Wyrdness said:
Gameplay is still a core factor in deciding so otherwise you may as well call visual novels JRPG. The same way the are many conventional type of games in a genre the are also unconventional an example in fighting games genre you have your Street Fighters and then you have Smash. |
RPG tends to be classified by their progression system, aka levels, stats and stuff like that. Based on the first non-videogame RPG Dungeon&Dragons. Story is actually no indicator of an RPG, although an RPG just as most other genres can have a story.
I think it is strange that RPG is the only genre that is subdivided with a regional classifier (and I don't support that). It is true though, that japanese RPGs are seemingly different. They have incorporated some elements of visual novels, which predate RPGs in Japan. But more importantly what is classified as JRPG often has the same elements poularized by western RPGs Wizardry and Ultima. So the funny thing is, that JRPGs really have their roots in western RPGs and early western RPGs would be classified by many now as JRPGs. But western game devs since then developed RPGs in a different direction, so they are differently.
I tend to ignore the regional qualifiers to the RPG genre, but I think a very important distinction - not only for RPGs, but other genres as strategy as well - is the distinction between real-time and turn-based. That massively influences the feel of these games.
RingFit Adventure is undoubtely a strange RPG and it also is in another genre - fitness game - as well. But that doesn't change the fact it is a RPG.
