RPGs are fairly notorious for taking on the 'damsel in distress' stereotype when it comes to princesses - so when the princess gets a chance to fight back and prove her worth, it's time to sit up and take note. Marle is one of those princesses.

A daughter of Guardia and future queen, Marle is a tomboy with a sense of adventure that forces her to defy her father's more conservative ambitions. Consequently she heads out on her own, and winds up swept along with Crono and the gang on a wild trek through time - yet despite that she's really not as combat worthy as you might like. Her techs are an excellent example of this.

Marle is the game's dedicated healer. Most of the other characters cover the role in a similar fashion from time to time, but Marle is undoubtedly the most devoted to keeping her own side going in a fight. As such she's really not that great fighting on her own, and is arguably the worst fighter with just her bow. And while some of her techs make her a fair bit more useful when defeating enemies, she ultimately lacks the staying power to be of a whole lot of worth when killing things.

As a healer Marle is indispensable. She gets the best healing spells in the game, and is the only character who can not only revive but fully restore a character who's been knocked out. When she's not healing Marle can use her ice spells to do damage, which does her well in a few double and triple techs - unfortunately unlike the other characters she has no devastating final attack, and thus falls far behind the rest of the gang by the end. And given that healing isn't that difficult to accomplish later on without healing magic, Marle may not get a ton of use. Don't be mistaken, she's still a good character, but there are better.

Aura: Marle's first move, Aura restores a small amount of HP to an ally. This will only be used at the very beginning.

Allure: Confuses Marle's enemies one at a time. A fairly worthless move overall; Marle may as well just attack instead.

Ice: Her first good move, Ice hits one enemy with water damage. Marle has good magical stats so she's a better water mage overall than Frog and his similar but weaker spell, Water.

Cure: A nice healing spell that restores a moderate amount of HP to one ally.

Haste: An excellent spell that speeds up one ally's ATB gauge.

Ice II: Hits every enemy on the screen with ice. Great for the mid-point of the game, but it loses steam near the end - and unfortunately this is Marle's last attack spell.

Cure II: Restores a lot of HP for one ally, usually enough to shoot them back up to full.

Arise: The aforementioned spell that not only resurrects an ally but brings them back uip to full HP. Given that it only costs 15 MP this is a great spell, and if you want a slower, more careful battle this is an excellent choice for your lineup.

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