Archive: https://archive.is/vQ0U6

Imagine, if you will, a video game that’s almost like a cross between Pokémon and Game of Thrones. You can collect characters and build up a castle as you go to war to protect a nation under siege. There are flawed heroes, tragic villains and monstrous betrayals. The sequels take place in different countries within the same world, adding new depth to characters and making the setting feel rich and alive, like a television show that broadens its scope every season.

On paper this might sound like a guaranteed hit, but Suikoden, the clumsily titled role-playing game series from Konami Group Corp. that began in 1995, has always been niche. Maybe it’s the name. Maybe it’s the old-school gameplay. Maybe it’s the fact that the series stuck with 2D graphics as competitors were moving to primitive 3D. Whatever the reason, the franchise has been underappreciated for decades.

Following the stellar fifth entry, which arrived in 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Konami released a couple of ill-received spinoffs and then put Suikoden on the shelf. Most fans assumed it was dead, like a TV show canceled too soon, leaving them with plenty of grief and lingering questions.

So it was a shock a few years ago to see Konami announce an out-of-nowhere remake of the first two Suikoden games. Those remakes finally came out this week, along with another surprise — during a live-stream, the company said that it is hoping to bring back Suikoden in an even bigger way, with an anime, a new mobile game and much more.