Question of the Day, Feb. 21, 2010

[Tom Goldman]

Everything is an RPG, other than RPGs. How about that?

 

[robert022614]

i would have to say action/adventure all the way

 

[ItsAPaul]

I specifically never play Zelda games because everything you do is done the exact same way every time. I've only played Twilight Princess because it was amazing, but every other one has been crap. Don't even get me started on the N64 ones...

 

[Dommyboy]

"High fantasy action-adventure video game" series. Wikipedia spreads the truth.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

The Zelda games are basically the definition of the Action/Adventure. If you'd group them (with the exception of Zelda II, which actually was an RPG) under the label of RPG, all other Action/Adventures would be RPG's as well.

 

[Abedeus]

Anyone who said "Its not an RPG" is curling themselves into a ball, rocking themselves slowly while constantly but quietly chanting "Its not an RPG, its not an RPG, its not an RPG" then tries to get away from the question by playing Modern Warfare 2.

So, I guess games like Beyond Good and Evil are roleplaying games, because you collect items and roleplay Jade, and Rayman games are roleplaying games too since you collect powers, shiny balls of light and you roleplay Rayman himself.

...Are you insane?

Ok i may like your DP, BUT doesn't mean to say im not going to prove your wrong. So as you stated above, you are roleplaying as Jade and Rayman, techniqually MW2 is also an RPG, hell even Alien Vs. Predator is RPG. Why you ask? Because your playing as someone your not.

"You're". And I was making a point - if you classify every game where you play as other character and it has a storyline, then every single game except for sports games (...most of them, at least) is an RPG.

 

[Susan Arendt]

RPGs are more of character creators and stats, not playing a premade character.

By this definition, several Final Fantasy games aren't RPGs. Are you ok with that?

 

[pwnzerstick]

I consider it a RPG, but to be honest I consider basically every game involving third person aspect an RPG. I am excluding TPS from that, by and large because I hate TPS games, and no, I do not count Mass Effect as a TPS.

How is, role playing game translated into third person game?

 

[God's Clown]

I consider it a RPG, but to be honest I consider basically every game involving third person aspect an RPG. I am excluding TPS from that, by and large because I hate TPS games, and no, I do not count Mass Effect as a TPS.

How is, role playing game translated into third person game?

Because, in a large portion of role playing games, you follow the person from behind them, meaning third person.

 

[dante brevity]

RPGs are more of character creators and stats, not playing a premade character.

By this definition, several Final Fantasy games aren't RPGs. Are you ok with that?

Modified definition: RPGs are games that allow you to select what type of character(s) you want to play through the game with. This can be true of Dragon Age or Fallout (characters created by player) or of JRPGs like FF (parties of pre-made characters put in party by player).

This is not true of most Zelda games: you're always Link. You've got his tools and his style, always. Action/adventure he be, and long may he reign over that particular kingdom.

 

[blankedboy]

You play a role, so it's a ROLE PLAYING GAME.

/thread, kinda

 

[Calatar]

The poll is very black and white "Definitely is; Definitely isn't."
It's all very conditional on your definition of RPG, and seeing as I don't have a clear one, I don't have a clear answer. I'd say it's about as much of an RPG as Metroid is (not very), perhaps a little bit more because your character interacts with other characters more, exposing the world a little bit better.
You get power-ups as time goes on, but the majority of the power-ups are plot requirements. You have no choice about most of them. I'd say the biggest synchronicity it has with RPGs is the quest/subquest model, which you can to some extent choose to ignore or complete.
RPGs are about choices; the more choices you have, the more of an RPG it is.

Final Fantasy is pretty limited in what you can do plot-wise, but it does let you decide character combat roles, progressions, and tends to have fairly elaborate choices you can make in battle. It's basically a more story-oriented version of pokemon as far as I'm concerned. (No I don't care FF came first.)

So on a choices scale, which directly correlates with the RPG-ness of a game:

Adventure Shooter (Halo, storyline and filling a role) --- Action Adventure (w/ Powerups) (Zelda, Metroid: a few choices available, mostly linear story) --- JRPG(FF, [sub]Pokemon[/sub]: more creative combat choices, narrow storyline) --- WRPG (KotOR, Mass Effect: creative progression, some storyline control) --- Pen and Paper RPG (DnD: completely open-ended)

So apparently Zelda lies between Halo and Pokemon.... um....
my chart may need some work.

 

[ScarlettRage]

Lets Not Start a Flame war Children

 

[oppp7]

RPGs are more of character creators and stats, not playing a premade character.

By this definition, several Final Fantasy games aren't RPGs. Are you ok with that?

I guess. I haven't really played FF, but from what I've learned from 8-bit theatre there is some customization. Like I said (I think, I'm too lazy to scroll up and check), since DnD pretty much made the concept I'm going to go with their model as the factors that decide RPGs. And yes, this reply is 3 weeks late. I wanted to see if I could go that long without checking this site or any webcomics.