Intro –

You know, I’m a person who believes that if someone is good at something, then that person should be held responsible for whatever that is. For example, when I first started using the Esper system, I didn’t think much about teaching my people healing magic because Terra and Celes had the market cornered, so to speak; they were my dedicated healers.

But after a while, I began to notice how not everyone in my group could recover from attacks, lethal or otherwise. I learned the hard way that leaning on Terra and Celes for healing meant that would become their role in practically every battle. They deserve to have a life on the battlefield that doesn’t revolve around healing everyone else.

That’s why I decided to teach my chosen two, Sabin and Edgar, Cure, Cura, and Curaga. Mainly, they already have their own powers and abilities; they don’t need to cop off the Espers for a bunch of extra offensive powers.

To me, that would start destroying their identities and make them less of who they’re supposed to be throughout the game versus what I’m creating them to be simply because the Esper system allows it. That wouldn’t really be doing them—or me—any favors.

That’s why I love the approach I took. I can teach certain party members healing magic without jeopardizing what I want from them. I’m kicking down the door to make the argument that teaching healing magic to your chosen people doesn’t have to come at the cost of your gameplay or their identities. It’s a worthwhile endeavor, and I encourage it because I do it myself.

That said, let’s get started.

One Person Is Responsible For Everyone –

See, for me, the logic in teaching certain party members healing magic is that if Terra or Celes is being targeted by an attack or handling their own business offensively, the chosen people on the battlefield with them need to be able to handle their own healing. Not only that, they need to be able to Raise anyone who’s been K.O.’d as well.

This isn’t just about healing magic. Raise comes in handy when somebody goes down. Everyone needs to learn it—or at least everyone I’ve chosen to take with me.

Sabin and Edgar are the two who benefit the most from healing magic like Cure, Cura, and eventually Curaga because they don’t naturally have dependable self-healing options that fit what I need. But everybody in my chosen party can benefit from learning Raise.

I mean, think about this. Humbaba is being a nuisance and Terra is handling her business, but Sabin gets K.O.’d while Edgar is trying to get a healing spell off to recover from Humbaba’s magical onslaught.

Cyan can use Raise to get Sabin back up, and Edgar can heal him. Really, it’s a no-brainer because Terra and Celes are going to back each other up—that’s how I always plan it. But Cyan, Edgar, and Sabin also need to be capable of handling their own healing and revival when the time comes, and it will.

The biggest benefit to the Figaro brothers having healing magic is that Edgar doesn’t have to worry about Sabin being low on health just because Sabin’s Chakra ability only works on everyone else and not himself—which, again, I think is pretty stupid. 😂 Giving Sabin his own healing magic closes that gap without taking Blitz away from what makes him Sabin.

Call it a contingency plan, but it’s easier to give your people the tools to stay alive than to expect one person—or a couple of people—to do all the heavy lifting in that regard. Besides, by the time you get Terra back in the World of Ruin and start putting the gang back together, you’re going to want Terra’s Esper form available when the situation calls for overwhelming offense. For plenty of enemies, that power can become a death sentence; against tougher opponents, it can become one of my strongest weapons.

That power shouldn’t have to take a back seat because Terra is constantly responsible for keeping everybody alive. Making sure my people have the tools to survive without depending entirely on her is the real reward—and, to me, the real strategy.

Healing Magic Doesn’t Change Who Your Party Members Are –

In my professional opinion, teaching Sabin and Edgar healing magic doesn’t make them another Terra or Celes because the girls are natural magic users; the guys are not. Besides, I don’t want to turn Sabin and Edgar into experienced Magi because that’s not the role I’ve chosen for them.

They already have their own strengths, and I’d rather build around those than use the Esper system to turn everybody into the same type of fighter.

When you think about personal abilities like Tools, Trance, Blitz, and Bushido, those are abilities that belong to their respective characters. Teaching healing magic to those party members doesn’t detract from that. Terra is still able to Trance and, in doing so, dramatically increase her offensive power. Sabin can’t do that. Edgar’s Tools can’t do that either. That’s Terra’s power and Terra’s alone.

I think of it like this: I’m all for teaching a few of my characters support magic to use in battle, but what I will not do is teach them everything simply to complement their movesets.

For example, I’m not going to teach Sabin Firaga just because he has his fire-based Rising Phoenix Blitz, nor am I going to teach Celes Ultima simply because Meteor doesn’t hit as hard. At that point, I’d be using the Esper system to compensate for every perceived weakness instead of accepting and working with the characters I’ve chosen.

Incidentally, healing is the exception because it’s something I know every character can benefit from. Elemental and offensive magic, on the other hand, I prefer to leave to the characters I’ve chosen to specialize in magic and who can make the fullest use of those spells. Healing keeps my characters alive. Offensive magic starts changing how I’ve chosen to define them.

That’s where I draw the line.

You’ve Got the Freedom, Why Not?

I feel like the Esper system fixes the weaknesses of party members while still allowing them to be who they are. Sabin can still kick ass using his martial arts, and Cyan can learn Raise so it’s always on hand to revive anyone who falls. I mean, face it, Cyan is still going to be a Samurai—but now he’s a Samurai who can revive his fallen comrades. Raise doesn’t change who he is.

Teaching healing magic to the non-magical people in your party—whoever you choose—is both strategically sound and a blessing in disguise. I get it: you can go through the game as your characters are and choose not to take full advantage of the Esper system. I get that because I used to think like that too.

But what changed for me was the versatility factor. If another person can be on standby to heal or revive someone when needed, that’s worth having. At the end of the day, even if you choose not to teach any of your extra people healing magic, it’ll come down to what your definition of personal freedom is within the confines of the game.

For me, if I’m facing off against the Warring Triad, I want to make sure that if Terra gets K.O.’d, Celes can use Raise to bring her back while someone else can use Curaga to restore her health. Nobody has to abandon their primary role just because something went wrong.

Making sure all of my chosen party members have access to the recovery magic they need is paramount because it frees up my talented magic users so they can do their thing.

On this replay, that’s exactly what I wanted my goal to be: teach healing magic to those who need it, and they’ll be able to take care of themselves and those around them when the situation demands it.

Simply put, the game introduces you to two talented magic users who can use elemental and healing magic, but that’s not where the line has to be drawn. The biggest aspect of this replay is making it my own instead of allowing the game to determine where I believe those boundaries should be.

Conclusion –

To wrap up, healing magic isn’t just confined to Terra and Celes; Sabin and Edgar can benefit from it as well. However, Raise is a spell that everyone in my chosen party can benefit from because there’s always the possibility that someone is going to get K.O.’d and need reviving.

Don’t get it twisted: teaching healing magic to someone like Cyan doesn’t change his function as a Samurai, nor does it change Sabin from a martial arts hero into a full-blown healer. Everyone still remains who they are and retains their identity.

The difference is that they’re learning healing and support magic as a means of survival, not as a way to become stand-ins for Terra and Celes. This replay is all about making the game—and the characters—my own without crossing the line and warping who they really are.

Terra and Celes are great magic users, and their powers only grow stronger throughout the game, but they’re not responsible for healing and reviving everyone.

That’s not fair to them. Ironically, constantly forcing them into that responsibility can keep me from utilizing their full potential because I’m spending their turns cleaning up everybody else’s problems instead of taking advantage of everything they’re capable of doing.

Remember this: whether you’re playing for the first time in eons or replaying, teaching everyone—or rather, your chosen party members—healing magic can be one of the best strategic moves you make. And let me be clear about this: this is all about making the game your own, not playing it according to what you think the game expects from you.

You bought it. It didn’t buy you.

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