Believe it or not, this is the best possible party in FF1.

Why?

Huh?

That actually makes sense.

Fighter: Excalibur, heavy armor, decent healing, high HPs.

Blackbelt: Ridiculously Overpowered Bitchslap of Death, LOTS of item space, high HPs.

Red Mage: Masamune, FAST, area attacks, healing, decent HPs.

White Mage: Godlike healing/defensive power (which offsets the lack of a fourth Ribbon), FADE, anathaema to those goddamned paralyzing UNDEADS... and she's in the back, safe from harm.

I agree.

This is the best party in the game.

Perfect balance without redundancy/weakness.

The lack of a NUKE from the Black Mage is nothing to whine about... the Blackbelt has two of them strapped to his hands. And seeing as how great this party is, no running away is neccesary... so no use for the thief.

Hats off to you, Jason.

Everyone needs a runner, because you aren't going to want to fight every battle even if you can win it. Putting the Ninja in the lead spot also increases your chance for pre-emptive fights and decreases your chance for enemies to strike first in fights. It is luck and agil related.

To make this party better, I would either replace the Red Mage with a Thief or the White Mage with a Black Mage, because you don't really need both the White Mage and Red Mage.

Best team, I agree... I use this team all the time, my battle goes like this:

Red Mage: Using Temper and Haste on Fighter usually, sometimes BB

White Mage: Healing party, our guys never die. (Spamming Healaga)

Fighter: Striking like mad on enemies

BB: Doing same thing as fighter

(This is my description of the Shiryuu fight mainly...
By the way:
-Yes, I have Dawn of Souls
-Yes, my characters have the class change
-No, my weapons suck XD