Metaphor: ReFantazio – Full guide to adept, elite & royal archetypes

Metaphor: ReFantazio’s combat revolves around archetypes, and players should learn prerequisites for adept, elite, and royal archetypes before getting too far into the game and finding themselves forced to grind for the best ones.

Atlus has crowned itself as the modern king of JRPGs and has created a game that lets players do the same; just for an actual kingdom instead of a video game genre. Its latest creation, Metaphor: ReFantazio, borrows concepts from the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series and transplants them into a new universe.

The new archetype system blends elements of both games and adds a splash of “jobs” from Final Fantasy. The result is a straightforward progression system that still offers players depth customizability.

How do adept, elite, and royal archetypes work in Metaphor: ReFantazio?

Archetypes serve as the framework for a character’s stats and skills. While Metaphor: ReFantazio has much in common with Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, Archetypes are more akin to the jobs or classes found in Final Fantasy games.

Characters gain EXP for themselves as well as the separate A-EXP for archetypes. Archetypes level up to a certain point alongside the character by winning battles. Characters’ stats vary, making them naturally better suited for certain archetypes.

Once an archetype hits level 20 it “evolves” into an adept archetype. This gives players access to adept archetypes, which offer new abilities over the basic version. There are also elite archetypes that do the same but have even greater prerequisites.

Players unlock access to the basic versions of archetypes by adding new followers, some of which require jumping through extra hoops.

Every basic archetype in Metaphor: ReFantazio and which follower unlocks them

Metaphor: ReFantazio has 14 different basic archetypes, six of which are unlocked naturally in the story. Beyond that, eight more are unlocked by recruiting followers.

These followers are NPCs who serve a similar role in the story to confidants in the Persona series. Players make friends, deepen their relationships, and gain power-ups as those relationships improve. Unlike Persona, players gain access to the archetypes by recruiting followers, rather than offering a unique set of perks.

Here are all the basic archetypes, which follower unlocks it, and what request unlocks the follower:

In the case of Basilio and Bardon, the characters do not have a specific request attached to unlock them. The characters appear during the course of the story, and will become a follower upon talking with them.

How to unlock basic archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Players can unlock archetypes for a character by talking with More and selecting “Study Archetype.”

After the hero adds a new follower, they have a new option for party members’ archetypes. Those archetypes aren’t automatically unlocked, however.

In order to start actually using the new archetypes, players need to head into Akademia and talk with More. In the Study Archetypes menu, players can then unlock that new archetype by spending Magla. The Magla cost varies based on the archetype, but is consistent across all characters.

All adept and elite archetypes in Metaphor: ReFantazio

Alongside all the default archetypes, hitting rank 20 and completing other prerequisites can unlock stronger versions called adept archetypes or elite archetypes.

Each archetype has at least one upgraded version that becomes available after hitting rank 20. Certain ones have more than one upgraded form, or have branching evolutions. These branching evolutions typical have prerequisites where players need to raise other archetypes to a certain point. Here are all the adept and elite archetypes, and how to unlock them.

For both adept and elite archetypes, the primary prerequisite is raising a more rudimentary archetype to level 20. Certain elite archetypes take things a step further by tasking players to raise their follower ranks up to a certain point. While these elite archetypes are powerful, they aren’t actually the best ones in the game.

All royal archetypes and how to get them

Each party member has a unique archetype that is obtained in the late game called a royal archetype.

Royal archetypes are the best archetypes in all of Metaphor: ReFantazio, but each one has multiple major prerequisites. Players will need to increase their standing with followers to a certain rank, and have characters reach certain ranks with certain archetypes.

Here are all the royal archetypes, who gets them, and what they require:

Best archetypes for each party member

Each party member in Metaphor: ReFantazio has a specific set of archetypes that they should generally stick with. While every party member has the ability to change to any archetype, the prerequisites for royal archetypes mean that players shouldn’t go too nuts with anyone but the main character.

With that in mind, here are the archetypes that each party member should stick with to ensure an easy transition to their royal archetype:

• Will– Seeker
• Strohl– Warrior, Commander
• Hulkenberg– Knight, Mage
• Heismay– Thief, Gunner, Merchant
• Junah– Masked Dancer, Faker
• Eupha– Summoner, Seeker
• Basilio– Berserker, Brawler

The extent of the prerequisites for royal archetypes vary such that certain characters will have to zigzag their way to their most powerful form, while others have a straight shot.

Basic archetype tier list, and which is best

Healer is likely the best overall archetype in Metaphor: ReFantazio, including its adept and elite successors.

Every archetype has a purpose and many are interwoven, but not all of them are made equal. As one would expect from an RPG, the straightforward early-game options are generally weaker than the late-game archetypes and ones that require more legwork for use.

The major exception to that is the healer. Healer becomes available quite early in the game, after adding Maria as a follower. Despite being one of the first few options players get, it holds up until the very end.

In the same vein is the merchant. The merchant archetype can becomes available fairly early on by making Brigitta a follower. Despite that, it’s another powerful archetype that can be returned to at any point in the game. All that said, here’s a full tier list for all the archetypes in the game:

In general, this tier list favors archetypes that are usable as a character’s primary class throughout the game. Archetypes that have useful abilities that are useful on other, more powerful classes are also buoyed.