"Sorry, but the Zelda series games are RPGs. They are a different form of an RPG, but definitely fit into the category somewhere. The Zelda games are just like Oblivion or Fable, and most people would agree to call them RPGs."

The Zelda games are action adventure games. Oblivion and Fable both have some form of character customization. You don't really have any control over what Link does in the main quest other than trying to find the next item that will allow you to progress to the next part of the game.

I agree when it comes to 'character customization', but as for having 'no control over what Link does' that's completely bogus.

Even the old Zelda games on the original NES were almost as much of an RPG as the self declared ones like "Dragon Warrior" (BTW, I think this series should have made the list)

Anyway, starting with a Link to the Past, you had pretty much free reign to do what you wanted to do with Link.  The games don't force you to go from A to Z on a designated path... they start you at A, and give you free reign to decide how and when you get yourself to Z.

Are the RPGs in the traditional sense?  No, of course not.  But very few games that we called RPGs back in the 80s to mid 90s would be considered such today if they were released new on a console in this generation.

Not according to this thread it isn't.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=47611&start=150

Seems your opinion is overrated, why don't YOU keep that in mind

Role playing involves making decisions pertaining to allegiance, dialog, character development, approaches to various situations, etc... Zelda has very little, if any, actual role playing. The Zelda series is the very definition of action adventure, it fits into no other genre. Deus Ex on the other hand allows you to choose your skills and augmentations and what dialog Denton says. Also, in Deus Ex, you can take a stealthy or combat-oriented approach to different situations and exploit skills such as lock picking and computer hacking to aid you. These decisions define role playing because they allow you to play the role as you see fit, kind of like D&D which is actual role playing. I hope that provides some clarification.

Wha-what-WHAT?

"Anyway, starting with a Link to the Past, you had pretty much free reign to do what you wanted to do with Link. The games don't force you to go from A to Z on a designated path... they start you at A, and give you free reign to decide how and when you get yourself to Z."

Yeah, but the object of the game is to complete the adventure and not to have fun tooling around in like in GTA. If Zelda is an rpg, then games like Metroid and Castlevania are too. Even GTA could be considered an RPG and so could Tomb Raider, God of War, and Resident Evil. Any game where you collect things to build up an arsenal that you can use in the game would also be an rpg. But if you are talking about the generally accepted definition of a turn based jrpg or a western corridor crawling, dungeon clearing rpg, then it doesn't quite fit. It is an action adventure which is the genre ign places the Zelda games in or an action rpg, but not a traditional rpg.

How would you differentiate action adventures from action rpgs and traditional rpgs? Bouzane does a good job imo.

If you consider Zelda to be an RPG, then games like Dead Rising suddenly become even more RPG-ish than Zelda. Bioshock has more RPG elements to it than Zelda does. So do most other shooters and so does every sandbox game I can think of.

Suddenly, you're in a situation where 50% of all games released are RPGs by that definition.

Zelda is an action adventure game. Let's just leave it at that.

I suppose I understand your thinking, but trust me when I say that in another 10-15 years when you'll literally find yourself In the game in a virtual fashion, we'll have this conversation again and say that a real RPG game is one where you actually are the character.

Long story short, every genre that we tag today will be laughed at to be called such in the next generation or two.  The game industry and games therein are constantly evolving.

With you definition, the old NES "RPGs" could hardly be called such by today's gaming standard.  The decisions made then were VERY limited at best.

If you ask me, the first true RPG will be when you literally can walk into ANY building, walk coast-to-coast in a game (without first unlocking it, or being restricted by a wall of trees or whatever) and can literally have your character look and act anyway you wish... not simply a few dozen pre-selected dialogs.

Example... your character walks into a room.  The wizard asks you to take on a quest for him...

The game then asks you to choose between, "Yes, I want to help you fine wizard" or "No, do it yourself".

That's not RPGing in the D&D fashion either really.  At least with those games you could literally have your character say anything... maybe you tell the wizard yes, but only if he pays for your services and gives his daughter over to you as your slave.

I know that's beyond the realm of possibility in todays games (because of system and disc space limitations), but someday it WILL be the norm and we'll laugh at all the games that claim to be RPGs today.

"Are the RPGs in the traditional sense? No, of course not. But very few games that we called RPGs back in the 80s to mid 90s would be considered such today if they were released new on a console in this generation."

Most of them would be. Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Lunar I & 2, Emerald Dragon, Earthbound, Phantasy Star, Far East of Eden, Chrono Trigger...they would all still be considered rpgs and purer examples of the form than many games that are called rpgs today. Quite a few of them have been rereleased on the DS, and they were called rpgs.

I don't neccesarily think you can draw a box around a game and declare, "now this is an RPG". 

I definitely don't agree in your "turn based" decision making thought, because that would eliminate the Fable, WoW, other great games that most people consider to fall within the RPG category.

I believe that the RPG category has sub categories.

I don't know if you are old enough to remember, but when games like Wolfenstein 3D first came out, they were just called "shooters" but then other types of shooters came out and the category sub'd off into "1st Person Shooter", "Third person shooter", etc, etc.

I think that the RPG category is the same.  There are sub-categories within it, each with it's own style of game handling.