<story><title>Deconstructing the Role-Playing Video Game</title><url>https://olano.dev/blog/deconstructing-the-role-playing-videogame/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bityard</author><text>You are not wrong. Legend of Zelda is categorized as an adventure game. Or sometimes, action-adventure to emphasize the sword-swinging aspect.&lt;p&gt;This is the kind of thing that people will argue about, but to me, a role-playing video game is characterized by a controlling party (usually) of characters with stats that can change based on the player&amp;#x27;s actions and&amp;#x2F;or progress, and turn-based combat.</text></item><item><author>nox101</author><text>I always find these categories frustrating.&lt;p&gt;A Link to the Past and Chrono Trigger do not belong in the same category. In the first, you have action fights that require quick hand-eye coordination and skilled reflexes. In the 2nd you just choose actions from menus, no hand-eye coordination nor reflexes required.&lt;p&gt;To me, an RPG, has always meant the latter (choose [attack, magic, item] from a menu). Wizardry, Bard&amp;#x27;s Tale (Apple II), FF7 are RPGs. A Link to the Past, Link&amp;#x27;s Adventure, Breath of the Wild, are not.&lt;p&gt;I know the letters RPG stand for &amp;quot;Role Playing Game&amp;quot; but if we&amp;#x27;re going to go down that route, Flight Sim is an RPG. You play the role of an airplane pilot. Mario Tennis, would also be an RPG. you play the role of a cartoon tennis players. GTA5 is an RPG. You play the role of a member of a street gang.&lt;p&gt;Since we know that&amp;#x27;s not what people mean when they say RPG, we&amp;#x27;re still left making sure were discussing comparable games. IMO, Zelda games (nearly all action games) are not comparable to Final Fantasy or other J-RPG games (nearly all select from a menu games). Their similarity is at most, they are set in a middle-earth tolken-esk setting where you fight monsters with swords. But that&amp;#x27;s clearly not a useful distinction as it would leave out Earthbound or any other RPG not set in a wizards &amp;amp; dragons type of setting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bigger_cheese</author><text>I think everyone will have a different definition. In my opinion the &amp;quot;Role Playing&amp;quot; element is the ability for the game player to make deliberate choices which alter the character progression.&lt;p&gt;It can seem somewhat arbitrary. But to me a game like Diablo, Cyberpunk or Deus Ex where you are given a choice (to allocate skill points or similar) which changes the performance&amp;#x2F;abilities of the character makes its &amp;quot;roleplaying&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand something like Zelda or Metal Gear Solid the game play tended to change more based around obtaining certain items or reaching a certain stage of game rather than any decision based character progression&lt;p&gt;Something like Bioshock blurs the line as you make choices about which skills to obtain which alters the gameplay.</text></comment>
<story><title>Deconstructing the Role-Playing Video Game</title><url>https://olano.dev/blog/deconstructing-the-role-playing-videogame/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bityard</author><text>You are not wrong. Legend of Zelda is categorized as an adventure game. Or sometimes, action-adventure to emphasize the sword-swinging aspect.&lt;p&gt;This is the kind of thing that people will argue about, but to me, a role-playing video game is characterized by a controlling party (usually) of characters with stats that can change based on the player&amp;#x27;s actions and&amp;#x2F;or progress, and turn-based combat.</text></item><item><author>nox101</author><text>I always find these categories frustrating.&lt;p&gt;A Link to the Past and Chrono Trigger do not belong in the same category. In the first, you have action fights that require quick hand-eye coordination and skilled reflexes. In the 2nd you just choose actions from menus, no hand-eye coordination nor reflexes required.&lt;p&gt;To me, an RPG, has always meant the latter (choose [attack, magic, item] from a menu). Wizardry, Bard&amp;#x27;s Tale (Apple II), FF7 are RPGs. A Link to the Past, Link&amp;#x27;s Adventure, Breath of the Wild, are not.&lt;p&gt;I know the letters RPG stand for &amp;quot;Role Playing Game&amp;quot; but if we&amp;#x27;re going to go down that route, Flight Sim is an RPG. You play the role of an airplane pilot. Mario Tennis, would also be an RPG. you play the role of a cartoon tennis players. GTA5 is an RPG. You play the role of a member of a street gang.&lt;p&gt;Since we know that&amp;#x27;s not what people mean when they say RPG, we&amp;#x27;re still left making sure were discussing comparable games. IMO, Zelda games (nearly all action games) are not comparable to Final Fantasy or other J-RPG games (nearly all select from a menu games). Their similarity is at most, they are set in a middle-earth tolken-esk setting where you fight monsters with swords. But that&amp;#x27;s clearly not a useful distinction as it would leave out Earthbound or any other RPG not set in a wizards &amp;amp; dragons type of setting.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lolinder</author><text>The party seems to be pretty optional, because I don&amp;#x27;t know many (except maybe OP) who would seriously try to argue that Morrowind doesn&amp;#x27;t count.</text></comment>