Job System Games and You: A Vibes-Based and Unscientific Overview
So you liked Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy Tactics and want more? Sure, we all do!
The criteria I used to decide on this list is mostly vibes, but the things I think make a game with the same "feel" that the Final Fantasy job system creates are:
- Multiple characters with a high level of customization
- This customization must be relatively fluid and hotswappable in some fashion. If changing your party configuration requires a lot of grinding before a character is useful in their new role, it's not a job system. (Final Fantasy 1 is not a job system game under this criteria because it doesn't allow changing, despite your party being very customizable at the start. Etrian Odyssey is not one because retraining requires a lot of grinding to get a character back up to speed after changing jobs.)
- There should be a focus on combining abilities for interesting and synergistic results. This can be both across multiple characters and on a single character. Having passive abilities that work with active abilities across different jobs is a hallmark.
- Your ability options should be mostly divorced from your characters' intrinsic levels and should be accumulating as the game continues. More power often comes from more options rather than just number go up, although number can absolutely go up too.
- You should have limited slots for abilities, so while you unlock more options as you go you should have to make decisions as to what to bring. You should be encouraged to fiddle around with your build to solve problems and exploit synergies.
Of course, this is just a subjective set of loose criteria that I'm using to help me narrow down what goes on here. I needed something so I didn't put every game ever on here, and it works for my purposes. Genre is bullshit, if sometimes useful, don't take me putting things in a list as some sort of objective truth! This is not an exhaustive list, nor is a game required to check every box to be here.
Anyway, here's a bunch of games in no particular order!
Bravely Default Series:
The Bravely series (Bravely Default: Flying Fairy -> Bravely Second: End Layer -> Bravely Default 2)1 is probably has the closest analogue to Final Fantasy V's job system, with the added bonus of the titular Brave/Default system that encourages you to plan ahead to make big turns happen. The series is overall more difficult and longer than FFV, Flying Fairy in particular really wants you to interact with its systems in a way that FFV was more lax about. In FFV (as evidenced by the FJF) you can throw together pretty much any team and be successful, whereas these games want you to have a little more of a plan going in to a fight. The jobs are a lot of fun, though, and there are absolutely many ways you can build and be successful. Be forewarned that BD1's endgame is controversial, structurally. To say more would be spoilers. The stories are generally pretty good, although how much you like them is very tied to how well you vibe with the personalities of the 4 main characters of each game.
Rad Codex Games
The Rad Codex games are indie takes on semi-open-world tactical RPGs, borrowing heavily from Final Fantasy Tactics with a little bit of Larian's flair for emergent gameplay. You create a team of goobers from various races with their own bonuses and assign them classes that they learn abilities from in the style of FFT/FFV. Don't let the amateurish graphics put you off, it was made by a very small indie team that clearly put their focus on the systems over the visuals. They're all based on the same combat engine with various improvements made over time. If you only play one of them, I'd highly recommend Horizon's Gate, a true open world game that takes a lot of inspiration from Uncharted Waters. 2 I haven't played Kingsvein yet so I don't have any particular thoughts about it, but it looks to be the same level of quality.
Crystal Project
Another indie project, this time with purely turn-based battles rather than tactical. The job system is completely inspired by FFV, there's a blue mage, life is good. It's also incredibly open world with some unlockable movement options gating your exploration. Due to its open nature the difficulty can be a little uneven, but it's an incredibly good implementation of the job system and there's some sicko shit you can get up to if you really dig in. There's also a lot of exploration the game expects you to do, which can sometimes manifest as wandering around without a clear goal. Overall though exploring is satisfying because there's almost always something new to find, and you're usually rewarded well for finding them. Probably the most difficult game on this list, though.
Unicorn Overlord/Ogre Battle
In these games you are less building individual characters as much as you're building units in a way that you want them to work together. The battles are RTS-style, you deploy your units, tell them where to go, and they'll make their way there at a speed determined by their unit makeup and the terrain. When units clash, battles happen automatically based on the units formations, then after a round of combat a winner is declared, and if neither unit was wiped out they'll both continue on their way. Ogre Battle 64 is the one I'd recommend if you wanted to check these games out, it holds up incredibly well today
Unicorn Overlord adds FFXII's Gambit System on top of this, where you can program each individual character with simple if/then style statements to make your units run like well-oiled machines. Feels sort of like a hybrid of Fire Emblem with its emphasis on individual characters (although you can absolutely hire generics of the various classes) and Ogre Battle with its unit management and RTS-style battles. Highly recommend this one.
FFTA/2
The Tactics Advance games are both excellent, although fair warning for stream content a completionist playthrough of FFTA2 is VERY LONG, there's a lot of game in that game. They both have a lot of fun jobs to work with, the addition of the various races gives some color and uniqueness to your tactics in that there are more jobs but not everyone can be anything. There are some systems in the first one that are controversial, specifically the law system where semi-arbitrary things are outlawed, and if you do them enough you'll get your units thrown in jail and miss out on bonuses. There are things eventually that let you work around this, however. Basically, these are generally more polished games than the original FFT, although they miss out on some of the fun rough edges in the process. Excellent games, if you liked FFT you owe it to yourself to play them. The stories are much more lighthearted than FFT's, however, you won't be seeing the same level of political intrigue and class warfare in these.
Blue Dragon
Mistwalker's RPG offering for the Xbox 360, it's a Final Fantasy with a job system and some timed hits in all but name. The beginning of the game is fairly slow going, but once it gets rolling it's a solid RPG and it's more job system goodness. Also has one of the best boss battle themes in video game history.
Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark
An indie love letter to Strategy RPGS with FFT clearly being at the forefront of that letter but with a ton of QoL and changes to the FFT formula to feel fresh and unique. If you are familiar with how FFT handles its job system a lot of the same applies here but with added sicko fodder such as equipping 2 jobs at a time on a single character. It is very easy to get very deep in the customization which extends beyond the job system and into other areas of the game such as difficulty options which are some of the deepest I've ever seen in a Strategy RPG (heck deeper than most games period).
Final Fantasy X-2:
I know, I know, but hear me out, this game has one of the best implementations of the job system Square Enix has ever put out. It basically uses the FFV version, except with more a more dynamic real-time/ATB hybrid battle system that was something of a precursor to XIII's paradigm system. The key gimmick is that you have "Garment Grids" that you slot "Dresspheres" into, which determines what jobs a character has access to in combat. You can change from one job to another along adjacencies on the grid, granting you abilities and stat bonuses you pass through while doing so. The game doesn't really require you to take advantage of this, you can just slap jobs on all 3 characters and be successful enough, but you can also go wild with the strategies and flexibility this gives you.
Of course, the game is more than its battle system, and you do have to be willing to put up with an otherwise messy game that you absolutely do not want to attempt to 100% without a guide (and to be honest you probably still don't want to do that with one. It's notoriously fiddly and easy to miss single percentage points permanently.)
Metaphor: ReFantazio
If the SMT series is Atlus flirting with job system adjacent concepts, Metaphor is the result of Atlus finally working up the courage to take them out to dinner (not sorry). It takes the base concept of the job system, where you swap classes called archetypes, level them up on each character as you use them, unlocking new abilities as you go. Some archetypes require you to level up others skill tree-style to open up the ability to equip them, and one twist is that your current archetype determines your elemental resistances and weaknesses, encouraging you to swap as the situation dictates. One thing that makes this a little more borderline is that you require a resource to unlock archetypes on a character as well as unlock abilities to be usable on arbitrary archetypes, and that resource can get tight if you spend it too freely, limiting your experimentation somewhat.
The structure of the game itself is 100% Persona, you're shuttled along on a timeline and asked to use your limited days efficiently to accomplish your goals and power up.
Honorable Mentions and Final Thoughts
A few options came to mind while writing this that I don't think really fit what I'm going for but are worth mentioning:
- Golden Sun (Semi-flexible class changes, no persistence from them though)
- The rest of the SMT mainline series, especially Digital Devil Saga (Demons sort of act like jobs, fusion is a form of ability persistence)
- Stranger of Paradise (there are jobs, but you're selecting two of them separately rather than combining abilities)
Of note, I haven't played the recent HD Remaster of Flying Fairy, which I hear has changed some things, and if you want to play End Layer the only option currently is the 3DS version.↩
Although don't get your hopes up too far, it has sailing, trading, and sea combat, but it's not quite as focused as Uncharted Waters)↩