RPGs should not add action elements to spice things up; doing so creates accessibility issues (some people can't play action games, so they stick to turn-based games) and makes said game less of an RPG (and may even disqualify said game from being an RPG in the first place).

Related (even though I'm pretty sure I've said something to this effect in this topic): The term "RPG" should not be applied to games with action elements.

Yeah, I tend to find them rather cringe-inducing.

Mine is anonymous deathmatch. Join some server, have some fun. Best games of that kind were Quake and Quake 3... No voice chat shenanigans, just the score table after timeout or frag limit.

On the other side there's a lack of truly erotic games (I don't mean porn/hentai). Where is the "Quiet Days in Clichy" of games?

HOMM 2>4>3>5>1

WeR138 just posted my locker combination.

And yet, you often refer to FF4-9 (and probably others that replicate their horrid combat system that I'm not aware of) as RPGs, in spite of their real-time combat system. Not that I agree with you that real-time equals player skill, mind you. Properly implemented rtwp is about issuing orders at your leisure (you don't even have to micromanage every character's action every turn unless you want to), and thus is more qualified to be character-oriented than real-time-with-wait like the aforementioned games use.

Tauto, I'm being serious, I can't see your replies. XD

I don't know why but I can't. If you want to keep giving me shit go ahead, but I'm telling you, I can't read them, even if I wanted to.

THIS is all I see:

Reminds me of another thing:

* Having characters auto-attack is not good game design because it discourages players from using special abilities, and special ability use should be encouraged because it's more fun.

You know, I think that with the inelasticity of your definitions, you'd end up with just a tiny handful of games that'd match categories, and an overwhelming majority of games that you wouldn't be able to describe in any way because they are not RPG at all (they lack this) and not roguelike at all (they feature that) and not RTS at all (they lack that) and not FPS at all (they feature this), etc.

Games are "this and that" more often than they are "neither this nor that". Don't know if it's a popular opinion. Mathematical taxonomy fetish is a common hindrance to the understanding of real life's fuzzy delineations.

Looking at all the posts that agree with you, I guess my unpopular opinion here is that I love The Sims, especially The Sims 3.

Which The Sims iteration are you talking about? The Sims games are actually very flexible (especially The Sims 3) and are only limited by your knowledge of its capabilities and your imagination.

The Sims 3 (TS3) is an open world sandbox game that is incredible customizable. You can create whole worlds with very specific settings. Do you want a fantasy medieval world full of elves and fairies with only horses for transportation? You can do that. Or how about colonial? Or if you want more modern, there are tropical worlds, China, France and Egypt. There are clothes, furniture, building parts for very many styles and eras.

The modding community is also amazing! Don't like how your sims look? You can install different skins to make them look better. Want to actually create a building where you can actually see them work and control it? There are mods for that. There are mods for everything so you can set up the town and each sim in that town to be the way you want.

You can also make it as clean or sexy as you want - they even have mods that make woohoo explicit (which make it x-rated) and removes the pixel blur when they're nude. It also allows for gay, bisexual and transgender sims (allows gender specific clothes for both male and female sims as well as allow makeup for men).

In terms of gameplay, most of the simmers I know look up challenges (which are scenarios actually) on either the official Sims forums or Mod The Sims forums for ideas on playing a sim game. For example. on of my favorite challenges is a zombie apocalypse challenge. You pick a world to play in and run a mod that causes the townspeople to turn into zombies while all infrastructure is destroyed (just basically remove all items that run on electricity and you only get a simple sink and toilet). Your challenge is to find the cure while surviving, build up athletic skills so you can fight the zombies effectively, build your handy skill so you can introduce items back into your home that use electricity and running water. When you research the cure, you then grow the ingredients and make the potions and then cure 4 couples. All the rest must get killed off (there are mods for guns and other fun ways to kill off your sims!). When it's down to just your family and the 4 couples, you start the town over again and rebuild. That is the general rule, but they can be adjusted to be anything you want. While playing the challenge, I changed the rules a bit by saving the couples that had children for example.

So yeah, if you are going to replay the game, please let me know. I can help you with that. It is really such a fun game and I don't want you to miss out!
In regard to the jobs, at least for The Sims 3, there is a mod to make it active so that you build your skills for that job during job hours. That way, your time after work is freed up so you can do other stuff!

Also, if you have certain expansion packs for The Sims 1 through The Sims 3, each one has the ability to build your own hotel/inn/resort complete with restaurant, pool and spa (and beach if you buy a beach lot), so yes, you CAN be an innkeeper.

I don't play The Sims 4 because they cut so much out of it and doesn't allow you to play the game the way you want. I don't even consider it a true The Sims iteration and just consider it a tablet-level version.

If any of you ever decide to play any of The Sims from 1 to 3, I can help you with any questions!

In terms of general unpopular opinions about games:

1) I agree with those that don't like Myst and Myst-like games. They became popular at a time when point & click adventures were on the descent and I never understood why they were.

2) I don't like "Life is Strange" or anything in that genre. It's another game I feel is over-rated and don't understand why it's popular.

I'm with Telika about the rigidity of your definitions, on top of of course still saying that if games would be how you want them, in quite a number of ways, I wouldn't be playing games... But in this particular case, no room at all for something in between?
I mean, pure RPG is like you say, character stats are all that matters, pure action is player skill is all that matters, and sadly ARPGs are generally a clickfest about player speed and coordination and some character build choice, generally a few good paths you need to find, and avoid all the possible crap builds other than those. But it can be, and I'd say it normally would be, a mix of the two in the sense that player and character can compensate for each other. A developed character will make doing something much easier, up to the point of just clicking at your leisure and being sure it's done. One with little skill will make it much harder, up to the point of requiring extreme care, faultless tactics, a long time... Sort of like it really is. If you're very skilled at something, you can do it with eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back, as they say. But even if you're not, you may still manage it, with a good plan and painstaking care and effort. And that's how you learn.

I do enjoy some of those in-between games, but I generally see them as action games that have RPG elements, not the other way around.

Basically, if action and RPG elements are combined into a single game, it is the action part that I consider to be dominant, and as a result I classify such games as action games rather than RPGs.

Also, RPGs still allow room for strategy; a player who understands the game mechanics well can often manage to complete challenges that less experienced players would likely think impossible. This is especially true for games with more strategic depth (Final Fantasy 5 being a good example here).

Every RPG has been buggy on release.