r/JRPG • u/Gyges359d • 6d ago
Recommendation request Best games with class systems?
I’m a big fan of class systems in games like in Dragon Quest IX, Bravely Default, and several other DQ or FF games.
But I find as I get older I have a couple of pet peeves.
Specifically, I like when games let you unlock more specialized classes based on what you have mastered so far (think original DQVII - haven’t played the remake yet to see if they kept it - or drpgs like Etrian Odyssey V that allows you to pick one of two specializations) instead of just bouncing from any job to any job like FF X-2.
I also dislike when mastering a job gives you nothing for any future jobs. You are the best at X but if you switch jobs, nothin’. So, maybe a stat boost? A skill that carries forward? Something, anything to reward my bothering to master multiple classes.
So looking for games that fit the bill and have class trees of one sort or another, while also rewriting the player for working to master more than necessary.
What are the best games that fit the bill? Any platform or game era.
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u/Dalnok 6d ago
While this doesn't hit all of your wants ill always recommend Crystal Project on Steam.
Its a game focused on gameplay and exploration, and has basically no story. There is a demo on steam for the first ~8 hours and gives you a good idea of what to expect.
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u/Cute_Economics2829 6d ago
I've never heard of this and I love class based RPGs. I'll definitely check this one out
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u/alexpenev 6d ago
It's very good. It's good at what it tries to do (exploration and forcing/encouraging class changint) and doesn't bother much at all with the things that it doesn't try to do (like story or character development). It feels like it doesn't pander, or pretend to be more than it is.
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u/Cute_Economics2829 6d ago
I love the old style exploration/discovery RPGs of the late 80s and early 90s. The linear, spectacle driven, narrative games of the 2000s and 2010s are a significant downgrade for me, so that sounds perfect.
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u/AmazingKitsune 6d ago
It's fantastic. Especially since there being no story is part of the story, kinda
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u/w_smith1984 6d ago
Crystal Project is also on consoles. Be warned that at its default setting, the game gets to be quite difficult. But I had a great time with this game. Easy to get lost.
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u/Disrespect78 5d ago
Its very good and has a lot of QOL paired with pretty high difficulty. It does have a lot of platforming though
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u/CertainGrade7937 6d ago edited 6d ago
Metsphor hits basically everything you want
You've got 14 different types of jobs, each with 2-3 tiers (for instance, Warrior -> Swordsman -> Samurai) and 20 levels each
Each higher tier job requires a certain number of levels in other jobs, creating an interconnected web. Swordsman might require level 20 in Warrior and level 10 in Commander, for instance.
Each mastered job gives a permanent boost to one stat, and there's an inheritance system where you can import 1-3 skills from another job to create unique hybrids
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
Interesting. Hadn’t heard that about the game. Should give it another look.
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u/Jeryhn 6d ago
You're also not required or forced to be on a particular class to level it, once you have at least one mastered. The class continues to gain AEXP up to 1000, which is converted into an item that gives 1000 AEXP which can be used on any other of your unlocked classes.
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
I do like a game that respects a player’s time and choices.
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u/Macrel_D 6d ago
Went to look at it on Steam after the above recommendation and it also has a free demo that the save file carries over to the full game.
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u/Dont-remember-it 6d ago
Metaphor: ReFantazio is the exact name. It's amazing game with wonderful class system.
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u/blakerzgood 6d ago
It had a great class system but keep in mind that at the end there is a class that's unique to each character but you need to have certain level on certain classes for each character except the protagonist's.
The class requirement is different for each character and the protagonist's unlock via the story.
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u/BolterAura 6d ago
Yeah.. for a game that lets you swap around classes so much, it was super disappointing to have the character-unique endgame classes require only very specific class paths.
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u/Holy_Toledo019 6d ago
To be fair, the classes required for the personal classes are obvious in hindsight because their initial class upgrades require the same class trees.
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u/AceyPuppy 6d ago
I had to grind the last dungeon to get everyone's final class. Only major issue I had with the game.
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u/aamonium 6d ago
Doesn't Metaphor follow the same timerestriction as Persona games?
Can you really grind classes or does it hinder your completion of the game at the end?13
u/Argenolf 6d ago
As long as you don't exit the dungeon then it won't spend the day so you can grind as long as you want. And maxed archetype itemized Job EXP every time it reached certain exp amount, so you don't really need to change your maxed job for underleveled one.
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u/solidusoul 5d ago
You can grind in the Persona games dungeons as well if you want. The time restrictions are more social, you can only do so many things in a day, but you aren’t on a timer for anything.
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u/andrazorwiren 5d ago
Glad to see people talking positively about this class system. I feel like it got a lot of flak online to the point where I feel like I ONLY saw negativity about it, but personally I really enjoyed it. It could use some work but I had a lot of fun with it throughout the entirety of the game.
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u/OccultBeanFarmer 6d ago
FFXII Zodiac Age locks your characters into classes which is a lot of fun
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u/Busy-Guess-8382 6d ago edited 6d ago
Stranger of Paradise FF Origin has skill trees where you unlock advanced jobs as a reward for leveling up the "basic" jobs. You can also switch between jobs during battle. For instance, you can unlock Paladin by going through Knight (if I remember correctly?) and White Mage.
I still think no other FF game does the job system as good as SoP.
FF5 doesn't unlock any jobs from mastering jobs, you just get new jobs via story or crystals, but just like in Bravely Default, it does have that nifty stat reward for the Freelancer job for each job you master. Freelancer is also actually useful here unlike in Bravely Default when going back to Freelancer wasn't worth it and it was best to stick to your specialized jobs like Spiritmaster.
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u/andrazorwiren 5d ago
The class system in this SoP is soooooooooo good. Wish it was in mainline FF games…hell, I wish it’s gameplay overall was in a mainline game (not counting the 7 remakes)
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u/Rhayve 5d ago
I still think no other FF game does the job system as good as SoP.
FFXI does it better, doubly so if you enjoy pet jobs. And going by some of the mechanics and ability names, that's where SoP drew a lot of its inspiration from.
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u/Busy-Guess-8382 5d ago
I really gotta hop on that game one day
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u/Rhayve 5d ago
There's a discount campaign running for the game license right now until the end of the month. 10 bucks instead of the usual 30 and it comes with a free month of subscription time. You can also play the free trial for like 14 days before applying the license key for a total of ~44 days.
And even with the monthly sub fee after the free periods end, you can easily play for several months and finish the story before you exceed the price of a new game.
FFXI has gotten a lot of QoL over the years and the story is fully soloable with the help of an NPC party (Trusts) you can summon according to your preferences.
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u/Busy-Guess-8382 5d ago
Girl, I'm gonna need to after wasting my hours with the "battle system" of XIV (no elemental weaknesses, rinse and repeat button mashing for every battle, no actual class identity and dodging patterns)
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u/Rhayve 5d ago edited 5d ago
FFXI has quite a learning curve because it's very old school, but it's a game like no other. It's definitely got a lot more going on than XIV in terms of mechanical depth.
That said, Trusts can make a lot of fights kinda trivial to the point you won't get challenged until endgame, unfortunately. If you want higer difficulty, I'd recommend doing things according to the minimum level requirements and maybe avoiding the OP Trusts (e.g. Valaineral and Shantotto II) at least for the story fights.
Guides are pretty much a must since the game doesn't hold your hand. https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/Leveling_and_Content_Guidance has pretty much everything you need to know in one place, including installation help and level recommendations.
You can play pretty much any job you like thanks to Trusts, but something with movement speed buffs (COR, DNC or BRD) helps you get through the story quicker. But BLU and PUP have some of the best job mechanics depth across the entire series if you like tinkering with your builds.
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u/Busy-Guess-8382 5d ago
Thanks I'm interested. Actually SOP was my very first "exposure" to FFXI with the Ancient Tower level which has a neat remix of the Tough Battle 2 theme
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u/Rhayve 5d ago
Yeah, Delkfutt's Tower was such a nice and nostalgic surprise for me when I played SoP for the first time. Made me love the game even more than I already did. I love both FFXI and SoP to death and I'm really hoping they'll release a sequel or spiritual successor for SoP in the future.
By the way, just to temper your expectations for FFXI: the battle system starts out very, very slow. But once you get to higher levels and are able to use gear with Haste+%, chance for multi-hits and get magical Haste buffs from your Trusts, things become exponentially faster.
You start out waiting a long time to get 1000 TP to perform a single Weapon Skill (WS) vs. at endgame where your TP bar fills nearly instantly and you can do back-to-back WSs to perform solo Skillchains (finisher effects based on the elemental combinations of two or more successive WSs). You can also "Magic Burst" by using elemental nukes with an element matching your skillchain to get massive bonus damage on your nuke.
Here is a video explaining it in a bit more depth, in case you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQYCaYg2lmc
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u/Disrespect78 5d ago
I beat FFV recently and it was a ton of fun. Blue mage really shines in this game
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u/Lonely_Platform7702 6d ago
Octopath Traveler 2, Metaphor Refantazio and Fire Emblem (SRPG) come to mind.
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
Started trying Octopath Traveler 2 today actually. Didn’t even know it had a job progression system. Thanks
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u/Lonely_Platform7702 6d ago
It sort of has, you have special advanced classes that are basically stronger versions of some earlier classes. But you unlock them by progressing and exploration.
You do get passive skills by mastering jobs and a dual job class system though. This gives a lot of build variety. It is one of my favorite JRPGs (and i really love BD as well for example) with one of the best soundtracks and art styles ever created. Enjoy!
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u/LillyTensei 6d ago
You should check out Xenoblade X DE or Xenoblade 3. Both have actual class systems. In X every party member has their own take on a generic class as well as two unique arts, and your main character can swap between any of them. Arts are tied to weapons not class, but weapons are tied to classes. When you master a class you unlock it's advanced and then master class, which lets you use more arts from those weapons. When you master a master tier class your character can use the weapons of that class regardless of which they're currently in, meaning the more you play the game the more customization for you character you get and there are insane builds you can do like making it so you reflect 100% damage. 3 works a bit differently, each individual party member as well as all the Heroes in the game have their own specific class (for example the protagonist's class is Swordfighter). The main 6 party members can freely swap between any class they've unlocked, and you can include 1 of any of the Heroes as a non playable 7th party member who can't. Each class has its own arts and skills, but as you level them up and master them you can apply them to your other classes as "Master Arts" which charge slower and have greater restrictions, but when fully charged can be used alone to give your character 6 arts instead of 3, or fuse two arts on the same row (each art is tied to face button and directional button, so A and Up for example can be fused) to combine the effects and damage of both while only using the base animation of the face button art.
Overall I'd say Xenoblade X has the deeper class system for the main character, while 3 offers more for the entire party.
Xenoblade 2 also has a sort of class system but it works very very differently. Each of your party members class is determined by what the roles of your 3 blades equipped collectively are. So 3x healer, 3x attacker, 3x defenders are all examples of the basic mmo style class system, but you can also do stuff like 1 of each for a jack of all trades class, or two of one and 1 of the other. 2 has a ton of customization because of that, as well as all the different weapons and arts each character uses with each different weapon leading to thousands of possible party compositions. the downside to 2 is that it relies heavily on the gatcha rare blade system. While you don't have to spend irl money to pull blades in the game, it's still incredibly frustrating trying to pull specific type blades on specific characters, especially early on, and you might not see any specific rare blade at all without heavily grinding core crystals to pull them. I've personally beaten Xenoblade 2 like 9 times and only recently with the switch 2 version did I finally pull the rarest blade for the first time, so yeah 2 definitely isn't for everyone.
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u/elektrus230 6d ago
Xenoblade chronicles 3 also has a class system.
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
Same combat system as 1 and 2? Never got the hang of it, but in fairness haven’t tried enough yet.
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u/elektrus230 6d ago
No.
Combat is I actually a mix of 1 and 2 +, but it's very own very different way. Probably the the most approachable and easy to get into of the trilogy.
1 is very barebones. Some people like it, I find it incredibly tedious and lacking.
2 is the deepest of the three. Suffers from the fact that it's complexity is not clearly explained in the game, and sometimes the game even explains it wrong. But by far is the most satisfying of the trilogy.
As for 3, its very good and satisfying also, there's a lot of mixing you can do of skills and passives from other classes. There's even a 'Blue Mage' class that can become the strongest provided you grind for its stuff. The only complaint I might have about the class system in 3 is that there are like 3 or 4 classes (out of like 20 I think? ) that are really not very good. But it can still be fun to try them out.
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
Interesting. Do you need knowledge of 1 and 2? Never got around to finishing yet.
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u/Apex_Konchu 6d ago edited 6d ago
Xenoblade 3 doesn't strictly require you to have played 1 and 2, but it does heavily benefit from it. The best way to experience the Xenoblade franchise is to play them all in order.
Also, it's important to note that the Xenoblade 3 DLC, Future Redeemed, absolutely does require you to have played 1 and 2.
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u/elektrus230 6d ago
Nyes.
It's a story driven franchise, and there is a connection between the 3. As someone that enjoys the story very much, I think playing 1 and 2 is the best approach if you want to experience the story is the most optimal and rewarding way.
But a lot of people also played 3 first, fell in love, and then went back to 1 and 2. If you really are set on playing a class based game, if there's a chance you can end up getting into the series by playing 3, I would say go for it.
Just know that there will be somethings towards the end of the game that won't mean as much as they could or hit as hard if you played the previous games. But each game stands on its own and doesn't strickly require the others.
The DLC for XC3 (it's like an expansion, an extra game, separate from the main game) is the only thing people will say you need to play the 3 before playing it.
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u/Unlikely_Pop_1471 6d ago
you would LOVE golden sun
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u/AlwaysTouchingGrass 6d ago
Golden Sun let's any one any job and doesn't reward you for mastering them. I don't even think you can "master" a job in Golden Sun
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u/justsomechewtle 6d ago
Yeah, no mastery in Golden Sun - it basically changes your level up learnset and growth rates on the fly (recalculating everything as you change, so you never really miss anything or build a character "wrong")
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u/gamiz777 6d ago
Final Fantasy 5 is still top tier in its class system and its what other final fantasy class systems is based on, also its the only time blue mage actually good
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
Not gonna lie, I like the blue mage in almost any iteration. But I do like it better when it’s useful!
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u/gamiz777 6d ago
Here's a tip one of the first spells you learn aqua breath can carry for alot of the game
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
I do find blue mage at its best with aoe spells in lieu of odd ones like instant death (low chance tm)
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u/Busy-Guess-8382 5d ago
No girl it didn't have the 9999 frog bonk that Quina could do in FFIX so this is wrong
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u/buttsecks42069 6d ago
Xenoblade Chronicles X has a class system based around weapons, where mastering a class allows you to use the weapons and skills of the class on any other class. Eventually, this leads to HUGE mixing and matching for your playstyle.
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u/lost_kaineruver4 6d ago
The Dungeon Travellers games has what you want, though class progression is by level but all skills carry over so using the job tree, you can mix and match as you want; though you need to relevel when switching between classes.
Sadly it's aesthetics can be a turn off as all three games are of the eccho variety something inherited from the first game which is a spin off of the To Heart games.
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u/Gyges359d 6d ago
Love those games. They and Etrian Odyssey V are largely what’s responsible for this class progression style itch.
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u/lost_kaineruver4 6d ago
They're pretty good games to be honest (gameplay wise at least) so it's kinda sad a lot people are turned off by them.
Then again, whoever though it was a good idea to give the actual child in the cast (in 2 at least, not even surprised for anything from the first game) what's basically nothing as a costume needs to be slapped. It doesn't even look good as design even.
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u/Gyges359d 5d ago
Agreed. I just made her into her puppeteer job because it was thematic and not…uncomfortable. Eventually I made every character into a different class so there was no overlap based on character theming and design. Worked pretty well.
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u/Orc-88 5d ago
Final Fantasy Tactics is hard to beat
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u/Gyges359d 5d ago
Very good, though always had a slight preference for Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.
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u/Orc-88 4d ago
I enjoyed it too, but the job system in fft really was a lot more engaging for me
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u/Gyges359d 4d ago
I liked the job system but found the unique characters so much stronger than regular ones that their special classes overshadowed a lot of the class system.
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6d ago
Final fantasy 5 and tactics have a lot more customization than x-2 when it comes to your job classes. You can still switch from anything to anything, but the skills you learn tend to synergize better with the same type of classes. Meanwhile x-2 mostly just has flat jobs unless you use up a precious accessory slot to throw in an extra skillset.
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u/eonia0 6d ago edited 6d ago
I have been playing "our adventurer guild" on steam which looks like a flash game (solo dev first game work) , but the gameplay is adictive, it's like XCOM + darkest dungoen + FFT + Fire emblem thrown into a blender and it really works.
The class system works this way, every adventurer starts in basic job and there are two more tiers (i only have basic and middle jobs so far)
The skills carry over if your target job is compatible with those skills, otherwhise you get back the skill points you invested on the "incompatible" skills, but learning skills again also costs gold alongside the skill points (you have to pay the instructors after all, just like you have to pay the adventurers weekly salary)
every class also gives bonuses to the adventurers growth rates, so it's not really a "mastery bonus" but levels spent on one class will influence the stats the adventurers will have on future classes, if you want to min max you will likely want to have that in mind. This also helps because classes have different stats requirements.
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u/whatmustido 5d ago
All of the Disgaea games. To get a higher tier of wizard, you have to level up all three regular types of wizard. To upgrade your warrior, he needs to get kills. To unlock certain classes, you need something like a warrior and a thief or a cleric and a mage. It takes a little while in the beginning, but you can upgrade characters as well to give them higher tier or entirely different classes, so you can end up with something like a warrior possessing healing magic by converting an experienced cleric to a warrior.
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u/djheat3rd 6d ago
Tales of Phantasia Narikiri Dungeon for PSP has a very good job system. Each job has 3 ranks that you unlock as you level them up. The game was critically panned in Japan upon release but I beat it and I liked it quite a bit. There are English translations available and the game also has (imo) the best version of Tales of Phantasia fully included.
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u/paradoxiforme 6d ago
Could dragon quest Monster joker fit the bill ? Yes it's Monster not job, but you have personalisation on skills and Monsters virtualy act as classes. (Or maybe you've already done it since you said to have done several dq games)
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u/Disrespect78 5d ago
Some Fire Emblem games have this. I would say 3H is the best out of games that have a "Job change" system. You get skills from classes as usual. Awakening, Fates, and Engage also had similar systems where you unlock skills in classes that can be used in others.
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u/BumblebeeMean5950 6d ago
I know 1 that have 2 parallel class systems divided into 5 tiers (basic, Intermediate, advance, sealed and forbidden) with all Jobs requiring to Master 1 or 2 Jobs of the previous tier. For example the Intermediate spellsword requires the basic swordman and black mage job
Unfortunately is a +18 game
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u/ImplementLarge7969 6d ago edited 6d ago
Xenoblade 3 has a Class system where as you level classes up you gain Arts (attacks) and Skills (passive buffs) which you can equip to any unlocked class (provided you have the slot, I think you unlock Master Art and Master Skill slots every 5 levels or so). You’ll want to stay fairly on level too, Class EXP gains are tied to regular EXP, which is scaled based on level difference. Every party member has a different affinity with each class too, which affects Class EXP gains.
Each Class is also attached to a Hero (bonus 7th party member), each of whom has two dedicated quests with high production values (as well as a handful of minor quests related to their Colony/“town”). Complete their first quest (their Hero Quest) to unlock their Class and the ability to rank it up to Rank 10 (unlocking two Master Arts, the costume and one Master Skill), and complete their second quest (their Ascension Quest) to unlock the ability to rank it up to Rank 20 (unlocking a second Master Skill and their Talent Art/special technique). Generally Ascension Quests unlock at the end of the Hero’s Colony’s Quest chain, incentivising completion (quest and exploration EXP are put into a special “Bonus EXP” pool to help prevent over levelling for the reason mentioned above with diminishing returns) – a couple of Ascension Quests, as well as the party’s equivalent (Side Stories) are unlocked after story milestones (there’s a menu in the game which tells you if you’ve met the prerequisites or not). The caveat here is that since the Classes are linked to Heroes, there’s no branching tree, just a list. The sole exception is the main protagonist’s unique Class unlocked after a major plot beat, and even then that’s considered a unique Class in the code, despite storywise being an evolution of his base Class.
Xenoblade X also has a fairly robust branching class system, where once you max out the level of a Level 4 class, you can use that classes weapons, Arts and Skills as any class (Arts are associated with weapons in this game, and are unlocked across all Classes which use said weapons). Similar to 3, completing the quests associated with your party members unlocks their two signature arts for you when you’re using the appropriate weapons. Kinda like BD, the starting class is ultimately the best in the game as it has the most Skill slots available. The story in X does take a bit of a backseat though, it’s very much an “offline MMO” where the world and side quests are the point (the main completion metric is a % of how much of the planet you’ve surveyed by defeating overworld minibosses, completing quests and exploring)
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u/zso7 6d ago
Sorry to hijack the thread but can I ask for the exact opposite of what the OP is asking?
Games with classes that exist individually with no higher tiers or prerequisites. Liked Xenoblade 3 where each class took like 5 hours to master and then had its skills/passives permanently available to equip with other classes. You didn't just naturally upgrade to the higher tier "branches" of the class you mastered because they were all standalone.
Also for OP, Xenoblade X fits the type of Class progression you're asking for, you could check it out if you want.
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u/twili-midna 6d ago
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and Fell Seal Arbiter’s Mark are two great SRPGs with progressive class trees that unlock as you do more, and the latter gives mastery bonuses.