Yes, it's class based, but most of the skills are unrestricted. Most classes need a few ranks of a weapon or two to gain levels, but that can be any weapon you want, from pikes and slings to two-handed blunt and light edged weapons. You could even choose to fight without weapons if you want, in a martial-artist monk style (and the brawling system is much better than it used to be, as you can now integrate unarmed attacks with your normal combat style).

The skill system allows for a larger variety of roleplaying opportunities as well, and players actually take them instead of just going for the min-max style. Sure, there are still some gimped skills (the polearms and slings are perfect examples), but those are relatively few.