Quote Originally Posted by SePhO_zO
Zelda is considered an Action/RPG or Action Adventure game depending on who you talk to. The fact that there's no experience system or form of character development, stat-wise, is reason some won't consider it an RPG. I think the fact that it has HP and and MP (in the form of hearts and a magic meter, respectively) is reason enough to consider it an RPG.

The battles, instead of fought by means of a turn-based system, are in real time, putting it in the Action/RPG subgenre. Turn-based RPGs are generally thought of to be "traditional" RPGs.
I actually have something to add to that. In the Zelda series you have direct control over your character, while RPGs have a more command driven system. That's why Kingdom Hearts is more of an Action RPG than Zelda, because you actually use a menu to control your own actions. In Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior, you select actions from a menu. In Diablo, you issue commands by clicking the mouse. Fallout gives you a sort of combination of the two. In Zelda, you just press A to slash. It's always been considered an adventure game. Zelda II had more RPG elements; while in the overworld you would encounter monsters and then enter a "fight", you got experience from fighting that led to level ups which could increase your attributes, and magic was actually used via a menu. However, dungeons were done in the style of a side-scroller, and jumping around and using various moves (upper thrust, downward thrust, etc.) were a big part of winning fights. You really couldn't call it an RPG in the purest sense of the word.