If you had to beat the game with two characters only(i.e. let the other two die without ressurecting them ever) and one of those characters had to be a thief what would you choose for the second chracter?

I am trying to decide between the fighter and red mage. The fighter has incredible attack and defense but the red mage is so well rounded it has a trick for almost every tough situation.

Which would you choose? Fighter, red mage or some other class?

I would probably go with the red mage idea, the more well roundedness is the only reason. Learns magic has goodness of attacking things etc.

Well since you will have two persons in your party any combination of two classes will work, because it is possible albeit extremely difficult for some classes ie White mage to run the game alone. As for your suggestions the red mage seems a better choice then a fighter, but both have disadvantages. The fighter is good and well towards the start, but as monsters get stronger you have the problem of healing as your party may not be able to fell a foe faster then your health or healing poweress allows. This would apply mostly to bosses as most normal monsters can be killed and you can heal outside of battle, but this can be very tedious and cost prohibitive in dungeons. Your second choice would be slightly more balanced at the start and toward the end but the last third of the game would become much more difficult, because you do not have the highest healing spell, and you can only use one person healings instead of AoE ones.However the biggest advantage of a red mage over a fighter is black magic. A red mage can cast temper and haste, which can be very valuble for the theif/Ninja. So for the most part you should go RM over FiT. As for the other classes, the monk has the smae problem as a fighter, but with an even less defense which would not couple well with a theif. A white mage could work, but you would have to concentrate more on healing then killing a boss or monster and you have no offensive or attack enchancing magic. As for the black mage it would also be possible and would be more likely to work then a fighter, but the problem of healing comes into play, but you do get saber, temper, and haste, and other high level magics that could help with bosses. Well I hope this helps with your descion.

For goodness sake, please use paragraphs to make things easier to read.

*What? is that even possible?youd only have two chars from the beggining till end?thatd be tough,considering thereare some monsters who can cast spells which can knock out all your party!

*well if the other char is a theif id choose a fighter to be his partner,cause fighters can endure most blows even boss hits and live and they have high damage over all enemies!

i would go white mage then you keep healing the two of you it works somehow i dont know how i puuled it of white wizards are the way to go in the game

My friends and I have a roughly bi-annual FFI competition. We get together with four tv's and four copies of the PS1 version of the game. We start at the very begining and the first to kill Chaos goes home with a cash prize. The event is a fun competitive time which lasts anywhere from 6 to 25 hours. I suggest putting together a group yourself and trying it. The devised strategies and speed in which the game is played when pride and money is on the line is amazing.

The time between games is spent devising the rules variations for the next meeting. This time we played with only a few rules:
1. No memo save(almost always in effect)
2. Puzzle game not allowed
3. Only two characters can be ressurected
4. One of the characters must be a thief/ninja

This last rule is what prompted my original post. When the day came I was the only player to choose a fighter to join my thief. Everyone else went with a red mage. The remaining two characters were black mages and could never be healed, ressurected, equiped or taught magic.

The game began and I jumped into the lead as the only player to head straight to Garland. My fighter and thief easily dispatched him and I now had a small lead.

I held the lead until everyone reached Elfheim, the first real obstacle in the game. We all knew we needed to level up before entering the Marsh cave with only two characters. This is the place where I was most afraid of the red mage's abilities. The red mage is well equipped for a leveling up method which we call the "Pravoka strategy". At this stage my fighter has no chance of running the "Pravoka stategy". However, only two characters made the Pravoka method more difficult than usual and I was able to stay close in levels simply killing ogres. I stayed relatively close to the others through the marsh cave and into the Earth Cave.

Unexpectedly, it was here where I fell behind. I expected to have some trouble with paralyzing creatures since I did not have any mass damage spells(or any spells at all for the matter) but they did not cause too much trouble. However, killing Lich turned out to be a big problem. The red mages burned him to death and I died to his attack a couple of times. In a race like this losing you entire party is extremely detrimetnal. While they forged ahead I had to level up again. I watched as what was being called my fighter gamble was losing to red mages. I was now in last place.

While I leveled up to fight Lich I watched the others struggle in the Castle of Ordeals and Ice Cave. This gave me some hope. After killing Lich I went straight to the Castle of Ordeals to get items with spells. To my red mage wielding friends' amazement I blazed through the Ordeals and Ice Cave slowly passing up all three of them.

As we fought threw the remaining dungeons it was apparent who had the superior pair. My fighter became unstoppable as I fought every enemy I came across with ease and the red mages struggled.

The red mages are known for topping out early and without a support cast they could not muster the power to keep up with my fighter. I killed Chaos after about 14 hours from when my fighter and thief first stepped into Corneria. It was not until about 3 hours later that the first red mage was able to do the same.

Clearly, my fighter dominated the late game and I went home with $120 and bragging rights for the next six months!