Quest 64/Magic

Brian cannot learn all the spells in a single game, therefore the player should choose two (or three) elements and focus on those. Choosing Wind and Fire alone would be a challenge, because they have no healing/protection spells.

The first spell of each element has a casting cost of 1 MP. Every other spell has a casting cost of either 2 or 3 MP.

Transversal analysis
Each element has one three-level spell and three two-level spells. A comparison of these gives good orientation for the choice of elements.

From this second table it can be seen that Water is a mostly defensive element, while fire is mostly offensive. Wind and earth are in between.

Suggested strategies
Water magic features two extremely useful spells: Healing and Soul Searcher. Earth magic features another useful one: Spirit Shield. The player may want to obtain the first level of all these spells first (L10 in Water and L7 in Earth), then abandon one or both of these two elements in favor of Wind or Fire.

Beginners should choose Water as one of their elements, because the two Soul Searcher spells allow Brian to analyze the enemies.

In order to see every available spell in the video game, the player might decide to play it twice, focusing each time on two different elements.
 * Water & Fire; Earth & Wind: two balanced games, where all the different spell types would be equally distributed.
 * Water & Wind; Earth & Fire: Water & Wind would display the widest array of different effects; combining Earth & Fire debuff and support spells Brian would get the ultimate attack and defense;
 * Water & Earth; Wind & Fire: the first game would be very easy, the second one very challenging, because all the defensive spells would be concentrated in the first one.