Parties
Choosing the right party is the most important decision in the game. Having a well-balanced party will let you get through the game quickly, easily, and have lots of fun in the process. Choosing a weak, unbalanced party will cause you hours of frustration and torment as your enemies slay you with ease and dance on your corpses. Unfortunately, you only get one crack at picking a party. After that you're stuck with it so take a look at my suggestions and choose wisely. The parties below are in no particular order, nor is this list exclusive; there are a lot of excellent parties I probably have never thought of, but whatyagonnado. My fingers can only take so much typing. I've tried to include all the parties I've ever tried, plus a couple I haven't.
If you're looking for a quick tip: any party with a Fighter, White Mage, and Black Mage will do extremely well. F/F/WM/BM, F/Th/WM/BM, F/BB/WM/BM, or F/RM/WM/BM are very good parties for beginners or people just looking to get through the game quickly and easily.
In any case, if this is your first time playing make SURE you take at least one Mage. Mages are the only ones who can learn the EXIT or WARP spells, which are the only ways to exit the final dungeon. There is some good treasure in the final dungeon *cough*Masmune*cough* that you'll probably want to be able to use outside of the last dungeon. If so, take a mage.
Probably the worst parties you could take (those that make the game extremely hard, that is), are WM/WM/WM/WM, or Th/Th/Th/Th. If you're looking for a challenge try those. Another great challenge is to take 4 Fighters, let three of them be KILLED at the very beginning of the game, and leave them dead the whole game. Beat it with just ONE FIGHTER. One Red Mage or one Black Belt are also good challenges. If you think you're an FF1 master give those a shot. :)
| Fighter, Black Belt, Thief, Red Mage |
| Lots of strong fighters. |
| Somewhat weak in the Magic area. Rather expensive to equip. |
| 7/10 |
| This party is the default party the game picks for you. It's... not bad... I guess... To be honest, I really don't like using Black Belts, so maybe I'm biased. I think a party needs more Magic Users to be really effective. Just one Red Mage is probably not enough. But, there are many parties worse than this one, I suppose. |
| Fighter, Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Well balanced. Strong magic and physical attacks, as well as healing. |
| Moderately expensive to equip. |
| 10/10 |
| This is one of the best parties you can take. The two Fighters use their strong physical attacks to wipe out bad guys while absorbing most of the enemies' attacks. The Black Mage adds the support of offensive Magics and the White Mage keeps everyone alive while they're doing it. Although spells and equipment will be rather expensive, you'll progress through the game so smoothly and quickly that you probably won't even notice. This party is great for the beginner and the veteran player alike. |
| Fighter, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Very well balanced. Strong physical and magic attacks. Easily run from battles. White and Black Magic gained after Class Change. |
| Moderately expensive to equip. |
| 10/10 |
| This is my favorite party. It's very well belanced and a lot of fun to play. The Thief is somewhat weak in the beginning. His main purpose will be running from battles, which he does well. After Class Change, though, he gains Black Magic and a slew of new weapons and armor, making him an extremely strong fighter. This party has a good spread of Magic use too with hhaving two White and two Black Magic users after Class Change. I highly recommend this party. |
| Fighter, Thief, Red Mage, Black Mage |
| Well balanced. Strong physical and magic attacks. Easily run from battles. Lots of magic |
| Expensive to equip. Slight lack of healing. |
| 10/10 |
| This is a really good party. You have three good fighters, and two good magic users including two characters that can use Black Magic. In the beginning of the game you might lack healing sometimes, but if you save the RM just for healing until later in the game you'll do well. After class change this party is unstoppable. |
| Fighter, Thief, Red Mage, Red Mage |
| Pretty good all around. |
| Lack of upper-level magic. |
| 9/10 |
| This party is going to be incredibly strong in the beginning of the game. The one (very slight) problem I have with it is that it's too "average". The RMs just aren't as good as a WM and a BM. Red Mages always suffer late in the game, while White and Black Mages do better and better as you go. But this is still a really strong party. I give it a 9 just because of the slight lack of "fun". |
| Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Pretty much everything. |
| Very few. |
| 10/10 |
| This is one of the best parties you can take. The Fighter and Red Mage are good enough physical fighters to support the other mages, and the White and Black Mage's strong magic takes care of what the Fighter and Red Mage leave behind. This party has a TON of magic, which will be useful for the entire game. The extra healing and black magic of the RM is just icing on the cake. It might be a little expensive at first, but not all that expensive. The RM's defense isn't that great either, but you'll have so much healing magic that it won't matter. This party is almost too good. |
| Fighter, Black Belt, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Very well balanced. Strong physical and magic attacks. White Magic gained by Fighter after Class Change. |
| Moderately expensive to equip. Somewhat weak very early in the game |
| 10/10 |
| This is a pretty darn good party. As with any F/?/WM/BM party, this party has a very good mix of offense and defense. Very early in the game the Black Belt may drag the party down a bit with his low defense. Later in the game though (about around Elfland) when the Black Belt picks up a bit, this party will excell. This is a good party for experienced gamers and newbies alike. |
| Fighter, White Mage, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Very strong in magic. Fairly well balanced |
| Somewhat weak offense/defense. |
| 6/10 |
| If you really like White Mages, or just like being able to heal, you might like this party. The two White Mages will give you all the healing power you ever wanted. With the Fighter to take all the hard hits, and the Black Mage to deal death from the back row, this party will do pretty good. Undead will also be no problem; two shots of HRM2 will take out just about any undead. This party lacks in physical strength, though, and your White Mages will be taking a lot of hits themselves. Later in the game, this party might be a bit difficult to handle. But if you're looking for a change of pace, give this one a try. |
| White Mage, Black Mage, Black Mage, Black Mage |
| Very strong magic power. |
| Weak defense and physical attacks. |
| 5/10 |
| This is a pretty good party for the Black Mage lover. It has one advantage over the four Black Mage party: the White Mage will provide some very much-needed healing. This party has atrocious physical power and very poor defense, but once you get the good mass-damage spells you'll probably be able to kill almost everything before it gets a chance to whoop you. Still, this party is not for the beginner. Take this party if you love magic and you're looking for a challenge. |
| Red Mage, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Very strong Magic use. Moderately strong physical strength. |
| Expensive spell costs. Generally low HP. |
| 7/10 |
| If you like Magic this party is a good one to take. Everyone in the party is a Mage, which means you'll be relying on Magic most of the time. It will, of course, be very expensive to buy all the spells to outfit your party, but the money you save on equipment will help solve that problem, somewhat. The Red Mages will be your main physical attackers and they will also take most of the damage from the enemies. Their HP, while higher than the White and Black Mages', is still rather low so your White Mage will be very busy keeping everyone alive. |
| Black Mage, Black Mage, White Mage, White Mage |
| Lots of magic power. Low equipment costs. |
| Expensive spell costs. Very weak physical attacks. Low HP. |
| 5/10 |
| This is another party for magic-lovers. If you take this party you'll be relying exclusively on your Black Mages for offensive power and using your White Mages to keep everyone alive. Your characters will be dying alot at the beginning of the game (actually, they'll probably die alot throughout the entire game). Take this party if you're looking for some punishment, or if you're obsessed with magic. |
| Fighter, Red Mage, Red Mage, Red Mage |
| Good magic. OK defense. |
| Very expensive. Somewhat low defense. |
| 7/10 |
| This party will do VERY well in the beginning of the game, especially if you get everyone a Silver Sword. After you get the spells from Elfland, you're going to fly through the game until class change or so. That's when the Red Wizard's lack of upper-level magic might start to show. The Fighter will make up the differece though with his high physical strength. The problem might be actually raising the money to get all the stuff you need; this party costs a fortune. This is a nice party. |
| Red Mage, White Mage, White Mage, Black Mage |
| Loads of magic. |
| Expensive. Poor physical attack power. |
| 5/10 |
| This is a party for really conservative people. This party almost completely lacks physical attack power, but you have so much White Magic that you're going to be able to stand there and take tons of punishment, then heal afterwards and go about your business. Having two characters with Black Magic is also going to make quite a difference. This party will do very well after you get the spells in Elfland, but after a while it'll start getting worse again. It might be kind of hard to beat the game with this party unless you level up a lot. |
| Fighter, Black Mage, Black Mage, Black Mage |
| Tons of offensive power. |
| Lack of healing. Expensive. |
| 6/10 |
| This is a weird party. The Fighter can stand up front and take most of the hits, while the Black Mages stand in back and cast their magic on stuff. The Black Mages are still going to take a lot of damage though; characters in the back do get hit sometimes. So they're going to die a lot, especially since you don't have any healing magic until after class change, and not much after class change either. If you make it to class change you're going to have so much magic it's not even funny. This is a party to take just for the thrill of casting 27 NUKES in a row. It's much better than the 4 BM party. This party will actually do OK for most of the game. |
| Fighter, Fighter, Fighter, White Mage |
| Very strong offensive and defensive power. Tons of White Magic after class change. |
| No Black Magic. |
| 9/10 |
| The only thing bad about this party is the lack of Black Magic. But really, all you need magic for with a party like this is undead and the WM can take care of that. Afte class change this party will have a TON of healing magic. Throughout the whole game this party has more than enough offensive strength to kill anything. The only reason this party doesn't get a 10 is that you're going to have to waste magic casting HARM so in dungeons at the beginning of the game (the Marsh Cave) you might run out of magic. You're still not going to have any problems though. This is a pretty good party. |
| Fighter, Fighter, Fighter, Red Mage |
| Very strong offensive and defensive power. White and Black Magic use. |
| No Black Magic. |
| 10/10 |
| This party is a very good one. The three Fighters will give you all the offensive power you ever wanted while the Red Mage acts as a healer and a Black Magic user. Though this party will be slightly lacking in the healing department, with three well-equipped Fighters you won't really be needing all that much healing. Plus, this party has an advantage over the four Figher party in that the Red Mage can cast EXIT, thus letting you escape the ToF to save (this is good if you want to use the Masmune outside the Temple). All in all, this is a pretty darn good party. |
| Fighter, Fighter, Fighter, Fighter |
| Very strong offensive party. Strong physical attacks. Able to use White Magic after Class Change. |
| Healing may be problem early in the game. Very expensive to equip. |
| 9/10 |
| This party is quite good. Although not balanced at all, the brute strength of the Fighters makes up for the lack of offensive and healing Magics. Healing will be a problem; however, the Fighters' high HP will usually be good enough to get you through the dungeons alive as long as you stock up on Heal Potions. After Class Change the Knights are able to use White Magic. I have used this party before and I finished the game quite easily. If you don't like Magic (although you should cause Magic is fun) this party is for you. |
| Thief, Thief, Thief, Thief |
| Very few. |
| Weak offense and defense. Lack of ability to heal. Lack of magic until later in the game. |
| 1/10 |
| This party doesn't have much going for it. With no magic whatsoever, and no ability to heal, this party has to rely on physical attacks and defense. Unfortunately, this party also has horribly low physical strength, defense, and can't use any good equipment until late in the game. You'll be able to run very easily, which I imagine you probably will have to, since your Thieves will be getting the crap beaten out of them frequently. After the Class Change, when the party gains Black Magic and the ability to use better weapons, this party might be pretty good. I seriously doubt most people would be able to stick with this party that long. This party would make a good challenge for the seasoned FF1 veteran. Other than that stay away from it. |
| Black Belt, Black Belt, Black Belt, Black Belt |
| Good offense. Cheap. |
| Lack of defensive strength. Lack of magic. Incredibly un-fun, ugliness of the Black Belts, smelliness of the Black Belts, worthlessness of the Black Belts. |
| -43/10 |
(Yes, I've finally been worn down by the COUNTLESS emails from disgruntled Black Belt lovers. I think I've gotten over 100 emails so far (no, I'm not exaggerating) So I've changed my -43/10 rating to something a bit higher.)
7-4-02 Changed my mind... back to -43 it goes. :)
If you like Black Belts I guess this is an OK party. It is cheap, I give it that. You'll need that money for the thousands of gallons of heal potions you'll go through during this game. Also plan to become a regular at the local Clinic. You'll be able to fight OK though once you get to Elfland and you can start using your fists. Before then, you just have to pray. For the whole game, the BBs' defense sucks, big time. BBs have no magic so they can't heal themselves, they also can't use magic to kill large groups of enemies, and they can't run as well as thieves. In other words you get to stand around and look dumb while monsters use your party for target practice. Be prepared to drag a couple corpses around with you 90% of the game. If by some chance you manage to make it to class change with this party, well... you get a huge reward of NOTHING because BBs don't get anything from class change. But on the bright side, your sprite becomes uglier. Wait... sorry, that's not a bright side.
There is no bright side to this party. You'll probably find that you desperately need the magic-casting items you get later in the game, but those don't make up for the pitiful lack of magic in this party. I think I'd rather take a party of four elderly groundhogs than take a party of four BB's to be honest. |
| Red Mage, Red Mage, Red Mage, Red Mage |
| Well rounded. Strong magic, offense and defense. |
| Very expensive. Somewhat weak later in the game. |
| 6/10 |
| This party will do very well early in the game, especially once you get FIR2, LIT2, and CUR2. Those strong spells combined with four Silver Swords will take you through much of the game very quickly. However, this party is VERY expensive to equip with spells and weapons/armor, so you'll be doing a lot of random fighting for money. Later in the game, too, this party will begin to suffer from the inability to use the most powerful spells (that only White and Black Wizards can use), and the most powerful equipment (which the Knight and Ninja get). If you stick with it though, you should be able to beat the game with this party, although you may have to do it at a higher level than what you'd need for a more balanced party. |
| White Mage, White Mage, White Mage, White Mage |
| Good healing ability. Good versus Undead. |
| Very low HP. Almost no offensive power whatsoever. |
| 1/10 |
| This party is one of the worst you could pick. The White Mages have almost no offensive power whatsoever, except against Undead. So, while they'll be able to heal themselves while the bad guys are beating the crap out of them they won't be doing much damage in return Battles will be long and hard fought. Undead will be no problem at all (four HARM spells will kill any Undead easily), but against any other foe this party is horribly weak. You may want to try this party as a personal challenge just to see if you can do it, but otherwise stay away from it. |
| Black Mage, Black Mage, Black Mage, Black Mage |
| Extremely powerful magic attacks. |
| Very low HP. Low physical strength. Lack of a good healer. |
| 4/10 |
| While a lot of fun to play this party is mighty difficult to beat the game with. Your four Black Mages, by the time they reach ElfLand, will be a walking death-squad. Just think of four blasts of FIR2. Not many things could survive it. The only problem is keeping your Mages alive long enough to use their magic. A whole lot of Heal Potions woudl be the only solution. This party is still a whole lot of fun, and if you manage to make it to late in the game, there won't be many things that will survive an encounter with your mages. |
