IGN reports today that Square Enix has confirmed that a multiplayer option will feature in the forthcoming Sony PlayStation Portable title, Final Fantasy Tactics: Shishi Sensou (The Lion War).

The game - a remake of the original PlayStation title will boast a number of game play and aesthetical enhancements over the original. As well as reworked graphical wizardry, new job classes and extra playable characters have also been promised.

Today's multiplayer mode revelation (thought to be ad hoc only) is rumoured to have been carefully constructed to create as competitive an environment for skirmishes as possible. The two-player option will see each player's characters smothered in either a red or blue hue as to differentiate each side. What's more, each group will be afforded a limited number of turns so that simply avoiding the opposition won't become the mode's preferred option.

Set for release in Japan next month, Square Enix did not confirm whether Final Fantasy Tactics: Shishi Sensou would be making the journey over from the land of the rising sun to North America or any other territory. Of course, PSP games are region free, so the Japanese version will work fine on any version of the handheld - but whether it'll be as fun if you are unable to get your head around the reams of the native's onscreen text is another matter entirely.

From the Final Fantasy Tactics Wikipedia page:

Final Fantasy Tactics (often abbreviated as FFT) is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square Co., Ltd. (now Square Enix Co., Ltd.) for the Sony PlayStation video game console. It was distributed in Japan by Square and in North America by Sony Computer Entertainment America. It was not released in Europe.

Combining thematic elements of the Final Fantasy series with a game engine and battle system unlike anything previously seen in the franchise, Final Fantasy Tactics is Square's answer to Quest's successful Ogre Battle / Tactics Ogre series, with which it shares a number of key conceptual and stylistic elements. This is due, in part, to the presence of former Quest staff members in its development crew, including director Yasumi Matsuno, character designer Akihiko Yoshida, art director Hiroshi Minagawa and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, all of whom had left Quest to work with Square. In stark contrast to other 32-bit era Final Fantasy titles, Final Fantasy Tactics uses a 3D, isometric, rotatable playing field, with bitmap sprite characters.

A spin-off was created in 2003, called Final Fantasy Tactics Advance for the Game Boy Advance, and in 2006, a stand-alone title for the Playstation 2 called Final Fantasy XII was released. All three games take place in a world called Ivalice.