Characters / Breath of Fire IV

Party Members

Ryu

Ryu

Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi

The Protagonist as per usual in Breath of Fire. This time, Ryu is an amnesiac boy who crash-lands in the Eastern Continent's Great Desert right next to Nina and Cray's Sandship. With no idea of who he is or why he's there, he sticks with Nina in hopes of regaining his memory.

• Accidental Pervert: In two of the Bowdlerise scenes.
• Achilles' Heel: As he is the Literal Split Personality of Fou-Lu and a God dragon, both share the same weakness against weapons created specifically to kill beings such as themselves. On top of that, since Ryu is considered to be a Fire dragon, he has an innate weakness to water/ice.
• The Berserker: Same as in III. Now one needs to find all Endless in order to control the Kaiser Dragon.
• Big Damn Heroes: Subverted at the start of the game. Nina falls down a cliff side and Ryu jumps heroically to her aid...and just then notices Nina has wings. Cue Ryu's smacking the ground face-first.
• Big "SHUT UP!": A dialogue option allows Ryu to do this to Fou-Lu when choosing the "Good End" option after Fou-Lu's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Despair Event Horizon: When Rasso slaughters the innocent civilians of Chek, he falls into an Heroic BSoD. This is especially apparent in the manga adaptation.
• Elemental Powers: Back to form-specific elements:
  • Playing with Fire: Wyvern/Wyrm.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Behemoth/Mammoth.
  • Blow You Away: Myrmydon/Knight.
  • Non-Elemental: Aura & Kaiser.
• Jack of All Stats: All of his stats are decently high.
• Hellish Pupils: The manga's depiction of the Dragon's Eye.
• Heroic Mime: At least until the ending.
  • Averted in the manga adaptation, which has him speak frequently and greatly expands on his personality.
• I Will Find You: Ryu searching for Fou-Lu in the manga adaptation.
• Katanas Are Just Better: First Ryu to ditch the European swords for a katana. Likely as part of the setting switch from Medieval Europe to Ancient China.
• Literal Split Personality: By virtue of originally being one part of Fou-Lu.
• Living MacGuffin: Ryu ultimately becomes this.
• Naked on Arrival: An embarrassed Nina comes across his naked unconscious self at the merchant crash site.
• Playing with Fire: Three of his dragon forms are fire-type.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red Oni to Fou-Lu's Blue. By the end of the game, it gets inverted: Fou-lu is angry and vengeful against humanity while Ryu is compassionate towards them and wants to impart this mentality to him.
• Secret Art: The Dragon transformations (called Meditate here) and evocations are naturally exclusive to him.
• This Is Unforgivable!: In the manga version, Ryu screams: "I won't forgive you" during his Heroic BSoD...Right before unleashing THE KAISER DRAGON.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: After spending roughly the first half of the game only being able to use his weakest transformation, Aura, he unlocks the considerably more powerful Kaiser transformation after seeing Captain Rasso lead a massacre against the citizens of Chek, and being forced to participate in a Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight against an invincible monster that beats him and his friends to within an inch of their lives.
• Twin Telepathy: With Fou-Lu, probably closer to Twin Empathy. Depicted more blatantly in the manga (especially so starting around Chapter 19) and is actually the major driving plot-point.

Nina

Nina

The caring princess of Wyndia, who departed with her best friend Cray in search of her lost sister Elina. She sets to the Great Desert heading for where Elina was seen last, but an accident with the Sandship and a chance meeting with Ryu causes her to change course and set out on a journey much bigger than she had intended.

• Blow You Away: Outside of healing, Nina's specialty is using Wind magic, starting with Sever. With customizable skills, you can give her other elemental magic though.
• Character Narrator: Each chapter ends with a short narration from her.
• Cooldown Hug: Actually bringing Ryu down from KAISER RAGE by this, in fact!
• Healing Winds: She uses wind magic both offensively and for healing.
• The Heart: Of the team, she is the most affected by the suffering she sees, and it is she who actually recruits the other members (except for Ershin).
• I Will Find You: The game starts out with Nina and Cray searching for her lost sister Elina.
• The Medic: She gets all of the best healing spells by levelling up.
• Morality Pet: Serves as one for Cray, in the beginning. One suspects that the only reason the party got to six members at all is because Nina kept telling Cray to give them a chance. Cray outgrows the need for one eventually.
• The Pollyanna: Nina's knack for seeing the good in everything is contagious, to the point it wins the party a new member in Scias.
• Royal Blood: She's a Princess of Wyndia.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In her case, go in search of her lost sister Elina. And calm down raging KAISER DRAGON mode Ryu. And in the manga, have an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight moment that slaps sense into Ryu when the latter is in Infini's mind.
• Secret Art:
  • Her passive, Cheer, that she uses when she's in the back, healing the entire front line without any cost.
  • Nina's secret combo finisher is Phoenix, where she becomes Wreathed in Flames and rushes at the enemies.

• White Magician Girl: She's the healer of the party, compared to III's Nina being the Black Mage.
• Winged Humanoid: She's a Wyndian, which is a race of birdmen.

Cray

Chief Cray

Voiced by: Isshin Chiba

Chief of the Woren and a very close friend of Nina and Elina, who offered to be Nina's bodyguard when she set out to search for her sister after the latter disappeared. He's dragged along by Nina into helping Ryu recover his memory after Ryu has a prophetic dream and Nina is convinced that helping him will lead them to Elina.

• The Big Guy: In that he's the biggest party member. Personality-wise, he's closer to The Lancer.
• Carry a Big Stick: His weapon is a large wooden bat.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Rei was a slacker, thief, and very much the speedster of your team; Cray is the dutiful leader of the Woren clan and is the team’s heavy hitter.
• Da Chief: He's also the leader of the Woren tribe, a responsibility inherited from his father.
• Deadpan Snarker: Has his moments.
• Dishing Out Dirt: He has native access to Earth magic. While he lacks the Intelligence and Magic Points stats to use them effectively, he makes up for it thanks to his spells being multi-targets and being able to participate in Combos.
• Half-Human Hybrid: His mother is human, his father (the previous chieftain) is Woren.
• Heroic BSoD: In the game, after he mercy-kills Elina. He does not speak again until the final dungeon.
• Hot-Blooded: Something of a problem for him and his tribe. To his credit, he does try to control his temper, with varying success.
• Hunk: A quick look at his official artwork reveals that Cray is jacked. Naturally, he is one of your hardest hitter.
• I Will Find You: Searching for Elina along with Nina. It doesn't end well and Elina has to be given a Mercy Kill.
• Idiot Ball: He's no Dumb Muscle, but he still grabs firm hold of this at times, mostly in the beginning in his desperation to find Elina.
• It's Personal: With Yuna, after he finds out what he did to Elina.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the beginning, he's really something of a bully. He all but forcibly conscripts Ryu into the party because of his prophetic dreams leading to Elina, and when they don't pan out, considers ditching him. He also beats up Marlok's bodyguard, forces his way into his house, and demands that he give information about Elina while offering nothing in return. His behavior toward the other members of the party, especially Ursula, isn't that great either, and he often ignores their needs entirely unless Nina speaks up for them. And that's not going into his illegal entry into The Empire, which caused a lot of people a lot of problems which he never apologized for. Despite all this, he really does care for Nina and is protective of both her and the party in his own way. And, through the wonders of Character Development ( and a few rounds of Break the Cutie) he pretty much drops the "jerk" part completely by the end.
• Kangaroo Court: The Ludian court isn't exactly on his side when he's on trial. To be fair, they aren't entirely wrong, either.
• Love Confession: He confesses his love to Elina moments before he is forced to kill her to end her never-ending suffering.
• Love Hurts: And how. He genuinely loves Elina from all his heart, and will stop at nothing to find her. When he does finally find her, she is beyond saving, and he has to kill her himself, at her own request.
• Love Redeems: Cray has his own experience with this when he must ultimately euthanise Elina with the Dragonslayer.
• Mighty Glacier: Well, his weapon is pretty big and heavy, so that might explain it.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Finding Cray and company illegally across borders, assaulting Imperial soldiers nearly broke the ceasefire the Empire had with the Eastern Alliance, and by manufacturing a copy of the weapon that Cray also stole (and gave away to Nina, who gave it to Ryu, who broke it,), the Empire was able to modify the treaty between the countries so that they could seize more land on the border, so that they could more easily search for Ryu. A great deal of trouble the True Companions face in the later Acts could have been avoided entirely if Cray had been capable of any degree of subtlety — though he IS right in that Elina couldn't be found through proper channels, given what the Empire had done to her.
• Only Sane Man: Feels like this most times, mostly in regards to recruiting Scias and Ursula since they were former enemies. He's also, for the most part, a lot more level-headed than the rest of his tribe (including the supposedly-wise elders).
• Papa Wolf: In regards to Nina. Considerably more explicit in the manga.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Chieftain of the entire Woren nation, at that.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: His attitude concerning his search for Elina. He learns to grow out of it, though.
• Secret Art:
  • His exclusive passive has Cray automatically shield critically-injured party members from attacks.
  • Cray's secret combo finisher is Mudslide, where he takes a mighty swing at a target.
• Shout-Out: His ultimate combination magic is named "Weretiger" in reference to Rei's feral form. Also, at one point, he says Rei's infamous catchphrase.
• Team Dad: If there's someone you can trust the safety and well-being of your team to, it's Cray.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • He faced a LOT of chewing out from the Ludian court for his illegal entry into The Empire and his loss of a priceless heirloom and symbol of the Alliance. His response was to throw it right back.
  • Ursula and Ershin bluntly call him on bad leadership decisions. Also, Ursula isn't too thrilled to learn that the party is responsible for the Kyoin Gateway getting a malfunction (although, to be fair, why it went haywire is never elaborated), forcing the party to take another route.

Ershin

Ershin/Master

A weird, animated suit of armor that helps the Purifiers in Chamba with the cleanup of the village's Hex contamination. Prone to third-person speak and laughing at inappropriate moments, Ershin joins Ryu's team for no seeming reason other than being compelled by "Ershin", the entity they say is living inside the armor. Which turns out to be Deis, one of the Endless who's very aware of Ryu's true nature as a Dragon god.

• Ambiguous Gender: The characters and even the game itself couldn't decide whether to address Ershin as a he or a she, using both at different points in the story.
• Animated Armor: Deis' aura granted the armor a will of its own.
• Bilingual Bonus: Two separate ones, in fact, both of which contain spoilers.
• Cloudcuckoolander: To call Ershin "bizarre" wouldn't do her justice. She acts quite aloof, can be pushy at times, has laughing fits and can be sometimes disconnected from reality.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Gave up its life to protect the Abbess of Chek while Deis was speaking with the Endless.It didn't stick, though.
• Jerkass: Deis was hardly warm to Ershin when it was revealed that it had a mind of its own. She absolutely refused to go back inside, cruelly insisting it was never alive and that it should "go back to being a suit of armor," and then leaving it alone in Chek. She eventually realized how selfish this attitude was when Ershin gave up its life to protect the Abbess, and goes back into the armor to rejoin Ryu.
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: When the party has to release Deis.
• Long-Range Fighter: Her exclusive passive, Cover Fire, allows Ershin to attack from the back row (without any player input).
• Master of All: There is a reason for Meaningful Name. After a certain point in the game, Ershin will learn all 4 Level 3 Elemental magics.
• Meaningful Name: Though hidden by a Bilingual Bonus. The Keep It Foreign renaming of Master to "Ershin" — literally meaning "two souls" in Sichuan Chinese — was to preserve the Bilingual Bonus.
• Recurring Element: In a way, Ershin is Deis as a playable character again, after being Demoted to Extra in the previous game.
• Power Perversion Potential: The second time the party has to wake Deis up, they find out she used her power over her own dream world to create a harem of scantily-clad men.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: On some of her character portraits.
• Robot Buddy
• Rocket Punch: Her basic attack has him shooting his fist to the enemies.
• Sealed Good in a Can: It turns out Ershin is actually the robotic "host" for the goddess Deis.
• Secret Art:
  • Cover Fire, in which Ershin automatically attacks from the back row.
  • Stand Out draws all enemies' single-target attacks at Ershin.
• Stone Wall: Excellent Defense and no Elemental Affinity.
• Team Pet: Though a surprisingly powerful one once she is leveled up.
• Third-Person Person: Oh god yes. Entirely justified to the point of Fridge Brilliance based on the above.
• Took a Level in Badass: Becomes much more useful after an event which occurs about halfway through the game; specifically, unsealing Deis' power allows Ershin to learn a greater variety of skills, including all four level three elemental spells.
• Use Your Head: Following in Peco's example.

Scias

Scias

A quirky, alcoholic (well, stuttering in the English version) mercenary hired by Ludia to keep tabs on Ryu's party after they're captured in Astana. Following the orders given to him to the technical word, he eventually turns on the Ludian authority after witnessing Nina and Ryu's plight to help Cray, instead taking an interest on assisting Ryu's party on their journey.

• Achilles' Heel: Scias' element being Water, he shares Fou-Lu's weakness to Fire attacks.
• Alcohol Hic: Unfortunately, Bowdlerise in the English version to a stuttering issue.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: It is implied in the game (and even more in the manga) that the reason Scias left the employ of Ludia was because he was touched by Nina's optimism and faith in him.
• Captain Obvious: Scias' reaction to the discovery that "Fairy Drops" are the Solid Gold Poop of actual fairies.
• Combat Medic: He's the secondary healer of the game, but he can still dish out damage in both physical attacks and offensive magic.
• Drunken Master: Scias' original characterization in the Japanese version had him constantly falling-down plastered, and still pulling off all the fanciest of moves he does in battle. Imagine what he could accomplish sober.
• Exact Words: Scias is hired and told to keep an eye on Ryu's party, which he does. He's just not told to stop them should they do anything to help Cray.
• Flash Step: His attack animation.
• Glass Cannon: When Rakhasa activates (when his HP has fallen into the yellow): his Defense drops to zero and its value is transferred to his Power.
• Heel–Face Turn: He is employed by Ludia to spy on the party, but he reneges and returns the money once he starts actually sympathizing with Nina's plight.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: He tries to project the image of a Badass mercenary, but his campfire conversations and certain other events reveal that he's not nearly as devoid of conscience as he pretends.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Much better if they give him an extra attack.
• Lightning Bruiser: He is fast, he hits hard (Shining Blade, hello!) and his Defense and Evasion are pretty good as well.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: He sobers up/drop the stuttering when something really takes him for surprise. The best example is when Ryu and co. go to the Golden Plains to gets some help for Cray. Scias is genuinely confused as to why would anyone do anything without expecting to be recompensed in return, specially something that might not work at all. He's a mercenary to the core; the very concept of Altruism is so alien to him that he simply doesn't understand it at all. Nina's kindness is heavily implied to be one of the reasons of why he decided to leave his original mission.
• Secret Art:
  • Shining Blade and Rakhasa, although they are both Shadowwalk and Last Resort under different names, and Rakhasa is a passive activated upon critical health.
  • His secret combo finisher is Ice Sword, freezing an enemy before shattering it with his strike.
• Speech Impediment: His stuttering.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Occurs as part of his Heel–Face Turn.

Ursula

Captain Ursula

Voiced by: Kumiko Watanabe

A fox-like girl who works for the Empire as a commander in the army. Initially tasked with capturing Ryu by The Empire, her mission goes sideways when Captain Rasso massacres the village of Chek for Ryu's whereabouts and the incident leads to Ryu unleashing Kaiser on him. Because Ryu's party actually intends to go to the Empire both to search for Elina and have Ryu and Fou-Lu meet, they take Ursula with them under the pretext that they're also helping her accomplish her mission.

• Ascended Extra: In the game proper, Ursula joins late and her role is fairly restricted. In the manga adaptation, she gets more time to shine, with several pages dedicated to her perspective and thoughts, thus expanding her character and giving her more depth.
• The Captain: She is a field officer with the rank of Captain in the Fou Imperial Army. At the story's end, she is shown to be in charge of what's left of the Fou Imperial Army, organizing disaster recovery efforts.
• The Comically Serious: She smiles exactly once during the whole game and only to her only known family, General Rhun.
• Connected All Along: In the manga, moments after Elina's death, Ursula confesses that she was the one who invited Elina to come to the Fou Empire in Synesta, with Marlok acting as an intermediary. She kept quiet until then because this was considered classified information to the Fou Empire. After a brief moment of guilt, Ursula is forgiven by Cray, who reasons that she only followed orders and was not told about what would happen to Elina once she was no longer Ursula's concern.
• Defensive Failure: She pulls her gun and aims at Ryu when he is in his berserk state, but is visibly shaking and is ultimately unable to shoot. Were it not for Nina's intervention, she would have been vaporized on the spot just like Rasso.
• Even Evil Has Standards: During her very brief time as an antagonist, she shows disgust with Rasso when he slaughters the women and children of Chek. Invoked: In the manga, she explicitly describes Rasso's actions as unforgivable and begs Nina to not think of all Fou Empire soldiers as being similarly monstrous.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Fond of delivering these to Cray.
• Happily Adopted: By General Rhun, it turns out.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: Some of her firearms allows Ursula to hit all enemies at once. Train her to have high attack power, and she can easily clear out most Random Encounters.
• I Will Find You: At the game's end, she goes looking for her foster-father General Rhun. In the manga, she goes searching for Yuna, presumably to hunt him down and kill him.
• Jack of All Stats: Could be Master of None, but training with Masters helps her to stay decent.
• Lady of War: A high-ranking Imperial officer, and rather proper and dignified.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Was quite surprised to learn the party's goal was to find Fou-lu (Ryu's other half), because Ursula believed that he has been dead for centuries. This implies that Ursula was not aware of the continent-wide manhunt that resulted in Fou-lu's awakening.
• Not So Stoic: She cries when General Rhun asks her to call him "Grandfather", just as she did as a child. For the first time in the story, Ursula lets her guard down and shows a side of herself beyond that of a dutiful Imperial soldier.
• Playing with Fire: Completing the quartet of mono-elementalists in the party, Ursula is primarily a fire magic user.
• Powerup Let Down: Ursula's Electrifier weapon is, according to its attack power, her best weapon; however, it has terrible accuracy. Most players would probably settle for the Culverin: it is only a few points behind the Electrifier, but it has no accuracy drop, higher critical rate, and is a Herd-Hitting Attack.
• Secret Art:
  • Revival allows Ursula to survive a lethal attack with 1HP.
  • Ursula's combo finisher is Reflect, which fires a laser through one enemy which then rebounds to hit another, potentially hitting all enemies in the field.
• Sixth Ranger: She doesn't even show up until near the end of Chapter 2, but she still starts as an antagonist.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Her victory sprite has her disappear in a ninja-style Smoke Out.
• Tsundere: Specifically, Type A.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Sea lice. Especially hilarious as sea lice are harmless isopods — and Nina even points this out.
  • This in fact SO traumatises Ursula in regards to sea travel that when Khan knocks on the bottom of the ship later, Ursula is convinced it's actually the sea lice who are OUT TO GET HER.

Supporting Characters

Elina (Massive UNMARKED Spoilers for the end of the game)

Elina

• All-Loving Hero: Elina is a beloved public figure throughout the Eastern Continent. This was the biggest reason why Yuna captured her in order to eventually use her as an everlasting sacrifice for the Carronade.
• Arranged Marriage: She is engaged to Morley, the prince of Ludia, in order to secure an alliance between Wyndia and Ludia. Some people believed that she disappeared because she didn't want to get married in the first place.
• Astral Projection: In the depths of Yuna's underground laboratory at Astana, she projects an image of herself to tell Ryu and his friends that only the Dragonslayer will allow them to eventually find her.
• Body Horror: Everything beneath her waist is a mass of giant bones and internal organs that has integrated itself with Yuna's underground laboratory in Astana. Some of the organs even have eyes that follow anything that moves on them.
• Break the Cutie: Subverted. Despite her traumatic experiences during Yuna's cruel experiments, Elina retained her kind, loving personality through it all.
• Complete Immortality: As an Endless, only weapons that can kill a deity, such as the Dragonslayer, can kill her.
• Damsel in Distress: Her disappearance results in Nina and Cray searching for her. By the time Elina is found, it's too late to rescue her.
• Deity of Human Origin: As a result of Yuna's experiment to give her an immortal body Gone Horribly Right.
• Friend to All Children: Before her disappearance, Elina was last seen at an orphanage in the town of Synesta, where she was fondly remembered by the children.
• Go Out with a Smile: She accepts her death with grace, a serene smile on her face when Cray ends her suffering.
• Gory Discretion Shot: We never actually see Cray kill Elina. In the game, the scene cuts to outside Elina's room just as Cray takes the Dragonslayer. The player may not re-enter the room afterwards. In the manga, the scene changes just before Cray stabs Elina. After this, it is shown that Elina's body has disappeared.
• The Lost Lenore: To Cray, after he kills her with the Dragonslayer.
• The Omniscient: As an Endless, she is able to know things beyond human perception. For example, she knew Ryu's name even though he never introduced himself to her, she knew about Fou-lu's existence and she fully understood that the meeting between Ryu and Fou-lu will decide the world's destiny. She also knew that Cray loved her enough to end her suffering.
• Onee-sama: She is deeply loved and respected by her younger sister Nina, who always calls her "Nee-sama".
• Princess Classic: She is the very image of a beautiful, kind, innocent princess.
• Royal Blood: She is a princess of Wyndia, being the older sister of Nina.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: She has devoted her life to finding a way to end the war between the Fou Empire and the Alliance and promoting peace between them, acting as an ambassador-at-large. Elina has also conducted goodwill visits to many cities and towns ravaged by the war, making her a popular public figure.
• Sacrificial Lamb: Averted. Yuna originally planned to use Elina as a sacrifice for the Carronade due to her strong emotional ties to many people on the Eastern Continent. However, the Carronade required its victims to be tortured to near-death in order to properly utilize their negative thoughts and emotions as ammunition. Yuna conducted experiments to give Elina an immortal body in order to give the Carronade infinite ammunition. In the process, he accidentally turned Elina into an Endless.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Despite being missing for most of the story, Elina is the biggest reason why Nina and Cray push forward and endure many perils searching for her. During this search, they encounter Ryu, which takes their quest to a new level of drama.
• Superpower Disability: As a side effect of becoming an Endless, Elina's bones and internal organs have grown to the point of permanently immobilizing her.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: She is the most unambiguously good person in the game's story, making her death all the more tragic.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Having no wish to live and suffer for all eternity, Elina's last request is for Cray to give her a Mercy Kill using the Dragonslayer.
• Winged Humanoid: Like Nina, she too is a Wyndian.

Marlok

Marlok

• Dirty Old Man: He is a little too eager when asking Nina for a massage.
• Fish People: He is a Manillo, a fish-humanoid race notorious for its love of money.
• Greed: His most defining trait, befitting his race. He is the richest merchant in Synesta, owning a large house and a sandflier. In fact, as long as a character has Marlok as their Master, they will earn more money after battles!
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: He is never seen without a cigarette in his mouth and he sometimes breathes smoke onto others to show off his displeasure.
• Jerkass Has a Point: This happens whenever the heroes meet him.
  • After the heroes defeat his bodyguard Kahn, Marlok wants them to do some work for him in exchange for information on Elina. While Cray is annoyed by this, Ershin points out that it's unrealistic to expect something for free, especially considering they beat up Kahn, depriving Marlok of a bodyguard.
  • After Marlok sends them to catch a thief who stole some of his items, the heroes learn that the thief was actually coerced into selling the items, which were originally the thief's, at a fraction of their price to Marlok. The heroes let the thief go and confront Marlok, who points out that the items are legally his since he paid for them, however little.
  • After Ursula and Scias hijack Marlok's sandflier before the others can stop them, Marlok himself admonishes Cray and Nina for seemingly taking up banditry since their last meeting. As a result, Cray finds himself begging Marlok for help in borrowing or purchasing a sandflier of their own while he and Nina literally shrink in embarrassment. Fortunately, Marlok eventually consents, seeing it as an investment for a potentially great return.
• Mentor Archetype: He eventually becomes a Master in the later stages of the story. Fittingly, the Skills he teaches involve making it easier to get money, items, and even experience after battle.
• Only in It for the Money: He doesn't care who he makes deals with or why, so long as he profits from them. For this reason, he is willing to work with the Fou Empire despite them being traditional enemies of his homeland, which included helping to bring Elina to Kyoin, no questions asked.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He was the last person known to have met Elina before she disappeared, having helped people from the Fou Empire deliver her to Kyoin, where a magical gate to the Fou Empire is. Because of this, the heroes eventually get his help in smuggling them to Kyoin, providing an important lead in their quest. Later, Marlok helps the heroes purchase a sandflier with a signed bond.
• Twinkle in the Eye: This happens when a cunning idea crosses his mind, much to the discomfort of those who see it.

Kahn

Kahn

• Arch-Enemy: Thinks of himself as this in relation to the main party. Thinks being the operative word here.
• Auto-Revive: As a Master, his Will (passive ability) allows apprentices to survive otherwise-lethal attacks with 1 HP remaining.
• Determinator: Credit where it's due, no matter how badly Ryu and partly beat him down, he keeps coming back.
• Fartillery: One of his skills (Flex) is a long farting sound that tintes the screen yellow and has a chance to inflict poison status to everyone. (It can be learned from him once he becomes a Master)
• Dumb Muscle: He isn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
• Foreshadowing: The three times you encounter him, he was working under a Master. Try to guess what he becomes after giving up on the party.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: He's a decent enough challenge all three times you face him, but everyone in-story acts like he's harmless.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Tries to antagonize the party a few times, and fails spectacularly each and every time.
• Large Ham: Tends to make bombastic entrances just for the sake of showing off.
• Leitmotif: Has a very catching one that later cues the player about him being close.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Fitting for a barbarian-like character.

Bunyan

Bunyan (Babadel)

• Chekhov's Gunman: First appeared as Fou-lu's caretaker. Series veterans would already be aware of what role he'll play.
• Mentor Archetype: Following in his predecessor's steps.
• Mythology Gag: This time, the translators even picked it up and carried over the Dub Name Change from III.
• Retired Badass: He served during the Great War.

Mami

Mami

• Break the Cutie: She was subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture in preparation for fueling the Carronade. It is likely that she was utterly broken in mind and spirit by the end of it.
• The Lost Lenore: Possibly for Fou-Lu, who kept her bell ornaments after her death in the manga. Also possibly for her landlord, who was suspicious of Fou-lu partly out of jealousy and blamed himself for her death despite trying to convince himself otherwise.
• Love Hurts: Quite fatally for her in fact — unfortunately for poor Mami, the Carronade literally operates on this principle.
• Morality Pet: She's Fou-Lu's counterpart to Nina in many ways, and she also shows exactly what happens when the Morality Pet is killed in the middle of a villain's developing Heel–Face Turn.
• Sacrificial Lamb: For the Carronade.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Do not insult or try to drive off her Ryong in her presence.

Fou Empire

Fou-Lu

Fou-Lu

Voiced by: Isshin Chiba

The other half of the Yorae Dragon, brought to the world centuries before Ryu was, and founder of the Fou Empire. He wakes up after eons of sleep and heads for the Imperial capital of Chedo to reclaim his throne as was promised to him, but it turns out his own Empire has grown too fond of the power it has, and they're not willing to hand that power over... even to its almighty, godlike founder.

• Achilles' Heel: As he is the Literal Split Personality of Ryu and a God dragon, both share the same weakness against weapons created specifically to kill beings such as themselves. On top of that, since Fou-Lu is considered to be an Ice dragon, he has an innate weakness to fire, something that the Empire is well aware of. General Yohm's first move upon Fou-Lu revival was to set the forest on fire, and each creatures he summons specialize in fire attacks.
• Anti-Villain: Though his end goals involve slaughtering humanity, the sheer tragedy he went through at the hands of the heigher ups of the Fou Empire such as Yohm and Yuna still makes him sympathetic. And in one of the endings, he sheds his dismissive views on humans and sacrifices himself, believing that they need no gods.
• Bishōnen Line: For the Final Boss battle, his first form is the Tyrant, the black-colored counterpart to Ryu's Kaiser form. The second battle is against his Astral form, which, instead of its usual appearance, is a humanoid giant that resembles Fou-lu like it was a Fusion Dance of his human and dragon forms.
• The Cameo: Appears as a card in the Heroes and Heralds mode of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
• Crutch Character: You only control him during brief segments of the story, and he's all you'll need. Fou-Lu starts off with a very powerful dragon form, and is at such a high level that despite soloing battles he isn't likely to gain any levels, nor does he even need to.
• Dark Is Evil: The first part of the final battle with him has Fou-Lu in his Tyrant form: a black version of Ryu's Kaiser form that attacks with the dark magic of the Dark Wave and Malefication spells. He himself becomes an example of this throughout his story, wearing dark clothes and becoming vengeful against humanity.
• Despair Event Horizon: Losing Mami pushes him so far past it that he enters full-on Laughing Mad territory.
• Deuteragonist: His role in the story and viewpoint are as important to the plot as Ryu's journey.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: The Empire doesn't want him around and makes repeated attempts to kill him, which in the end drives his mad and causes him to burn the empire's capital to the ground, in addition to of course, killing nearly everyone sent after him.
• Driven to Villainy: At first he's a fairly decent warrior god, but then The Empire that he built keeps trying to kill him after he awakens and puts him through so many traumatic experiences until he snaps and decides to kill everyone.
• Dual Wielding: During the final fight.
• Elemental Powers: He gets ice over Ryu's fire, but otherwise he gets similar forms ^note  He can also use all of Ryu's other forms, but outside of Behemoth it's only possible through cheating devices.
  • An Ice Person/Making a Splash: Serpent/Peist.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: Behemoth/Mammoth.
  • Non-Elemental: Astral & Tyrant, plus the event-only Infini
• Energy Weapon: He conjures a sword of Pure Energy for his standard attacks.
• Evil Counterpart: To Ryu. Turns out he's not really evil at all, though.
• Founder of the Kingdom: Four hundred years ago, he was the founder and the first Emperor of the Fou Empire.
• God-Emperor: One of the few cases where the God-Emperor started out as a god first.
• God Is Good: While not soft and sometimes not that nice, it's clear that Fou-Lu does genuinely care about humanity and that he first intended to rule them only as a benevolent emperor. However, because Humans Are Bastards, they dick him over enough times that he crosses the Despair Event Horizon and decides to kill everyone.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the manga ending and arguably in the Good End of the game. He was well on his way there anyway, but then someone thought it'd be a good idea to kill his Morality Pet.
• Hellish Pupils: In the manga version. Justified as the manga in general uses cat-like eyes to denote someone is a dragon.
• Humans Are Bastards: He believes this about mortals in general: that they are foolish and belligerent and will use their powers to wage war and cause death amongst themselves. In one of the endings, he will soften his views and believe them to be "magnificent" as well.
• I Know Your True Name: It is explained that the mere act of saying his name causes ripples in time and alerts magic-sensitive people to his presence. Fou-Lu himself ends up a victim of this...Twice over. Once during the botched summoning that called him to the world (and split him in half), the other via Yohm having a bit too much knowledge of name magic. It doesn't help that he tells Mami his story, mentioning his name several times in the process.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even in his more benevolent moments, Fou-Lu was still arrogant and dismissive towards humanity. Though he showed much gratitude to the mortals that took care of him and when he was hurt, he wasn't above rudely telling them not to interfere with his affairs- which is what he told Mami. Then everything changes after she dies and Fou-Lu heads toward full-blown villainy.
• King Incognito: Upon reawakening from his sleep, only the higher-ups in the Fou Empire's hierarchy know who he is. None of the civilians are aware that Fou-Lu is the First Emperor. Bunyan thinks he just shares the name and soldiers keep him from entering the castle, believing him to be part of the common folk.
• King in the Mountain: Technically, Fou-Lu is this to the Fou Empire (what with being summoned as their literal God-Emperor and prophesying his own "resurrection" before going into torpor for 600 years). Unfortunately, The Empire that he happens to be the King in the Mountain of wants him quite dead — thus becoming a subversion of the trope.
• Laughing Mad: After he finds out poor Mami was used as a Fantastic Nuclear Warhead. The manga's depiction of this is especially disturbing, in part because Ryu also feels Fou-Lu losing his mind via Twin Telepathy after having had his own Kaiser Dragon Incident.
• Love Hurts: Learns this the hard way when Mami gets used in The Carronade.
  • Complete with Blood from the Mouth and MORE than a bit of going Laughing Mad when he finds out Mami was used as a literal human warhead for a Fantastic Nuke.
• Love Redeems: Once he meets up with Mami, he starts down this path. Then Yuna brutally tortures her and uses her as a sacrifice for the Carronade. Ouch.
• Mystical White Hair: He has white hair and its is a sign of his otherworldly nature, being an Endless and all. His true form, upon merging with Ryu, has him with green hair, however.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While still a sympathetic character at the time, saying his own name multiple times to Bunyan and Mami keep alerting General Yohm and his soldiers to his presence. Furthermore, saving the village from the Rock Golem in the mountain exposes the common folk to his true nature, making them suspicious and leading Mami's landlord to rat him out to his pursuers.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Initially he is pretty alright even if he is not very nice. However, as he progresses, the manhunt on him by The Empire eventually makes him more and more wary of the humans. Even though his interactions with Bunyan and Mami slightly change his opinion for the better. He finally snaps after a tactical Carronade strike. He goes full Laughing Mad when he learns that Mami was used as an ammunition for Carronade. Probably subverted in Good End.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Fou-Lu gives one that is more of a "The Reason Humans Suck Speech"; this is actually how you start the decision path on which of the Multiple Endings to go with.
  • The manga (in its Third-Option Adaptation Ending) starts with Fou-Lu going into his "The Reason Humans Suck Speech", and Ryu agreeing and choosing to go with what appears to be the Bad End. He gets better, though.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue Oni to Ryu's Red Oni. He is generally more stoic, but things get inverted by the end of the story: Fou-Lu is consumed with despair and rage against humans while Ryu still has hope and compassion for them, and wants to teach him this.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: After uniting the world's nations into an empire, Fou-Lu went into slumber in a tomb, only to be awakened hundreds of years later when his other half finally emerges.
• Sequential Boss: The endgame battles against Fou-lu consists of three phases: a Duel Boss between him and Ryu (which ends in a few turns), followed by him summoning the Tyrant, and after that the actual Final Boss, the Astral (which is different from the one used when Fou-lu is a playable character).
• The Slow Path: The imperfect summoning ritual caused the Yorae Dragon to be split in half, with one half establishing an empire as its first ruler. Fou-lu would then send himself off to sleep in order to wait for his other half to surface, centuries later.
• Spared by the Adaptation: In the manga ending, Fou-Lu is shown to be living with Ryu travelling the world. The manga ends with the two heading towards Wyndia, Fou-Lu wishing to learn what Ryu sees in humanity.
• Speak of the Devil: A self inflicted version (in order to avoid Yohm's I Know Your True Name where he refuses to tell Mami his real name.
• Split-Personality Merge: After the final battle in the game's Good End, he admits that whilst Humans Are the Real Monsters they are also "magnificent" and is absorbed into Ryu.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: The player controls him at several points throughout the game, allowing them to witness various Pet the Dog moments and humanizing scenes.
• Technically a Smile: Fou-Lu's character status sprite when he beheads Soniel.
  • In the Comic Blade Avarus manga the last page of Chapter 19 has another example (which, of note, occurs right after the manga's depiction of the above scene). Fou-Lu is holding Mami's bells, begging Ryu to hurry up and come, whilst giving a positively feral smile. And this is after being run through with the Dragonslayer.
• Tragic Ice Character: Described as having an affinity for water and uses ice-themed attacks in battle. By the end of the game, he's become a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds with a Humans Are the Real Monsters mindset as a result of all the things The Empire did to stop him retaking his rightful throne.
• Trauma Conga Line: All the way down to frank Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds by the time all is said and done with.
• Twin Telepathy: With Ryu. Again, closer to Twin Empathy and considerably more explicit in the manga version.
• Unwanted Revival: The Fou Empire's leadership in general sees him as this. This even goes to the point of official propaganda declaring him the "Dragon of Doom", and Yohm explicitly states his reawakening is an Unwanted Revival.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: And combined with the Royal "We", at that, that forms his manner of speaking. Justified as it conveys the fact the he is an ancient being. This is likely Capcom USA's attempt to deal with the original keigo, though rather more exaggerated in English.
• Weak to Fire: Yohm assumes Fou-Lu's affinity for water will lead to this trope, summoning fire-type monsters for him to do battle with and using Arrows on Fire to start a forest fire and flush him out of hiding shortly after he awakens.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Young with long, white hair; at first, it seems adverted but after getting nuked, he lives up to this trope.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Once The Empire literally Dropped a Mami on Him.

Lord Yuna

Lord Yuna

• Big Bad: The true main villain of the game, manipulating the Empire to suit his ends, and opposed by Ryu and friends, and, less directly, Fou-lu.
• Body Horror: His specialty. He experiments on people on a regular basis, and used Elina as his guinea pig, wishing to give her an immortal body in order to turn her into unlimited ammunition for the Carronade. His experience succeeded well beyond what he expected.
• Dirty Coward: claims to be a "pacifist" and a "man of the arts" as excuses to run away from just about every confrontation.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Acts as one to Emperor Soniel. Exactly what he really wants is never made clear in the game, but the manga implies that he has his eyes on the throne.
• Evil Is Not Pacifist: Double subverted. He claims to be a "pacifist" and a "man of the arts", but this is just an excuse to save his own ass.
• Evil Sorcerer: Extra emphasis on the evil.
• Gone Horribly Right: He wished to give Elina an immortal body for a nefarious purpose. He accidentally turned her into an Endless, whose evergrowing organs and bones completely invaded its laboratory.
• Karma Houdini: Probably one of the most notable examples of this in video games, especially since he pulls it off twice. He's directly responsible for nearly every bad thing that happens in the game, and to get the best ending, you have to let him get away with it. To make it even worse, the epilogue makes it very clear that he's already planning to rebuild his operation and do it all again. The only relief from this is that Ursula is on his tail.
• Love Hurts: It will if he has anything to say about it. Suffice it to say, Yuna is the last person you want to introduce your significant other to.
• Mad Scientist: He has actually been described as Breath of Fire's answer to Hojo, which pretty much hits the nail on the head. To some, Yuna is even more detestable due to being a Karma Houdini.
• Meaningful Name: Yuna translates to "night", which is a nice reflection on the type of person he is.
• Non-Action Big Bad: One of the truly evil characters in the entire game, but he remains The Unfought and ultimately a Karma Houdini.
• Sissy Villain: Mostly in the manga.

• The Unfought: He successfully escapes every scene where he might have ended in a battle by abusing Villain Teleportation to previously unseen levels.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The guy's attempts to kill Fou-Lu nearly cause the end of the world.
• Verbal Tic: Yaa.
• Villain Teleportation: If not for this little trick, Cray would have dealt with him and stopped the menace he represents.

General Yohm

General Yohm

• Affably Evil: He's very polite with Fou-Lu.
• Anti-Villain: Has hints of this in the game proper, and the manga makes rather a better case for this interpretation. Overall, he is just following orders, and does what he thinks is best for his country.
• Arc Villain: He's The Heavy for most of Fou-lu's side of the story.
• The Beastmaster: He summons mystical creatures to do the dirty job.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: After completing exhausting his magic and his summoned creatures in fighting Fou-lu, Yohm immolated himself knowing that he had done too much to the God-Emperor to be spared.
• The Dragon: To Emperor Soniel.
• Gonk: the quintessential Geezer Gonk. Stick legs, round body, his nose looks like a potato, and the impression one gets is of Anpan Man gone terribly wrong and evil.
• I Know Your True Name: Yohm engages in this in a very literal sense with Fou-Lu — even explicitly commenting to him that: the very act of speaking Fou-Lu's name sends ripples in the world to such an extent Yohm can be inevitably led to wherever he is. Yes, name magic can be used as essentially radar to find Endless, for values of sufficiently powerful Endless.
• Just Following Orders: Yohm even admits as much before committing suicide by immolation.

• Sequential Boss: When Fou-lu faces him for the last time, the God-Emperor must defeat two of his creations back-to-back. (Kahbo and Kamyu, Palette Swaps of Kahm and Khafu, respectively)
• The Unfought: Like Rasso and Yuna, he is never actually fought during the course of the game. Given his age and physical state, though, it's probably justified.

Captain Rasso

Captain Rasso

• Asshole Victim: He is a smug, despicable man who would torture and kill children without a second thought. As a result, he becomes the first mortal that Ryu learns to truly hate, resulting in him being vaporized by the Kaiser Dragon, along with a chunk of landscape in the distance.
• Broken Armor Boss Battle: Ight is a Seemingly Hopeless Boss Fight since it carries a large shield that negates almost all attacks against it. However, if Ryu is knocked unconscious during the fight, he will revive, transform into the Kaiser Dragon and unleash Kaiserbreath twice; the first use will obliterate Ight's shield, and the second will destroy Ight itself.
• Bullying a Dragon: Literally in this case, in Rasso's one-sided vendetta against Ryu and his friends. This culminates in Rasso taunting Ryu with the massacre of the people of Chek. causing Ryu to transform into the Kaiser and turn him into paste.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He's absolutely determined to kill Ryu for inflicting his facial scar. Rasso even skirts disobeying a direct order from his superiors to bring Ryu back alive by claiming that they never said anything about bringing him back unharmed.
• Made of Iron: The King's Sword broke when Ryu slashed him in his face. And it only leaves a scar.
  • Minor Injury Overreaction: It convinced Rasso to hunt Ryu down before figuring out the latter was the one he was looking for.
• Marionette Master: He never fights, letting his summoned Animated Armors to do the deed.
• Oh, Crap!: His last thought just before he's vaporized by the Kaiser Dragon, barely able to comprehend or accept that it is even happening.
• Sissy Villain (bordering Camp Gay): Rasso speaks in a very effeminate way in Japanese (to the point it can be described as the Japanese equivalent of Camp Gay) and also has rather effeminate mannerisms. In the 4-komas included in the manga Ryu even refers to him as "okama" — which was translated to "THE GIRLY MAN" in the Fan Translation.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Rasso's three robots are named "Joh", "Ymechaf" and "Ight". Put together, they form "Joy Mech Fight", a NES fighting game.
• Stern Chase: Obsessed with hunting Ryu and his party down because Ryu slashed him with the King's Sword, even before he finds out Ryu's true nature.
• The Unfought: Even though you fight his summons, you never get to battle him directly. The closest one gets is burnination by Kaiser Dragon, and that's not exactly controllable. Still very satisfying to see him annihilated by Kaiser though.
• Would Hurt a Child: After finding the children of Chek, he tortures them to death for information on Ryu's location. Because of Rasso, Rhem and the Abbess are the only surviving inhabitants of Chek by the story's end.

General Rhun

General Rhun

• My God, What Have I Done?: A blanket version. As he apologizes to Ryu and his friends, Rhun confessed that it was folly for the Fou Empire to try killing and creating gods. He held himself and the other leaders of the Fou Empire responsible for the Empire's ultimate ruin and for supporting Yuna's inhumane experiments, so strong was their desire to be like gods themselves.
• Old Soldier: He served the Fou Empire for many years, given that he was already fairly old when he adopted Ursula as his own.
• Parental Substitute: He raised Ursula since she was orphaned years ago.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Knows that Ryu is their only hope of stopping Fou-lu, and also apologizes for any and all atrocities (Yuna and Rasso's acts in particular) that gave the heroes grief. He also makes his stand at Chedo to make sure its citizens can escape without any monsters in pursuit.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He only has one scene throughout the entire game.

Emperor Soniel

Emperor Soniel

• 13 Is Unlucky: He is the 13th and the last Emperor of the Fou Empire before its collapse by Fou-lu's hand.
• Backstab Backfire: He loses his head after attempting to Back Stab Fou-lu. It's especially explicit in the manga.
• Dirty Coward: He cowers and sucks up to Fou-lu before stabbing the God-Emperor with the Dragonslayer the moment his guard is down. Soniel then takes a moment to gloat to Fou-lu's face, bragging about killing a god and calling the Fou Empire's promise to him worthless. Unfortunately for him, Fou-lu is only wounded, aggravating him even further.
• The Emperor: One of the very few examples where a mortal, rather than the God-Emperor, qualifies.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Tried to kill Fou-lu with the Dragonslayer...only for Fou-lu to decapitate him with the very same weapon.
• Horrible Judge of Character: The despicable Yuna is one of his most trusted advisors.
• I Surrender, Suckers: Pretends to finally abdicate his throne to Fou-lu, just so he can get close enough to stab Fou-lu. It did work, but that didn't mean it will end well for him.
• Off with His Head!: The result for Soniel of the Back Stab. A victim of Bowdlerisation in English, and treated to a Crowning Moment of Take That! in the Bloodier and Gorier manga adaptation.
• Pride: Especially apparent when he pulls the Back Stab on Fou-Lu bragging that he'd killed a god.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: He has a grand total of about two scenes before Fou-Lu slices his head off.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Soniel's ultimate decapitation was censored from non-Japanese versions of the game, thus resulting in this happening in European and American versions.

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