Each party member has a “best Archetype” in Metaphor: ReFantazio, although the game clearly wants you to experiment with your own combinations. However, a system called Royal Archetypes opens up late in the story, and they all but requires you to have spent the entire game pushing each character in a specific direction if you want to unlock them in time to beat the final boss.
The good news is that these Royal Archetypes are extremely powerful, and well worth the effort it takes to unlock them.
Below, we’ll break down the best Archetypes for each party member in Metaphor: ReFantazio (including the protagonist). There are loads of spoilers for all job families, Royal Archetype job titles, and late-game party members below, so scroll at your peril.
Unlike the other heroes that will travel alongside you in Metaphor: ReFantazio, the hero will unlock his Royal Archetype — Prince — via the story. This will then unlock the ability to study Royal Archetypes for the rest of your party members as well, although they’ll have to earn it.
Because you’ll just naturally unlock the Royal Prince Archetype, you’re free to study whatever you want through most of the game. Still, we found a lot of success pushing our protagonist into more magical and healing routes, since you can’t remove him from the party and those kinds of Archetypes are always useful.
Consider these five Archetype families for the Protagonist as you make your way through the game:
Strohl starts as the Warrior, and has pretty high strength. Because of this, he’s ideal for physical damage-heavy Archetypes like Brawler. However, Strohl’s ideal role limits him a bit, as there are some enemies that require a bit more than a sharp blade. Merchant is a good addition to his kit to help increase his luck and get him the all-important Gold Attack, but Commander is really where Strohl shines outside of his Warrior home, as he’ll learn tons of support skills that can make him invaluable in some endgame battles.
When thinking ahead to his Royal Archetype, you want to focus on Warrior and Commander, as the Royal Warrior job requires Samurai 20, Warlord 20, and 30,000 MAG to unlock.
Consider these four Archetype families for Strohl as you make your way through the game:
Hulkenberg is a bit of an odd party member in Metaphor, as in order to make her the best tank she can be, you also need to invest heavily into magic. In order to unlock the Magic Knight — and therefore the rest of the Knight line — you must teach Hulkenberg the Mage Archetype. That theme of tank and magic user — usually opposite ideas in games like this — will follow Hulkenberg all the way to her Royal Knight Archetype at the end of the game.
Royal Knight requires Paladin 20, Dark Knight 15, Elemental Master 15, and 30,000 MAG. If you want to eventually have her study to be a Royal Knight, make sure to have her on a Knight or Mage path basically constantly, as she has a ton of job XP to chew through before the game is over, considering there are four jobs in each of those families.
Consider these four Archetype families for Hulkenberg as you make your way through the game:
Heismay is a real go-getter when it comes to doing jobs. In fact, you’ll need to invest in more jobs to get Heismay’s Royal Archetype than any of the other party members. So unless you want to spend all of your endgame XP fruits on Heismay, you’ll need to be very disciplined to get him where he needs to go for the Royal Thief.
Royal Thief requires Ninja 20, Dragoon 15, Tycoon 15, and 30,000 MAG. What makes that tricky is that you’ll need to master at least one Archetype in the Seeker, Knight, and Commander tree to get to the high-level jobs in the Thief, Gunner, and Merchant trees. While you can pretty easily take on some side Archetypes to grab key skills with other characters, try to avoid doing that with Heismay specifically, as he needs a ton of Archetype XP to reach his goal.
Stick to these six Archetype families for Heismay as you make your way through the game:
Being the first of the three final party members, Junah’s job stress is a bit more relaxed. You’ll start with her advanced Masked Dancer job, and won’t need the same prerequisites to unlock it that other characters will. So ideally you can just stick her in the Faker and Masked Dancer tree for the rest of the game.
Royal Masked Dancer requires Persona Master 20, Trickster 20, and 30,000 MAG. This means that your only barriers to Junah’s ultimate Archetype is your Follower bond level with Junah herself and Alonzo. Make sure you prioritize these early so Junah doesn’t get blocked from her more advanced jobs for too long. If you find yourself with XP to spare on Junah, consider pushing further into her magical skills with Mage or her rogue skills with Ninja.
Consider these four Archetype families for Junah as you make your way through the game:
Eupha is the penultimate party member you’ll unlock in Metaphor, and really only requires you to level two trees: Royal Summoner requires Devil Summoner 20, Soul Hacker 20, and 30,000 MAG. This means you just need to work on Eupha’s own extremely powerful Summoner job and the starting job, Seeker.
The only real barrier you have to getting Eupha’s ultimate Archetype is her Follower bond level. What’s tricky about that, however, is how late in the game you get Eupha. Once you pick her up, you won’t have a ton of free time until the game’s final stretch, so you’ll likely be stuck with her at a low Follower level for hours of story content. Try to get her Follower bond up as quickly as possible once you get those precious moments of endgame freetime.
Consider these four Archetype families for Eupha as you make your way through the game:
Being the last party member you unlock, Basilio only requires you to master five Archetype jobs in order to reach his final form. But that’s actually one job more than his other two endgame companions, Eupha and Junah. Royal Berserker requires Destroyer 20, Martial Artist 20, and 30,000 MAG, which is a bit of a problem when it comes to just raw XP required vs the amount of stuff you’ll need to do in the final few weeks of the game.
There are plenty of endgame dungeons to drag Basilio through before the final boss fight so you can unlock Royal Berserker, but you’ll also need to max out his Follower bond (which is the last bond you’ll make) and Catherina’s bond, who isn’t available to visit regularly until nearly the end of the game. To get Basilio where you want to go, make sure you prioritize spending time with him and Catherina, and save some XP fruits to boost him through a few of his jobs.
Consider these four Archetype families for Basilio as you make your way through the game:
Next, see how to unlock all Archetypes and Followers, how to increase Eloquence, and how to see all endings.
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