I'll be thinking about this one for a long time. This game is more a novel than anything else, if you play right there's little combat. My advice would be to go with a mage, purely for the nostalgia those cutscenes shown when casting high-level spells invokes. Reminds me of the summoning scenes from FF7.

There's a lot to take in, and a lot of replayability. If you're interested in a pure RPG experience, this game can't be beat. One of the classics, and one that will stick with you.