Agree with Leroux on Ember - it's tilted much more towards RPG with light tactical combat. I loved it for the sense of nostalgia, but it's a series of discrete battles, not just running around killing hordes. It's a fairly decent RPG world and story, albeit it's nothing new. Classes are limited and fairly standard.

Aarklash Legacy tips even further in the tactical direction, and there are no respawns at all as I recall. I definitely wouldn't put this in the ARPG camp. The story is really secondary to the point that I'd suggest this really only as a tactical combat RPG.

The thing that makes Aarklash interesting is that you can really mix and match the supporting characters. There are, for example, two tanks, but they have fairly significantly different pros and cons, 1-2 melee dps, some ranged dps, and a variety of hybrid dps/buff/cc types, both in your party and amongst the enemies. Definitely much harder combat, and you may have to experiment with different combos and strategies, and will also need to use the mouse over to see what various enemies are doing and what needs dodging/interrupting.

I actually liked both games quite a bit. Ember I did finish - AL I had to stop in the middle of a "maze" section b/c of life and work and when I came back to it a few weeks later I couldn't tell where I was supposed to go, nor did I find any online guides or get any responses when I posted in the forum here.

So if you were asking me which game is more fun, I'd say Ember. But it's not super hard. If you were asking me which game is better...probably AL, but it's basically 90% combat and 10% navigation.

In light of this thread, I've been playing some Diablo III, Van Helsing Final Cut, and Path of Exile. Here's some thoughts:

Aspects of ARPGs that matter bigly to my enjoyment:

Do areas respawn when you re-enter?
Path of Exile - not for 20 minutes. After that, not only the enemies, but the entire area respawns - new procedurally generated map. Annoying. Because I cannot tailor my need to quit the game. When I need to go, I need to go now.
Van Helsing - exceptionally good at this. You can quite in the middle of the map and it will remember where you were and which enemies you had killed and which you had not. Wonderful.
Diablo III - Not sure I tested this actually.

Do you have to pick up all the loot?
Path of Exile - decidely not! Brilliant! You sell crap you get progress toward a consumable. Incentivizes staying out longer because you skip over all non-magical gear for the most part.
Van Helsing - you are definitely incentivized to pick up and sell every last thing you can. Incentivezed because there is always something to spend your money on.
Diablo III - undecided on this questions

Can you progress without having to return to old areas to grind or to farm?
Van Helsing - yes. The maps are hand drawn and encourage scouting out every little nook and cranny. But once you've cleared a map area, you are not incentivized to go back. Flip side of this is that the game feels a bit too easy - as I wrote about above.
Diablo III - seems to be yes. Same kind of complaint about too easy for this game as well.
Path of Exile. Seems to be no. You have to grind/farm a bit to get the variety of gear and gems you want - which are integral to progression.

Remembering Grim Dawn which did so many of these things so well. Enemies did respawn, but they were easy to run past without engaging the whole map if you'd been before and just wanted to search out that last chest you missed. You did not have to pick up all the loot. And the game was hard. So you could try to farm, but enemies too far below your level stopped giving XP, so the game kept challenging you even when you were grinding.

I remembered that game! I think I finished it and the expansion with a friend in co-op, it was fun and very distinct in a way but rather mediocre execution. The whole technology magic conflict possibly borrowed from Arcanum was awesome but I hated it when it was new. I'll look into replaying it and see if it is still enjoyable.

One aRPG or more hack'n'slash that I was always fond of was Mage Knight Apocalypse.
I don't think it's available in any digital stores and it's unbelievably buggy and rough around the edges. Still.. it had a very interesting charm and the story involved time travel and weird gods. Animations are awful too. I played as the assassin woman and abused invisible to strike from the shadows and I remembered being able to use this against bosses even if I had to pop potions of all kinds. It also had something of a cool crafting system, at least the interface.

(Answers omitted from the quote.)

I'll analyze a few other games that would fit this category, namely Crystalis (NES), Final Fantasy Adventure, Ys 1, and Dust: An Elysian Tail.

Do areas respawn when you re-enter?
Crystalis: Yes.
Final Fantasy Adventure: Yes, when you change screens, I believe.
Ys 1: Yes. I believe enemies respawn even if you don't leave the room.
Dust: Yes.

Do you have to pick up all the loot?
Crystalis: Enemies only drop money when killed. Money is needed for armor and consumables (and to rest in the inn), but no required item costs money.
Final Fantasy Adventure: No, but you need to pick up some; in particular, certain weapon types are needed to progress and solve puzzles. (Magic is also used for puzzles.)
Ys 1: Enemies don't drop anything (your gold increases automatically when you kill them). The game does expect you to pick up all the other treasure found in the game.
Dust: Unlike the other games, enemies do drop lots of stuff, but it's not essential. (There's a ring that, if you wear two of them, makes item drops 9x more common.)

Can you progress without having to return to old areas?
Crystalis: No. If your level is not high enough, you will encounter a boss that you are unable to damage. You actually do have to max your level to complete the game, but that fortunately doesn't take that long.
Final Fantasy Adventure: Yes, the game seems to be well balanced in this respect.
Ys 1: No for the same reason as Crystalis; however, you are expected to max your level out around the mid point of the game (before fighting the boss that will drive you batty). Also, lots of backtracking is required for triggering events needed to progress.
Dust: Yes, the game isn't hard enough to require this. However, there are some treasures in early levels that require moves gained later in the game to access, so if you want to get everything, backtracking will be needed for that purpose.