pf2e is probably the only system in the genre where martials like fighters are unmistakably strong and perhaps even purposefully slightly overtuned. people complain about spellcasters not being able to solo encounters all the time on the forums lol. but pf2e has extremely tight math and even a spellcaster will be useful but they wont solo the whole encounter like in pf1e, dnd 3.5, or dnd 5e.

in general, the paradigm is:

martials: strong versus single targets, higher leveled enemies, have a little utility

spellcasters: strong versus many targets (3+ enemies hit by a single spell usually to be considered strong) but has a lot of utility. generally doesnt do good damage if you arent hitting enemies with big aoes or layered persistent damage (re: catching a dude on fire, breaking his brain, conjuring a swarm of mosquitoes, and chucking boiling acid on him as quickly as possible). not the best if some super leveled big bad is fighting you solo, thats when you gotta lean into utility and buffing hard

martials have a way better progression on being able to hit things. so if you wanna be a badass that kills a dragon with your fists, pf2e actually makes it viable rather than making you feel like shit in comparison to a spellcaster. martials also are able to do a lot more things than 'i swing my sword'. you can swing your sword, suplex a bitch, and hit them more with increased chances to crit for example

Pathfinder 1e, 100%. Build to be compatible with 3.5, it has the same 'linear fighter, quadric wizard' stuff, though its base martials are probably a little stronger than 3.5's, though that's not saying much.

Pf2e, in my experience, is the best dnd-like system I've played for caster-vs-martial balance, improving on 5e, where casters and martials were almost balanced in combat, but caster had a bit boost out of combat. In PF2e, all else being equal, a martial will usually be better in combat than a caster. Does mean that 5e players coming into the game will probably have some feelsbad about how 'little' damage their blaster is doing, but IMO casters do way to much damage in 5e for how much other shit they can pull on top of that. Though they make up for it their lower damage by giving good buffs and debuffs, and by dealing more AOE and diverse energy types, to take advantage of the more common damage weaknesses and resistances.

They also, of course, have more out of combat utility, though even there, martials have a big leg up compared to 5e. Rituals can be performed by anyone with the right skills, and some important stuff, like raise dead, are rituals, so anyone with training in religion can do it, magic or no. Similarly, skills are far more powerful. Out of combat, the medicine skill heals people right up (with the right skill feats), making healing magic only useful in combat, or to break curses and stuff.

I also in general really like their 'save or suck' spells. The real suck effects only happen on enemies crit failing their save, which is rolling 10 below the DC, and rarely happens. But there's still good debuffs applied on fail, and small or 1 round only debuffs that get applied on a successful save (similar to 5e's 'half damage on successful save' effects). It makes save-or-suck spells way less binary, as unless the enemy critically succeeds, they'll still get some damage or debuff on them, but also to really just negate an enemy the way 5e's 'hold monster' can, they usually need to roll like a 1.