RPG Classifications or "What the hell is an RPG?"

[Wolf Kanno]

I think I'd agree with excluding the games you mention WK (Though I can see it with Bloodborne I guess, as the Souls games are generally considered RPGs and it's closely related). Still, in the modern era RPG mechanics of one kind or another have been snagged by everything from FPS games to open-world racers. Honestly for me it's a little like that old saw about porn; I can't really define it, but I know it when I see it. I mean, you could say it's about dialog and character interaction - does that make the Telltale games like The Walking Dead RPGs? There's no levels to gain or stats to grind or dungeons to explore, but they're some of the purest "play a role" games around, to the point where how you react to unavoidable events is pretty much the whole thing.

Bloodborne is a much more streamlined affair than Dark Souls. They certainly removed some of the deeper mechanics from Dark Souls to make the game a more fast paced action experience. Course I have a hard time saying Dark Souls is an RPG, but I'll give them that. Bloodborne pretty much feels like Devil May Cry with stats.

As for Telltale games, I still consider them adventure/visual novels. You certainly play "a role" but as Jinx pointed out, that's gaming in general. The idea your choices matter and affect the story certainly gives it more merit than some JRPGs who usually just have you watch a pre-made story, but if we adhere back to the genres roots of D&D, making choices is only half the experience of what the genre was meant to do. I'm probably more strict on mechanics in my own definition of the genre though.

Other than that, I agree with the porn analogy.
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i read that issue too, it sux that they included so many games that were not RPGs that they weren't able to include more RPGs that should have been on there... basically they added a bunch of adventure and survival games with slight RPG elements in them like calling Zelda RPG when it's adventure, and Horizon when it's survival... but this is Game Informer, you can't expect them to get everything right, it's more of a propaganda machine and not really informative and rarely accurate...

Most people do insist that Zelda is an Adventure. I on the other hand cannot see anything that just pins it down to an adventure alone. For me it is an RPG/Adventure combo. And Breath of the Wild in particular.

I think it more defines an area of gray where people tend to draw the line. Otherwise you have trains of thought that lead like: If Zelda is an RPG then so is Darksiders. If Darksiders is an RPG, then so is God of War. If God of War is an RPG then so is Asura's Wrath. If Asura's Wrath is an RPG then so is Heavy Rain. And if Heavy Rain is an RPG then so is Family Guy

People are okay with making exceptions here and there for games like Zelda and Dark Souls. But people are also opposed, because they find the idea of opening the flood gates for everything to be defined by everything as too ridiculous. We need our labels and categories

^This is partly where I'm getting at. The term RPG has become as loose as the term "Action-Adventure" so just about anything is getting labeled as so. It's getting weird is all I'm saying, and I'm curious to see how other people define the ever elusive "RPG".