Is Legend of Zelda an RPG?

[Dr Unne]

* You clearly play a role: you're Link.
* Link has hit points/levels (hearts).
* You get equipment and an equipment inventory screen to manage it, and equipment upgrades over time, including new weapons and armor and magic spells.
* You can customize your character, by skipping optional hearts/equipment.

You don't have much character development in Zelda games, but you don't have much of that in Chrono Trigger either, which is clearly an RPG.

Legend of Zelda: RPG or not?

[Sephiroth]

As Darksiders was called Adult Zelda and has action and rpg elements, I would say, yes, it is. At least somehow. An Action-Adventure-RPG.

Considering all Zeldas are part of a multiversal tree - that does not make sense by the way, even with Link's reincarnation - he has character development as there is much to tell about his character.

[Spuuky]

RPG is a spectrum, not a dichotomy. In my opinion, it falls right near the middle of the spectrum.

[Pike]

Are we talking the series, or the original game?

My experience with the series as a whole is limited; I've put a lot of time into a few games but little or no time into most of them. Overall I would consider it to be an action-adventure series more than an RPG. There are definitely RPG elements involved, of course. And it had a lot of influence on the genre.

The Legend of Zelda is considered a spiritual forerunner of the role-playing video game (RPG) genre. Though it is often not considered part of the genre since it lacked key RPG mechanics such as experience points, it had many features in common with RPGs and served as the template for the action role-playing game genre.

I sort of think along the lines of Wikipedia here.

I actually rather like how the original LoZ is nothing but running around and stabbing things with your sword. It's very hack-n-slashy and fun.

[Del Murder]

It's an action RPG.

[Ayen]

It's an action-adventure game. That's the genre it's officially classified as so it's the genre I'll recognize it under.

[The Man]

Zelda II is an action RPG; the others are action-adventure games with RPG elements.

Though I kind of agree with Spuuky's response too.

[Dr Unne]

What's the difference between RPG, Action RPG and Action-Adventure?

[The Man]

Traditional RPGs are generally turn-based, though I guess a case could be made that that's becoming less and less the case these days. To me an RPG has to at least have experience levels and things like that to qualify as an RPG, but other people might have different qualifications for what makes an RPG, and to be honest, the definitions are pretty nebulous anyway.

[Del Murder]

That actually makes a lot of sense. I'm switching my answer to action-adventure.

[Dr Unne]

FF2 didn't have character experience levels, but it's an RPG. Also Link has heart pieces, that's kind of like levels. There's also the rupee system.

Why isn't Adventure RPG a thing? Link does go on a lot of adventures, I'll give you that.

[The Man]

The heart pieces are kind of like levels but you don't have to pick up experience points to gain levels (although I guess a case could be made that the pieces of heart in all the games from LttP are kind of like experience points, but it's a stretch). To me the thing that makes Zelda II very much more an RPG than the other games in the series is that it actually has experience points and levels.

It is certainly worth wondering why adventure RPGs never caught on.

[Laddy]

FF2 didn't have character experience levels, but it's an RPG. Also Link has heart pieces, that's kind of like levels. There's also the rupee system.

Why isn't Adventure RPG a thing? Link does go on a lot of adventures, I'll give you that.

Levels are not the only means of character advancement in an RPG; FFII still has definitive stats and skills that develop based on the player's input.

People need to use the Pen-and-Paper games as a basis of what's an RPG as that's the origin of the genre, and I think considering Vampire: The Masquerade doesn't have levels and was very much an RPG that proved quite influential, it fits the description. I have a hard time thinking of Zelda working as an RPG considering there's little to no transparency or obvious logic to how damage, speed, and all that good stuff is calculated.

[Pike]

Damn, I feel like I'm running out of terms for types of RPGs. I don't know about you guys but I use action RPG ("ARPG") to refer to very dungeon-crawly and often top-down lootfest games like Diablo, Torchlight, and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.

In fact if we're making the case that the original LoZ is an RPG then it probably falls into that category more than it would any other.

Personally I'm still more apt to place something like Ocarina of Time more alongside Grand Theft Auto or Assassin's Creed, both of which have RPG elements but which I would not really consider RPGs. But as many of us have said in this thread, it's kind of a nebulous definition.

[Mirage]

the term "rpg" is pretty wide these days. I would say there is no way to define mass effect 2 and 3 as rpgs without self a also fall falling within that definition.

as for the term action rpg, I count games that utilise some sort of hit box detection to determine if attacks hit or miss.