A question from a man of tradition.

Now, some of you may have experienced this. Playing two games that are undeniably similar, and doing similar things for mere tradition. Take me, for example. In Zelda games, I'm always Glenn. In ALMOST every other offline RPG, I'm Ocin, unless the name simply doesn't fit. In every run of Chrono Cross, I get Guile, call him Magil, and then for the rest of the game, use Serge, Kid, and Magil (Guile).

Now, this had happened to me with Final Fantasy I (GBA). In every run of it, my team goes like this:

Warrior - Nico
Red Mage - Nano
Black Mage - Mowse
White Mage - Miki (Stairs fixed)

Now, I have played FF3 before, and in the beginning, I used this party, in that order. I even forgot the real names of the characters due to this, and I can't easily remember because I changed the order of the characters to fit their jobs.

Now, as everyone knows, Red Mages seem to become the lesser ones as the game goes on. Their magic ends soon, and they are inferior to other attackers. However, I've also found this game to be somewhat easy in my half-play through, in which I was changing jobs constantly, and my Job Level ended up being terrible. Now, I have two questions:

Firstly, can one easily survive the game while having a Red Mage in there for a majority of the game?

And secondly, as I am keeping the same party until I have all the jobs which are worthy successors to my current party, which job do you think best suits the Red Mage's successor? Something that smacks, or something that casts?

Thanks very much in advance.

Question 1: No. A red mage doesn't get good equipment or spells late in the game, but it is helpful early on. Eventually, his lack of good equipment, spells, and MP will start to show.

Question 2: I'd personally go with a fighting character to replace your red mage; I've always considered it a "fighting" character. If you changed it to a caster, you'd have only one good brawler, and that doesn't work well. I found myself changing my red mage to a thief by the time I got to Amur, but that's just me. Go with what works for you.

(SPOILER)Sadly, they never made any red mage equivalent for the devout and magus, and the sage class doesn't count since it can't fight.

I had a Red-Mage in my party right up until the final dungeon. Up until that point they can use most of the best swords and magic (Defenders, Firage, Curaga etc). After that you'll probably want to change them into either a Sage, Magus or Devout. Of course, with your current set up that would leave you three mages and a physical class, so you might want to change it to a Knight or something instead.

I never really used Red Mages after the first few dungeons. I think I simply changed my Red Mage to a Black Mage around the time you visit the Nepto Shrine. If you really want a replacement for your Red Mage, I think Dark Knight is the closest I could think of since that class can both attack and use magic.

THe obvious successer to the Red Mage is the Sage, with is abitity to use all magics. However, as has been said, that leaves you with only one physical fighter, so mabye a Dark Kight or a Knight, both of which can fight and use some Magic.

Personally i changed my Red mage to a Black Mage, and he became my Black Magic user. I figure that you don't really need two White magic users, so in your party you should just change your Red Mage to a Dark Knight, shove in a couple of Black magic Spells, and your ready to go. Or, simply abandon the magic altogether, and make him a Dragoon/Ninja.

Another idea, what about a Scholer? He can use Black and White magic, has fairly powerful attacking (if your emey has a weakness, his elemental books are wicked), plus he has a dead useful skill of doubling effectivness of items, so you can make idtems such as Antartic Wind very powerful, as well as becoming a secondary healer by healing with High Potions for 1000hp each. What do you guys think?