HD Remaster lets you adjust display mode (fullscreen or windowed), resolution (540p to 4K), and toggle v-sync. You can adjust these from the gear icon on the game select screen or from the pause menu in-game. You cannot rebind controls in-game, but can select from one of three control types. These adjust the face button actions only, but also the triggers which are mapped to some of the face buttons.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Steam Deck gameplay impressions
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster is marked as Steam Deck Playable and not Verified by Valve. The release has gotten this rating because Valve says the game supports the Steam Deck's native display resolution but does not set it by default. This is weird because Suikoden I & II HD Remaster does not support 800p. If we assume Valve meant 720p (which is fair), We Love Katamari Reroll was also not Steam Deck Verified for the same reason when it actually does support 800p, but it launches at 720p. Inconsistent ratings aren't out of the ordinary with Valve, but Suikoden I & II HD Remaster should be Steam Deck Verified given how it looks and runs on Valve's handheld. I'm sure Konami can resolve any issues if it does boot up at 1080p instead of 720p on Steam Deck. I want to make it clear that Suikoden I & II HD Remaster does not support 16:10 or 800p natively as of this writing.
When I first loaded up Suikoden I & II HD Remaster on my Steam Deck OLED, I noticed the scrolling wasn't smooth for the backgrounds. I initially suspected that the game engine might have some issues, but quickly figured out this was because the game is capped to 60fps and I was playing it on my Steam Deck OLED with its display set to 90hz (the default). I turned on v-sync and saw the frame rate counter go to 90fps giving me some hope, but this actually caused the game to slow down with its movement. The scrolling was still not fixed either. The solution is to cap the Steam Deck's screen at 60hz and then play it at 60fps. This resulted in smooth movement, scrolling, and the speed all being correct. With a bit more testing, it seems like the game at 144hz has a similar issue. To fix this, I played at 120hz when I tried the PC port on my 1440p 144hz display.
When playing on a Steam Deck LCD model, this will not be a problem. It only affects the 90hz OLED display and any external monitors that will try and run the game at 144hz. Aside from this high refresh rate issue, I have no complaints with the Suikoden I & II HD Remaster PC port. It is bare-bones, but gets the job done.
If you want to also play Suikoden I HD Remaster with your Steam Deck docked to an external display, 4K 60fps is not possible because the world map causes drops. When trying out 1440p and 60fps instead, it felt like a 60fps lock would be possible during exploration and the open world, but combat caused drops to the high 40s at worst. Moving to 1080p results in a locked 60fps docked experience.
In my testing, I noticed Suikoden II HD Remaster was a bit more demanding than the first game even early on near the waterfall. If you play docked, expect to see some minor drops below 60fps at 1080p during exploration, and see drops to the high 40s in combat. When playing at 720p on the Deck, there were no problems after testing both games.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Steam Deck recommended settings
There are basically two things you need to keep in mind with Suikoden I & II HD Remaster on Steam Deck. Make sure the game is set to 720p and not 1080p. Suikoden I & II HD Remaster does not support 16:10 aspect ratio natively. If it looks like it does to you, the game is being clipped from each side. Aside from this, keep in mind the 60fps and 60hz issue I detailed above if you play on a Steam Deck OLED or just play the PC port on a high refresh rate display. If you want to play docked, I covered the best options above as well.
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster on ROG Ally
Since the ROG Ally has a 120hz display, the scrolling felt smooth across the board when playing Suikoden I & II HD Remaster on it. It works out of the box at 1080p with no problems when playing at 60fps (v-sync off). Both games run fine and feel good to play on the handheld. If you enable v-sync, Suikoden II in particular drops here and there at 1080p though. There isn't much more to say about this remaster on ROG Ally. You can safely buy and enjoy it on the handheld.
In its current state, Suikoden I & II HD Remaster's PC port while bare-bones, runs and looks great. I've enjoyed my time with it across both my Steam Decks and ROG Ally. I hope the high refresh rate issue affecting certain frame rates and displays can be resolved because that's the only real problem with this PC release right now.