FFI With a Balanced Party

The last three times I’ve played through FFI, starting with the most recent, I used all white mages, all black belts, and all thieves. So playing through with fighter, white mage, and two black mages seems so incredibly easy. That fighter really makes so much of a difference; you don’t know suffering until you get wailed on with a party of thieves in a 9-enemy "monsters strike first" battle.

Anyway, I was wondering if anybody who still frequents this part of the forum has played FFI recently, and if so, what party he/she chose and why.

The last time I played I used Fighter, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage.

Boring, but balanced and easily brings success.

1 thief is useful, because he really helps with his running-away capabilities. But any number of thieves above one are extraneous.

hmm, unfortunately I don’t remember the last party I used for FF1. Perhaps I should get back to playing it since I actually have a nes cartridge of the game now.

No school like the old school. Probably go with fighter, monk, red mage, and white mage since the spells have to be used a lot more stingily in the old game.

You’ll miss out on a lot of fun stuff if you don’t have a black mage, but that is a very balanced party. You won’t have trouble healing yourself, and the black belt (aka monk) will counteract the expensiveness of the other party members.

Yeah I know about the cosmic destroying power of the Black Mage, but it’s hard to get a Black Mage up to a respectable level of power in the NES game and the abysmally small amounts of spell slots you have is a big factor. that later versions fix this problem and make the BM and the other Mages for that matter more viable. I would definitely use one in the DoS version or the PSX version of FF1.

I did quite well with two of them, actually. But the spells per day factor does limit them a bunch. And then, when you start to get the spell-casting items around the Castle of Ordeals, you can give attacking power to even White Mages.

I haven’t played FF1 in quite some time, but it’s always been my favorite since it’s the only FF that allowed you to make a party (I wish they would make a new one that would do that 🙁

My last party was four Black Belts/Grand Masters. When I first encountered this website (many years ago now), the author totally ragged on how useless BBs were, and how the WORST group make-up was 4 BBs because they has no spells ever. I took it as a personal challenge, since I enjoyed using BBs/GMs in the various groups I’ve tried.

Net result: I made of a record for myself of the earliest level I ever beat the game: 22. Since I never needed equipment (at least not past level 8ish), I saved a TON of cash on gear. Also, you essentially had 8 item slots that you could fill up with misc gear that had spell effects. Granted, they are the level 2 versions, but this gave them all the spell power they needed. Having 2 heal helmets and a heal staff meant I rarely, if ever, needed a potion. I’d just run around and find a wimpy monster that had a solo attack, and heal my party up to full before killing it. It was a grand time 😉

I saw a site that says that black belts are the worst, but it wasn’t this one. http://www.eyesonff.com/ff1/parties.php is the place I’m talking about. Anyway, the guy who wrote that just hated black belts a lot for no good reason. All thieves and all white mages were both much more difficult playthroughs.

All white mages? How would you kill anything until you got damaging white magic spells?

All white mages? How would you kill anything until you got damaging white magic spells?

Critical hits and levelling up against undead enemies. Also, there are spellcasting items, like the Zeus gauntlets, the Mage staff, and the Black shirt. But before you get those, you just have to cast Ruse on yourself to make you impossible to hit against bosses, level up against the undead, and run away from everything else. It’s not as hard as thieves, trust me.

Critical hits and levelling up against undead enemies. Also, there are spellcasting items, like the Zeus gauntlets, the Mage staff, and the Black shirt. But before you get those, you just have to cast Ruse on yourself to make you impossible to hit against bosses, level up against the undead, and run away from everything else. It’s not as hard as thieves, trust me.

How is it with thieves?

Well, for starters, their attack is only very minimally better than that of white mages before class change. They’re also no better in defense. Thus, before class change, all thieves can do is run away (which they ARE good at doing, and you need to, believe me) or just fight, and they suck at fighting. Levelling up is also a huge chore because they take forever to kill enemies and are incapable of killing ones that give a particularly good yield of experience. Once you make it through the Ice Cave (which you can actually do before the Gurgu Volcano) and get class change it’s all downhill, but that’s true for all parties because you can level up against the Eye with Prorings equipped.

I did a white mage run in a few weeks; the thieves run took me months.

Damn… I’m going to have to try that. I love FF1, so I know I’ll play it again, but I have a few of the other FF’s to beat before I go back lol.

I always heard something about all white mages is the hardest, but I hadn’t even thought about all thieves. Also, did you do this run in the NES, Origins, GBA, or PSP version of FF1? lol I also heard that the version depends on the difficulty. I’ve only played it on PSP, a little NES, and a little Origins. Couldn’t really tell the difference, other than the huge improvements from the NES version. Like being able to just hold down the attack button to fly through fights lol.

I tired 4 monks. Got to Lich. :<

I usually pick Fighter, Red Mage, White Mage and Black Mage.

Because I’m an idiot.

Fighter, Thief, Black Mage and White Mage.