In FF1 the characters go through a class change halfway through
Fighter - Knight
Black Mage - Black Wizard
White Mage - White Wizard
Red Mage - Red Wizard
Theif - Ninja
Blackbelt - Master
see this page (
http://www.planetnintendo.com/ff1/characters.shtml)
I haven't played much of FF2j, it was boring.
FF3j has classes also, but they call them jobs and you can change em all the time. There are logical progressions though as you unlock more jobs:
Onion Kid (sucks, you start with 4. Change right away. However, there is some extremely hard-to-get Onion only equipment that is the best in the game.)
Fighter to Knight (good sword fighter)
Monk to Karateka (fights with fists after a certain level)
White Wizard to Shaman (healing magic, duh)
Black Wizard to Warlock (black magic, duh)
Red Wizard (good early)
Hunter (shoots arrows, no armor late in game)
Thief (needs equipment to be ok, can unlock doors and run from battle)
Scholar (uses books to cast magic, useless)
Geomancer (uses earth magic, unreliable)
Dragoon (uses spears, a good physical attacker and can jump then come
back down the next turn to do a lot of damage)
Viking (big defense, less attack than a fighter)
Magic Knight (an alternative to a knight when you have good equipment for it)
Conjuror to Summoner (call magic is like summoning, useless because of Sage)
Bard (useless, sings with a harp to attack and can scare enemies, but not when it's needed)
Sage (The best magic user, great stats and can use the best white, black, and call magic)
Ninja (the best fighter, only one that can use the extremely expensive but damaging one-time use Shurikens (buyable))