Play with your party and get a feel for what roles you need to fill

Having said all of that, I’m not going to pretend that every Archetype is completely equal. You’ll typically need to use a Mage more often than a Merchant, for instance. But even then, Merchants get skills that can debilitate Mimics, and they can learn some valuable passive skills that other Archetypes can inherit. How you’ll fit niches like these into your party is up to you.

Generally speaking, you’ll often want to run a combination of a physical attacker, magical attacker, healer, and supporter in your party. Because of this, each member of your party should focus on the Archetypes that will help them best serve the role they most often fill. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll still encounter situations where turning your entire party into Healers is your best play. But at the very least, thinking about how your team generally performs will at least save you from needing to level grind because you didn’t realize you’d need someone who can use physical attacks.

As time goes on, I’m sure the greater video game community will figure out which Archetypes in Metaphor are mathematically the best for each encounter. Heck, that’s the very foundation that speedruns are based on, and I can’t wait to see the first person who can beat this thing in under six hours. But with how much Metaphor continuously rewards you for playing with its class system, the gap between optimal play and casual experimentation isn’t quite as vast as you might think. So get out there, have fun skateboarding on your sword, or else the Mega Man in my dreams is going to chastise me about giving ineffective advice on the internet again. Don’t give me that look.