Ok so I recently got FF1 on NES again, i've played it many times but i'm revisiting it.  I want to go with the hardest party possible, but it's hard to decide which is hardest.  4 black belts is pretty hard, but so is 4 white mages or 4 black mages.  I'm kind of torn between those 3, i can't decide which is the hardest. 

black belts have no white magic and very limited black magic so in the end all you can heal yourself with is potions.  I'm kind of leaning towards this one.

for those that want to know there is 126 combinations you can make

http://ophidian.org/ff1/

what do you guys think?

Four White Mages
Pro: Supported--Lots of sites have guides or tips for how to make this party work.
Pro: Spells--You've got spells (especially healing) to work with.
Con: Costly--You're paying for equipment and spells for 4 party members, that's a lot of gold. If you're not going to take the time to level for it, the playthrough is much much harder.

Four Black Belts
Pro: Strong--You can beat up enemies albeit not as easily as a Fighter or Red Mage.
Pro: Cheap--You need hardly any equipment and no spells. Spend your extra cash on healing, you'll need it.
Con: Healing--You don't have any... hooray for potions.


Between these two, the deciding factor is time. If you're going to spend a lot of time leveling and cash farming, the White Mages will be easier. If you're going to run through fast, the White Mages will be harder. Very simple.

Something to consider is that if you're playing the true original NES Final Fantasy, a 4 Thief party may not be out of line since the Thief is very weak. Much like a more costly Black Belt. I say original because the Thief was powered up in various remakes (most noticeably Dawn of Souls).

As a side note, are you playing the real NES version on an old NES or something else?

*Owns the original NES FF, cartridge, box, and all.* Good times...

yes i'm playing the real nes cartridge on my old NES. I think you're right those 2 you listed are the hardest.
I think the only character I haven't played through the whole game with was the thief, when i first played this game i thought he sucked so i would usually go with fighter, black mage, white mage, and black belt if i was serious. Red mage is fun but gets worse later in the game.

The thief is weak but 4 thiefs would be easier than those other 3 options wouldn't they?

Red Mage was my first "All one character" playthrough I think.

I say White Mages, just because it'll be a pain to kill anything unless you constant level grind.

I always thought 4 Thieves would be hardest on the NES version. No black magic, no white magic for healing, and they need equipment because they don't get those useful natural boosts like the blackbelts which means you have to farm money for them.

that's true, before this i was thinking i would upgrade my characters, but keeping them as thieves and not changing them to ninjas makes it much harder.

ok so i started a game with 4 thieves, this is probably gonna be hard.

 Good luck!

Hey, finally a question I can answer authoritatively! I'm somewhat of an expert on the original Final Fantasy, and my website has quite a bit of space devoted to that game.

Four black belts is not difficult at ALL. In fact, I've beaten the entire game with a solo black belt without much difficulty. Four thiefs is also rather on the easy side, once you know what you're doing. (I'm assuming that this means going with four THIEFS and not class changing; four ninjas would be almost laughably easy.) Four black mages is a legit challenge; you have to know what you're doing and use your spell charges wisely. But with four different mages to spread around the castings, it can be readily done. Four white mages is definitely the toughest party of the six classes; you're severely limited on offense and defense, with nothing but healing magic to see you through. Four white wizards is much, much easier, but if you limit yourself just to the mages, you'll need to work your behind off to complete the game.

I outline how to do exactly that on my website, if you're curious or want some pointers. The only real challenge I haven't done yet is a solo white mage, which I'll have to get around to at some later date.

RUSE is your friend.