Quote Originally Posted by Kotemon View Post
As I recall, Red Mage was just a general all-round filler for a 4 man party in Final Fantasy. It also only had access to some of the low teir spells of White and Black and even then it was a smaller spell list (about half). A light DPS that swung between a backup nurse for the White Wiz or spell caster for the Black Wiz. The shield was just to boost its defense due to the turn based system it used.
Dunno if they made RDM physically stronger in the remakes(never did a 4RDM party on the NES version), but I've done a couple RDM parties with the PS remakes. Yeah, aside from the skills not being the same as the full Fighter/White Mage/Black Mage it was fairly decent. Though, again, single player games. Heck, you could go almost full attack with a WHITE MAGE/WIZARD...