Oct 3, 2007

When Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions hits the PSP next week, it'll bring one of the greatest strategy-RPGs of the PSone era to Sony's handheld. It'll also bring a large cast of complex, semi-identical characters along for the ride; to get you acquainted (or re-acquainted, if you've already played the original), publisher Square-Enix has given us bios for some of the story's key figures - as well as for its new, PSP-only additions. We'll start with a few of the game's tragic heroes:

Ramza Beoulve
"I have no wish to change the world."

Ramza is a knight apprentice who takes center stage in this tale. He is the youngest son of the proud and storied House Beoulve, long famed for producing leaders of the Order of the Northern Sky, which in turn is the greatest of the four knightly orders of Ivalice. Ramza is frequently said to resemble a youthful version of his father, a great hero by the name of Lord Barbaneth Beoulve. (This should come as no surprise, seeing as nearly everyone in this game vaguely resembles everyone else.)

The problem is that Ramza is the son of his father's mistress, a common-born woman of the Lugria family (whose name Ramza adopts at the start of the game), and so he thinks of himself as inferior to his two older half-brothers, Zalbag and Dycedarg. He believes that true justice lies not in fighting for one's self, but for others, and detests those who would sacrifice others to further their own ends, whatever the cause.

Above, from left: Ramza Beoulve, Orran Durai, Mustadio Bunansa

Orran Durai
"What am I worth to you alive?"

A mage in the service of the Order of the Southern Sky (another of the four knightly orders), Orran is the adopted son of its lord commander, Count Orlandeau. His true father served with the Count and was killed in the waning days of the Fifty Years' War, which ended long before the game's plot begins. Eventually imprisoned for harboring a terrible secret, Orran survives the War of the Lions and later becomes Ramza's biographer.

Mustadio Bunansa
"I'm a machinist. Do you know the history of my trade?"

A young man who works in the mines of Goug, the Clockwork City. Mustadio is the son of Besrudio Bunansa - a brilliant machinist famed for the design of mechanical weaponry - and, alongside his father, he seeks to restore the countless relics of antiquity that slumber deep beneath the city. Young Mustadio has mastered the use of the "pistol," a device that can fire metallic projectiles at high speeds when packed with powder.