How can Tales of Phantasia flow so well with one fighter and three spellcasters?

[*Laurelindo*]

Alright, I know that Chester rejoins late in the game and essentially acts as a second physical fighter, but you do spend a lot of the game stuck with Cless and the three wizards.
I have actually always been fascinated by how well this works; when I played the game for the first time I was almost 100% sure that Arche would be a physical fighter, so we got the standard RPG formation of two fighters, one attack mage and one healer - but she turned out to not only be another magician, but even the dedicated black magic user!

I have tried similar formations in other RPG:s, and it never flows even close as well there - I frequently feel that the battles become extremely tedious and drawn-out, and that I constantly need to restore MP, and defensively the party just seems too weak.
But in Tales of Phantasia it seems to work totally fine for some reason.