Orlandeau is not a Problem
So, when it comes to fans playing Tactics, you generally have two schools of thought regarding the Thunder God, Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: either you love that he’s a “cool badass” that can kill nearly anything in the game, or you’re mad that he makes the game too easy.
But why is Orlandeau so strong? I don’t mean in the fiction - we take it as a given that as Barbaneth Beoulve’s close peer and his position in the Order of the Southern Sky, it makes sense enough that he’s tremendously powerful. What I mean is, why does the game make him so powerful? And actually, why does that make perfect sense?
At the most fundamental gameplay level, Orlandeau exists so that people who really struggle with the game to make it to the end if they’ve been losing party members left and right. Of course, most people who’ve made it through Dorter and Riovanes are probably fine by that point, but the game works in the way its inspiration Fire Emblem does, introducing new units until the end, just in case. Which is fine. But Orlandeau, as befits his station, has pretty much everyone’s moves and Excalibur to boot.
And I do think it’s a little unfair to Meliadoul, who joins shortly after and cannot compare (on a technical level, I mean). Especially in the game’s original release, when her powers were functionally useless on monsters. But I think that was somewhat intentional - Orlandeau is overpowered, so they give you a unit afterwards who isn’t so that you needn’t rely upon him if it will harm your game experience.
But: why make him so powerful at all?
The reason is that Yasumi Matsuno doesn’t necessarily overvalue game balance in favor of a game experience that reflects the story he’s trying to tell, which in my opinion is a far more valuable point of view.
In Tactics Ogre, which is a much more balanced game overall, Matsuno still made characters who were far, far more powerful than other units due to the roles they played and what their “canon” strengths would suggest (and honestly, Canopus and Arycelle are far more impressive in their games than Orlandeau is in his, speaking as someone who thinks they’re all pretty great). I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen someone who plays games complain that when a powerful character joins a party in a game, they’re suddenly less impressive - call it the “Magus from Chrono Trigger” problem, maybe. These are the same people who’d complain here, generally speaking.
But Orlandeau arguably makes the entire rest of the game a breeze, and it was if anything amped up in the re-release. So what is Orlandeau’s role in the Tactics story that justifies this?
Let’s back up a second: what is Tactics about? What is Ramza’s journey?
Tactics is about two young men who diverge at an early age and take different paths. History favors Delita as a hero, but we learn that he is no hero at all, regardless of the final outcome of his radicalization. We are told instead that Ramza is the hero, and we follow him, checking in on Delita periodically as he manipulates events to best suit him.
Ramza and Delita start out sheltered from the world. Delita less so, but he has not been forced to confront the full reality of his situation either. The death of Milleuda Folles catalyzes their change, and their split occurs when Tietra dies. Ramza becomes devoted to preventing any more unnecessary sacrifices, and Delita ostensibly does as well, though it becomes apparent that what he really wants, deep down, is to destroy the society that made the sacrifice possible and remake it - as he literally tells Ovelia. This difference is fundamental because Ramza himself famously says:
“I have no wish to change the world. But nor can I stand by while men suffer and die on the whim of some select few. Do you truly believe you can change the world? Not even I am so naive as that.”
Ramza’s trajectory as a protagonist is interesting. He operates somewhat in metaphor, and a lot of people don’t like it, because he spends a lot of the plot tracking down magic rocks while Delita actually interacts with politics and warfare. But the biggest poison in the realm isn’t the petty nobility, it’s the lie surrounding Ajora Glabados, and as Ramza unravels it, he basically purges Ivalice of sins. Most of the Lucavi basically represent sins - arguably this gets goofed a bit later because Adrammelech should represent avarice - fitting for Dycedarg - while Belias is representative of Wiegraf’s wrath (and also thus why Belias is perfect for Ashe’s main Esper).
Ramza is given a specific charge by his father at the game’s onset that defines his role and character journey:
Take care of your sister. And show these brothers of yours what it is...what it is to be a knight...
This becomes his outline and thesis statement for the rest of the narrative. “Take care of your sister” takes until the game’s conclusion to complete, but what does it mean to be a knight in Ivalice? It’s not Ramza’s behavior at the game’s onset, but the decision he makes at Zeirchele and the decisions he makes afterwards make him a hero. And after Riovanes, where he slays the hero that fell, and sees the Galthena siblings offer a counterpoint to the relationships Ramza and Delita had with their own sisters, he is a different man when he sees Delita himself for the last time. Directly following this is the battle at Fort Besselat, which has been teased for half the game.
The game has been talking about Besselat since Delita first grabbed Ovelia, and at the time it was believed to be impregnable, the ultimate battle. When Ramza finally arrives, the battles are simple, showing his growth. And what he does when he gets there is open the sluice and let the Zeirchele flood the plains between the two armies, preventing the upcoming battle and halting much of the Church’s plan. While Folmarv and his agents still have Alma, still plan to resurrect Ultima, the plot is in many ways over in this moment.
I mean this sincerely: while for many people this battle is not especially notable, this is the climax of Ramza’s tale in many ways. Arazlam is tracking how Ramza was the true hero of the War of the Lions, and with the battle halted and Larg and Goltanna murdered shortly thereafter, the war is fundamentally over.
Water seems to be a recurring motif for Ramza in the way that the gull overhead is one for Delita. Delita claims to move against the current, but in the end it washes him away. Ramza and Delita constantly meet either next to or separated by water, depending on the scene, until at last in the chapel they are equals again.
And the other character most represented by water is Ajora and her poisoned well. Unlike that foul water and the plague that killed so many (Delita’s parents were killed by a different plague outbreak, but that disease keeps being referenced and Ultima can’t ever be far from thought - even in XII, plague kills Ashe’s brothers and Vaan’s parents and sets that game up the way the plague in Romanda sets up this one), Ramza in this moment associates himself with cleansing water - a rush of river water (the same river where he rose from his torpor and declared “No more like Tietra”) and thus a worthy opponent to Ultima, who is the final boss of the game.
And so, directly following, in a game with precious few fully-character-based moments, the game pauses for Cid to reminisce about Ramza trying to lift the sword, and how much older he is now, and how he has fully taken up his father’s mantle. This is important, because in Cid’s eyes, Ramza has done it: he’s the hero now, Besselat has proven he’s worthy.
And so Cid joins him, and because Ramza is the hero and is worthy, the game is no longer difficult. Why should it be? He’s succeeded in his role. At one point, young Ramza could not lift the sword, but if you play Ramza as a sword-wielder at all, he can now hold Excalibur itself (holy elemental, just like Ultima).
The thematic point the game is trying to make here is more important than the game mechanics themselves, because the game is actually about certain ideas. If the game being too easy from that point is a problem, you certainly don’t have to bring Cid into battle with you. After all, he’s already said that you can do it alone.
