i played through the NES version once as Fighter/Monk/White Mage/Black Mage.

Monk seemed fine to me, a bit weak defensively but more likely to kill an enemy in one hit than fighter (except during the beginning). towards the end it was monk who took the biggest chunks out of the bosses for me.

then i played Dawn of Souls and had the same party except swapped Monk for Thief. i wanted to try out Ninja, and also thought thief's running away skill would be handy. except in the GBA version THF running is average if not worse (i think black mage has better running than THF in this version) but he is a much better fighter, not missing as often and having stronger hits. also ninja black magic is useful at the end.

but i have never used a red mage, both playthroughs i kept BM and WM. my impression of red mage is that, although he may help boredom during battles where you don't want to waste spells, he can't get the best of anything and he always feels like an unfinished product. in FFIII i used red mage for a fair amount because i could always switch to W or B for the power spells.

didn't intend to write that much thx bye