Zelda is NOT an RPG. For some people this was self-evident. For others, the idea takes some time to get used to. In the first part of this series, I discussed how Zelda lacked the mechanics of an RPG. It's not an RPG at all. It's an action-adventure game. Then, in the second part, I directly compared Zelda to the game play of a traditional RPG and showed (easily) that button-pushing is not role-playing. Clearly, no video game is a true RPG.
Now, in this last part, I'm going to deal with the idea that games that have "RPG elements" are RPG's themselves. Dumping my customary response, the "Retarded Monkey RPG", I will instead declare Monopoly an RPG and show how absurd the idea is.
Monopoly : The RPG
(special note: heavy sarcasm ahead)
Most people consider Monopoly to be a board game. Heh. Shows how little you know. If you look just a bit closer you will see that Monopoly has RPG elements — and therefore is an RPG (according to the same people who think Zelda is an RPG).
In Monopoly, You Play A Role
Yes, that's right. More than being a toss of the dice and moving your game piece, you play a role. You play the role of a businessman attempting to gain a monopoly in land development while other players, who are playing the same role, try to achieve the same goal.
Monopoly Has RPG Elements
First, your 'character' has stats. Actually, he has one RPG stat, money. Instead, like Pokemon, he has other things that allow for a more normal RPG game experience. Much like Ash has various Pokemon, the land developer of Monopoly has — land. And just like Pokemon, you gotta' get em all (or try your best.)
The land in Monopoly has one feature that makes the game rise well above a standard board game. It levels up. If you apply enough money (experience) to the land, it "levels up" and "evolves" into more profitable land for you, and more dangerous land for your opponents.
This is All Very Silly
As you can see, if you absolutely want to, you can declare anything an RPG.
What is a Video Game RPG?
A video game RPG is a video game based on the mechanics of traditional table-top RPGs. Since there can be no actual role-playing in video games, video game RPGs lifts ONLY the mechanics and encounters from their older, wiser brothers. Any video game that does not fit this definition is NOT an RPG.
Video games that feature so-called 'RPG elements' are not RPGs at all, but video games that are being put in a box where they do not belong.
I hope this is the last time I have to write about this.
Update
It wasn't. See Why Strategy RPGs Are RPGs. :)
| Categories: Articles : RPG : Video Game Genres |
Comments
You're still wrong, of course - Zelda contains hitpoints, different strengths of weapons and armour, and all sorts of stats. Speaking as someone who's played pen and paper D&D, plenty of games like Fallout and Baldur's Gate, and lots of Zelda, I'm still happy to call Zelda an RPG.
I do see what you mean. But Zelda is still an RPG, in the same way that Lego is still a building material. It's hugely simplified, the NPCs are extremely shallow and there's much less freedom in what you do… but it's still an RPG. It makes no real difference whether you attack by pushing an attack button or by selecting 'Attack' from a menu. The REAL difference are stuff like… whether you physically hit things (like Zelda) or just make an abstract attack and roll a dice to see if it works (like D&D), but you can't just stamp your feet and say that having to physically attack things invalidates the game as an roleplaying experience.
Basically, you just seem to be using very narrow definitions based on circular logic - "This is an RPG and it defines what RPGs are".
there are NO stats in zelda. the HITPOINTS and STRENGTHS OF WEAPONS are just that.it does NOT connote that is is an rpg. even COUNTERSTRIKE has hitpoints, amour, and varying types of weapon strengths,a role to follow,and is also HUGELY simplified to the point where all you need is money health armour and guns. are you to say that counterstriks is an RPG as well?
ps "abstract attacks", they aren't really "abstract" in REAL action RPG's, you still have to make contact, but the DAMAGE is still calculated depending on STATS. if you MISS, YOU MISS. nothing abstract about that.
If that's the case, than every video game is an rpg. Just face the facts. It just isn't!
You're kidding right?
— hartnell
You have come to right conclusion(Zelda is not RPG) but through wrong reasoning.
Let's see. In Zelda you don't get experience and level up(though one could arque that constantly improving heart container amount is leveling up) therefore it's not RPG…
However leveling up, collecting experience etc isn't essential in RPG and isn't even what RPG is all about…Therefore question wether you level up or not in game is irrelevant when it comes to wether game is RPG or not.
Yes in D&D you level up via experience. However D&D isn't synonym for RPG. It's just one(very old) RPG and shows it's age by it's mechanisms(like for example leveling up). If anything newer the D&D the less RPG it has come(D&D 4th ed is more like roll-playing rather than role-playing). Meanwhile there are RPG's where you don't level up in your game sessions! For example Traveller where you create your character and characters stats(how good he is shooting, using computers etc) don't improve(or atleast not that much. There's rules for training but that's very, very, very long process and likely going to take several game sessions). About only thing close to leveling up is social connections you make and better equipment.
Zelda could be called RPG but it isn't one really. Then again there's not ONE computer game that could truly be called RPG. If you call some computer game RPG you might just as well call Zelda one…
Some have commented that RPGs, in terms of video games, are not stat based. Nonsense. They are most certainly stat based. It's all about stats and skills and raising those skills. Combat, whether real time or turn based, is a means to an end (leveling up, or raising skills). Yes, there were table top RPGs that didn't revolve around stats as heavily as D&D, but the fact is that D&D is the KEY influence behind VIDEOGAME RPGs. Remember that. We're not focusing on tabletop RPGs here, but video game RPGs. And while tabletop RPGs don't begin and end with D&D, the fact is that D&D tabletop games in particular are the forerunner to RPGs in the VIDEOGAME medium. The other tabletop RPGs didn't influence videogame RPG designers as did D&D.
So it begins with D&D in the video game world.
What then of action/adventures? Well, D&D and tabletop RPGs only influenced a game like LoZ insofar as setting or milieu. In terms of gameplay, LoZ isn't a direct descendant of D&D or other tabletop RPGs, but rather of the original action/adventure videogame, ironically titled "Adventure" for the Atari 2600. That's the root of the hybrid genre. It itself was influenced by adventure games (text adventures in this case) like Hunt the Wumpus and Colossal Cave Adventure (a.k.a ADVENT). Atari 2600 Adventure combined the key/item hunting and exploration gameplay tropes of adventure games with the arcade action gameplay of arcade games and console games of the time (pick up sword, kill duck…dragon…thingie). Elements of action game gameplay (in this case, combat) + adventure game gameplay (exploration, item hunting, environmental puzzles) = action/adventure. And everything from LoZ to Metroid to Impossible Mission to the Castlevania games from Symphony of the Night onwards to Tomb Raider are DIRECTLY influenced by Adventure for Atari 2600.
D&D is the root of all RPG video games (again, VIDEO GAMES).
Atari 2600/VCS' Adventure is the root of all action/adventure video games.
Get it?
TRPG is a type of RPG, maybe the first to appear as an RPG, but not the only type of RPG that exists.
This is the problem of this article, it lacks the correct logic reasoning on sets and subsets, it picks out a subset, and incorrectly labeling it as the whole set,
willing enough to call all other types in the same set falling out of the set.
Even though Zelda might not be an ARPG(since the publisher did not call it an ARPG)
other computer or console games are labeled as RPGs,
including some having even less RPG elements than Zelda.
You reasoning is trying to say that since a Raven is a black bird, all black birds that are not ravens are not black birds,
you happen to be picking out a sparrow as an example,
and avoided making a wrong conclusion,
yet the logical deduction process used in this article is definitely incorrect in logic's sense.
And obviously Monopoly is too. You write this post as though you don't truly believe Monopoly to be an RPG…
Oh, I was playing an awesome RPG today — It's called Sudoku. You see, I was playing the role of a mathematician code-breaker, who uses logic to the extreme to solve the unknown mystery of the blank squares. Oh, and I was playing the RPG with a pen! That means whenever I put pen-to-paper, you can't rub out the mark you apply. See, this is a true RPG, where you don't have stupid "extra lives". You have one life and if you screw up, you're dead!
I love that RPG. :)
— hartnell
Yes, you can well say that since your old Ford is a car, and you hate all other brands, so that all other brands are not cars, since it does not act like a Ford, your own good'o car.
oh yeah, I forgot, an auto transmission must not be a car in your reasoning, since it does not have all the gear shifting option.
And you can well use the same incorrect comparison on this article to try to prove me wrong by saying a ship got all the features, handling wheels and brakes and all that and it must be a car only if I am stupid, so that an auto-transmission, without the gear shifting to control it must not be a car.
Live in your own happy world enjoy.
What? you can die playing sudoku??? I'm never playing that game again! ;P
To be honest, whether or not Zelda games are an RPG or not, depends not only on the person playing the game and the way that person see the game but also on that person belief of what 'RPG" means to them.
I for one will try to put myself in the shoes of Link, while playing Zelda, especially higher generations of Zelda such as Ocarina of Time. Some peoples believe RPG = Levels + Stats. Some believe it's Pan & paper like D&D. Role Playing Games, by it's purest nature is what kid do when they play with their friends, imagining themselve as someone else or even something else, taking the 'Role' of this someone or somthing. Who hasn't played Dad/Son or any others game involving imaginary characters with their brothers/sisters/friends.
Actors are good at Role Playing too. Of course Role Playing Games, involve a 'game' meaning it's not something 'real'. Anyway…. Saying Zelda is not a RPG is stupid since Final Fantasy is considered one and as like zero elements of RPG. or wait it has levels + skills and um…what else do I ever get to choose something that can affect the main story, or am I always stock in that endless linear story…let me thing yeah, linear story all the way. So unless you claim the gameplay is what make a game RPG or not, anything that as Upgrate would become a game with RPG Elements, Character developement.
Of course, D&D isn't a role-playing game either. It's a tabletop fantasy tactics game based off old mass-battle strategy games with the twist of you only controlling a single player.
Some people roleplay in it, putting themselves into the shoes of their character.
Some do the same with Zelda.
Some do it with every game they play.
While I have a problem with this series of articles, being built upon fallacies, misrepresentations and misnomers, I do agree that Zelda is not an RPG. To put things in a little context, I am a university lecturer on Games Design, and a professional games designer myself, so I feel I should probably add some weight to this site (I appreciate the goals - it could become a very good resource).
Of course Zelda has a role that you play, but as people have pointed out, this doesn't make it an example of the RPG genre. To say it is an RPG is to simply be overly literal and pedantic. Genre's may not always have the best names, but they do have definitions (however loose).
Zelda is an Adventure game before an RPG. The reason it is difficult to classify Zelda as one or the other is simply that adventure games and RPGs share many key features. But there are many other features that set them apart. A good reference point is the WIKI page on RPG games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game_(video_games)
I'm not advocating WIKI as the be-all and end-all of a debate, but check the references at least.
While Zelda may have character progression, with upgrades to weapons and new abilities, it doesn't have CHOICE. New abilities are not abilities you can add to a tactical toolbox - they are abilities that you MUST use in certain situations to achieve certain ends. New weapons supercede old ones. You could equate this quite comfortably to weapon pick-ups in a FPS game. There is some choice involved, but it is not character-defining choice.
RPGs allow you to influence the progression of your character, and how they interact with the world around them. This was touched on in this series of articles (briefly), with the analogy of the inn. To be more direct, you are not playing the role if you cannot affect the personality of the character. This could come down to the choices you make in conversation, the quests you choose to complete (and how you choose to complete them), how you approach combat, who you include in your party, etc. etc. Usually every game will brush on these choices, but RPGs FOCUS on them. If you are not influencing the character, you are not playing the role, the computer is doing it for you.
Finally, RPGs are strategic and/or tactical affairs, where your mind is pitted against the challenges of the machine. Action games, on the other hand, focus on your skill, reflexes and hand-eye coordination. Zelda's combat model clearly uses the latter.
Zelda is an Action/Adventure game. It is by only the barest fragment of means a Role-playing game, and even then only if you want to be pedantic, and ignore the clear definitions of game genres. To say Zelda is an RPG is equivalent to saying Die Hard is a romance because there is a love interest in the film.
It has nothing to do with Zelda, but i've noticed a lack of mention for the Mana series (aka, Seiken Densetsu). Specifically the third one. It still has the linear game play, but the player does make choices that affect the characters' growth, the party is selectable, as is the main character, and the party setup will likely affect the gameplay, the side quests, perspective of the three simultaneous main plots from two different angles, and so on. It is action based play, but it has stat sheets for the characters, stats which the player gets to choose how they progress upon leveling, and items that are for use other than combat, like a dreamseed (or something) which turns day into night, or vice versa. Spells are used in combat often, but are also used to trigger the environment and locks (ability-keys).
As for Zelda, does anyone know or rembember why Link was named "Link" by the developers? Or for that matter, why Link has no dialogue? Link was never originally intended to be a character for you to play, but rather was the link between the player and the game world, freeing the player to insert his own personality and words into the appropriate places.
By this alone i wouldn't consider Zelda to be an RPG, we aren't intended to play as Link, we are intended to play through the link.
It's the difference between playing a character, and controlling a character.
Ever Played Zelda 2 for the nes?
I do believe I remember experience points, and 3 stats you could add points in…
was it Attack, Life and Magic?
I believe it was :D
In this picture, at the top, it's your Attack Stat, your Magic Stat and your Life stat, their statpoints next to the text, and at the end.. I think it says: NEXT… which means Experience points till next level…
Hey, this has been touched on before, and i've often considered this one more of an RPG than the rest for this reason as well, but if you notice, those aren't stat points, those are attribute levels. I'm going to assume when most people say "stat points", they really mean "quantitative amounts", and Zelda 2, like the rest of the Zeldas, still uses a more or less abstract graphical representation of these quantities.
I would say however, that in Zelda these abstract representations are typically very precise, and such precision can be used to define the actual quantities they represent. I've calculated Link's starting health in "Link to the Past" to be 36 HP, where each heart represents 8 Hp and Link starts with 3 hearts. His initial sword does something like 1 damage. Still, there is no stat for hitting, or defense, but there is damage absorption from armor. These are just the physical combat stats too, there are no social stats, and no hint at magical stats till "Ocarina of Time" came out and the game manual showed the MP usage for certain spells and magical items.
A spaceship in an action game can have stats. Take for example, armor or any kind of damage limit.
No matter what attribute a game object has in any game, it all boils down to numbers from a programming perspective.
The difference between Zelda and any RPG is HOW those stats are used. In Zelda, hitting and damage is based on collision detection. In an RPG, hitting and damage is based on the skill stats, weighted by a randomly generated number. The most definite way of telling if a game is an RPG (even an 'action RPG') is for your main character to be able to miss it's target, even if the collision detection registers a hit.
—- hartnell
Alright… Ignoring the fact that I don't understand why it matters whether or not Zelda classifies as an RPG, I think the problem here lies in the fact that it seems both sides of the argument are trying to distinguish games as either RPG or non-RPG, when there are clearly many different shades, it isn't just black and white. If white represented something that is in no way, shape, or form and RPG, and black represented real life (the ultimate RPG), then Zelda would no doubt be a closer shade to white than to black. Does that mean Zelda isn't an RPG? Well, it is certainly LESS of an RPG than many other games, but at the same time, it's more of an RPG than many others as well. The author uses the argument "these are RPGs & Zelda is not like them -> Zelda is not an RPG." I could use the same argument and say "Street Fighter is a non-RPG & Zelda is nothing like Street Fighter -> Zelda is not a non-RPG -> Zelda IS and RPG." Through my roundabout logic, I came up with my own argument for why Zelda is an RPG. W00t!
I think the main problem comes in when people differ in "how much" of an RPG something needs to be in order to earn it the label "RPG." To the writer of this article: you obviously seem to think games must be as close as possible to a PnP RPG, but if it doesn't "make the effort" to be as humanly realistic as possible then it isn't "worthy" of being called an RPG (as if RPGs are somehow superior to other games). Although based on your second article, I don't think you could really consider ANY non-MMOG an RPG, since there is always some limit to the amount of freedom you can give players in single player games. The "Zelda is an RPG" zealots seem to think that any experience in which you play a role other than your actual person, there is some lore or background to the world you are in, and your character progresses in some way, be it levels, skill-ups, or simply gaining new items and abilities. By that logic, absolutely any game is an RPG, so that's not good either.
If you look at the video game industry definition of RPG, I would say Zelda would be BETTER classified as an action-adventure game, since it is clearly much closer to that template. If you go by the literal definition of a "role playing game," that is, a game in which you play a role of some kind, then sure, Zelda is a role-playing game.
At the end of the day, you people are all just arguing semantics, which is why this argument is destined to continue forever. I would say that Zelda should NOT be classified as an RPG, if you're so intent on pigeonholing all games into one category or another, since there are other industry defined categories that it fits much better into… But does it really matter? I'm inclined to say no.
Basically, I think both sides are wrong. ;p
i skipped this when i had to turn to the urban dictionary to get what you were saying… i'll reply
tl;dr :) hehe
Guys, this is coming from a Game Freak & Game Programmer. So please understand that whether Zelda is an RPG means the world, and yet means nothing at all to me.
First of all, there is no way to 'miss' in zelda, there is no real developement going on. There are no status attacks, and you can't control any other characters in the game. And to add insult to injury, there is no 'Ultimate attack' to learn.
Now all of that is debatable as to whether it is a requirement in an RPG to begin with. I say that because, like all things, Games are developing beyond what we knew back when the term RPG was created (this is back in 1991 if I remember correctly). Now, i will take each point on its own and discuss them as I know them to be.
There is no 'miss'. This is also true for Fable (Xbox/Xbox360), yet Fable *IS* an RPG, albeit an Action RPG. However, in terms of the CLASSIC RPG, then there is ALWAYS a calculation as to wether you miss or hit.
Character developement. Well, sorry, there is no arguement to really put here. There is no 'developement' in the character known as Link. There is only acquisition of new weapons and tools, and that is TOTALLY against RPG rules. In that respect Zelda is no different to getting a new hat in Mario 64, getting a new weapon in Halo, or getting the final smash in Smash brothers. This doesn't make Zelda a bad series, but it doesn't make it an RPG either.
Status attacks. Every RPG I have ever played, even the home-brew, had status attacks. These were used to give more of a realistic tone to the game. Though they were not very damaging, they were annoying as hell to deal with if you were not prepared. Zelda, as series (yes I have played most, if not all titles of the series), does not have this element.
Controlling other characters. There are quite a few RPG's that do not follow this golden rule, but they have a balance to it. To start with, RPG's where you only conrtol 1 character, are always RPG's that let's you design the character yourself. In every Zelda game (the seagull in Windwaker does not count), you only control Link (or whatever his name would be in that version) and you cannot change how he looks (changing his shirt in Ocarina of time, does not constitute changing the character).
The ultimate attack. There is no 'Ultima', no Level 30 required skill, no acquire more items before unlocking… or anything else in that range. There are 'attacks' that you can unlock in various game titles under the Zelda title, but none of them become powerful enough to call Ultimate.
In conclusion, especially after the introduction of Ocerina of Time, the Zelda series has become less and less like the RPG people claim it to be, and more and more like a FPS/Action/Adventure game. (FPS, as in using the bow and shooting it in First Person View, don't argue with me!) Does any of this make Zelda titles any less fun or adictive? Not a chance! I am every bit as addicted to Twighlight Princess as I am to Ocerina of Time, or even to a Link to the Past. But this doesn't make the title an RPG. Sorry guys
Okay I know the topic is kind of old but I have to make this point, an RPG is a game that you play and control a role, making choices and decisions that affect the flow of a story meaning a real RPG's story will be constantly branching leaving infinite possibilities, Zelda is a linear story that has only 2 possibilities 1 you play through the story and win the other you play through and lose. A true RPG requires the player to use his or her imagination. Many real RPG video games have a story-line that will branch and branch back limiting some of the possibilities making the game actually possible to program a decent example of this would be Elder Scrolls letting the player take on several side quests but always allowed them to go back to the main story when they saw fit which in turn gave the player a feel of freedom to roam explore and create their own story of course the player could also go around and randomly kill everyone which I always found fun. Just to clarify Zelda != RPG.