Hate it. I went through a massive chunk of the game with only one person acting as a mage, the others only using cure or the odd little Fire spell or something. Then I got to the trickier battles near the end and my guys simply could not manage without high level spells, most of which I had never used more than once or twice. This meant I had to go and spend an arseload of time leveling up my magic. It wasn't fun.