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Forums - Nintendo - Is Zelda an RPG?

 

Is it?

Yes 43 23.50%
 
No 140 76.50%
 
Total:183
Aeolus451 on 29 March 2015
PieToast said:
is wine juice?


If you pour it into a different bottle or cup and label it "juice" then it will be.



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Aeolus451 on 29 March 2015
RolStoppable said:
Mnementh said:
archer9234 said:
RPG stands for Role Playing game. You're playing a character. Zelda is a RPG. Unless you want to have a subcategory of Role Stat building Playing Game.

Well, you play a role in nearly every video game. Foloowing that definition Mario or Doom are Role Playing games. The video game role playing games follow the pen&paper-rpgs (and these were created before video games existed), so I would say the main thing is that you as a player create and develop a character. Link is always the same, despite who plays him. So Zelda is not a Role Playing Game (it's an action-adventure actually). The character in Demons Souls is formed by the player: looks, stats, weapon or spell choice, class and so on - Demons Souls is a RPG.

Good luck pushing that definition on fans of JRPGs where you almost always play as a predetermined character or party.


Final Fantasy, Persona, Tales of, suikoden, breath of fire.... Just to name some off the top of my head.  Zelda fits perfectly as a japanese action role-playing-game



StarOcean on 29 March 2015

Zelda II is an RPG for sure. The rest are in the grey area.



Samus Aran on 29 March 2015

Does Zelda have different classes? Nope.
Does Zelda have a level up system? Nope.

Does the combat in Zelda have any depth? Nope. You just spam the attack button with the sword and sometimes you use your bow.


It's not an rpg. Because if Zelda is an rpg, so is Metroid.



Aeolus451 on 29 March 2015
Samus Aran said:
Does Zelda have different classes? Nope.
Does Zelda have a level up system? Nope.

It's not an rpg. Because if Zelda is an rpg, so is Metroid.


Is there classes in many rpg's in general? Hell, most don't even let you create your own character. Zelda has enough RPG elements to be considered a rpg. It's probably the grandfather of action rpg's. 



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ExplodingBlock on 29 March 2015
Ultrashroomz said:





Samus Aran on 29 March 2015
Aeolus451 said:
Samus Aran said:
Does Zelda have different classes? Nope.
Does Zelda have a level up system? Nope.

It's not an rpg. Because if Zelda is an rpg, so is Metroid.


Is there classes in many rpg's in general? Hell, most don't even let you create your own character. Zelda has enough RPG elements to be considered a rpg. It's probably the grandfather of action rpg's. 

Zelda doesn't even have one rpg element in it.

Pokémon: has different types ("classes")

Fire Emblem: has different classes

Paper Mario: has different partners with different abilities

xenoblade: has different characters with their own abilities

Bravely Default: has different "jobs" (which basically functions as classes)

Runescape: Magic beats melee, melee beats range, range beats magic

South Park: Stick of Truth: mage, warrior, thief, jew.

Those are the only rpgs I play and they all have classes (except Mario & Luigi franchise).



MDMAlliance on 29 March 2015
Mnementh said:
MDMAlliance said:
spemanig said:
No, it's an action adventure game. It's not even a little bit of an RPG. It doesn't even have RPG elements.

And Zelda is not "it's own thing." It's defined by a genre, just like everything else.


I'm sorry for this, but no.  RPG elements you're referring to are just the common thing RPG's have, but not what defines RPG's itself.  As one other has already pointed out, RPG stands for Role-Playing Game.  Break that down, you see "Role-Playing."  I'm sure you know what role and playing mean by themselves, and if one will modify the other what that has to mean.  Yes, it means the game has you playing a role.  I am sure you realize that this suddenly makes RPG's actually quite a bit more broad, which is why we come up with all these other terms to further narrow it down.  Overlapping of genres is inevitable, because they are pretty much simplifications to help identify something.  Calling Zelda not its own thing is incorrect, because Zelda was not made to fit an archetypal genre.  Many games are actually its own thing.  

While you may argue I'm arguing semantics, you were also arguing over these very same semantics.

As I see that you as many here refer to RPG as the player is steering a character (but not actually deciding about the character), do you really say this is an RPG:

In a sense, it is.  RPG was a genre before video games even existed.  The term as a whole is very broad.  However, as you may know, not EVERY game actually has you playing a role as a character or something.  There are many board games and even video games where you do not play as anyone.  Those tend to be puzzle games, though.  My point still stands that genres were made up to make it easier to identify entertainment things.  

Now, when it comes to practice, the reason certain things will be called an RPG, and others will NOT, is because we came up with another definition for RPG's.  However, even within that other definition of RPG's, there are more definitions, and it gets real tricky from there.  Spemanig saying things are defined by their genre only shows that he doesn't understand what they are.

So that is an RPG, but also is not.  When people debate about Zelda being an RPG, they are defining RPG's differently. 



dharh on 29 March 2015
archer9234 said:
RPG stands for Role Playing game. You're playing a character. Zelda is a RPG. Unless you want to have a subcategory of Role Stat building Playing Game.


That is a wrong way to classify an RPG.  Otherwise almost every game would be an RPG. 



A warrior keeps death on the mind from the moment of their first breath to the moment of their last.
Shackkobe on 29 March 2015

It is a role playing game, but it has it's own style.

Definitely not a traditional RPG, or Action, or Adventure, but has elements of all.