The first-ever Final Fantasy managed to be a very difficult game that was nonetheless extremely engaging and fun to play. This is partly since you get to choose your own party and their classes. The four Heroes of Light can be Warriors, Thieves, Monks, White Mages, Black Mages, or Red Mages.
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Each class has its pros and cons, and building a good party is key to making Final Fantasy a smooth experience. The recently-released Pixel Remaster version has lots of quality of life changes implemented but there's still a lot to learn, so it's handy to know what works and what doesn't when designing a party.
Balanced
- Setup: Red Mage/ Black Mage/ Thief/ White Mage
This party is the default the game prompts you to pick when you first load up the game, but with the Black Mage and White Mage swapped around. In the first Final Fantasy, enemies are far more likely to target characters in higher positions than lower ones, so having the White Mage at the bottom will keep them alive longer. This is important for a healer.
This party is extremely balanced. They'll have access to a rounded selection of weapons and armor, and their spellcasting will only get better when they get promoted and the Warrior and Thief gain access to spells. This team has a solution to every problem the game can throw at them, and it's a classic for a reason.
One downside is that this team has three expensive party members in it. Warriors are expensive to equip and spells get very costly very quickly. Luckily, the Thief is very easy to keep updated with equipment, usually with loot found in dungeons
Inexpensive
- Setup: Warrior/ Monk/ Thief/ Red Mage
This party is very cheap to deck out and can still hold its own when it comes to tricky situations. The Thief and the Monk have their high agility levels to boost their damage so there's less need for the Haste and Focus spells. This means that the Red Mage can lean towards supportive White Magic while still collecting some damaging Black Magic on the side.
This party's effectiveness might falter a little in the mid-game thanks to the Red Mage's average stats and the Thief and Monk's tendency to be a bit squishy, but this should be remedied once they get their class promotions.
Spellcasters
- Setup: Monk White Mage/ Red Mage/ Black Mage
Magic is the name of the game with this party. With three different mages, this team can easily access almost every spell in the entire game and double up on some really useful ones. Making the lead character a Monk is useful for keeping the overall cost of the party down while still being an effective physical damage dealer.
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This party can end up feeling quite frail, so it's a pretty good idea to make sure the Red Mage is keeping up to date with their healing spells. Having a main healer and an off-healer will work wonders when delving into the harder, longer dungeons.
Versatile
- Setup: Warrior/ Red Mage/ Red Mage/ Black Mage
This party prizes versatility over everything else, and it does it at a great price. Though decking these characters out will be very expensive over the course of the game, their damage output will be tremendous. With three characters who can nail elemental weaknesses and the brute strength of the Warrior, no much will stand against them.
Though they're an overall slow team, the strategy here is to kill monsters before they can trouble you too much and focus on the more dangerous ones. Making one of the Red Mages more of a healer than anything else would be a good idea for emergencies. At least they'll be able to contribute physically when healing isn't needed, unlike a White Mage.
Warriors Warriors Warriors
- Setup: Warrior/ Warrior/ Warrior/ White Mage
Warriors are really good at what they do. It takes a lot to deal a lot of damage to them, and they can dish it out with flair. While expensive to kit out, this party will have no trouble for the vast majority of the game.
The White Mage is a fantastic character to have when those rare cases of trouble do crop up. Making sure they have resurrection spells and status healing spells is a good idea, as is having some Dia spells to deal with pesky undead who can appear in droves. Once the Warriors all become Knights though, these heroes will be outfitted with so much healing that they're basically immortal. The only real downside is that the gameplay can get a tiny bit monotonous with such a rigid party.
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