I can say that to you. It does not make sense to include games that play nothing like RPGs under the RPG umbrella; to do so makes the classification meaningless.

You're just trolling at this point. You can't say that to me, because I do actually understand what a computer role-playing game is. The idea that Might and Magic 6 or Deus Ex, two known RPG masterpieces, play nothing like RPGs, is a weird circular argument that just makes no sense. Those ARE RPGs. They're great examples of RPGs. Now, apply that information to other games. There, now you know what RPGs are.

The classification is not meaningless, you just don't get it, and I very much do not want to take the time to explain it to you. My god do I not want to take that time. I wasn't even talking to you on here, I was talking to the original poster. You just didn't like the JRPG and anime talk, and for whatever reason you want all RPGs to be put into a weird little box you've created for them. But it doesn't work that way. M&M 5 wasn't NOT an RPG just because M&M 6 was real-time, despite the games clearly being strikingly similar in a huge amount of ways. And M&M 6 was a direct evolution from 5. That's the real, honest history. CRPGs evolved and became more inclusive in the 1990s. Evolve with them.

So, I guess Doom is an RPG, right? It has FPS style movement and combat just like Deus Ex, so it's in the same genre, and since (according to you) Deus Ex is an RPG, Doom must be as well.

Might and Magic 6 does have a turn based mode, and I am pretty sure that that game has things like dice rolls to determine whether your attack hits.

The thing here is that what happened with some games isn't an evolution within a genre, but rather an evolution into a different genre, making the game no longer suitable for someone who is specifically looking for an RPG (and not, say, an action game).

Imagine if there were a new Might and Magic game that played like 6-9, except for the removal of growth systems, towns and NPCs, and dice rolls. is that game still an RPG? How about if we remove just one of those?

I should also point out that classifications like RPG are used to describe games that already exist; they're not a recipe to make games. In the case of the RPG classification, if the game is dependent on player skill and reflexes, it's an action game, and that means it's not an RPG; it doesn't matter what the creators set out to make.

(Also, JRPG does not mean anime, or vice versa. imaging a game that played just like Ultima 6, and was structured just like Ultima 6, but had anime graphics. Said game is still a WRPG, not a JRPG. You can also have the reverse, and this has become more common as many games, like modern Final Fantasy, have taken a more realistic approach to their graphics. (Of course, there's also the fact that such games also include sequences that don't belong in an RPG, but then again even Ultima 1 has a sequence like that.))

There was no evolution into a different genre. They stayed in the same genre. And lots of CRPGs include player skill and reflexes as an important part of their gameplay. That's a long-established, traditional part of the genre. But just because games share movement and combat similarities does not mean they're in the same genre, nor does it mean they're in a different genre - that's just one aspect of all games.

My god, this is such a stupid, stupid conversation. And old. This debate raged across the internet in the 1990s and early 2000s. You couldn't escape it as a gamer. But the debate was over long ago and we all moved on. Seriously lady, evolve with the times, even if you're two decades late.

Music too evolves and moves on.

No way, just because of that, am I going to throw out Abba, The Beatles, Buddy Holly, Glenn Miller or Gilbert & Sullivan, let alone Beethoven and Mozart.

This site started as Good OLD Games.

In entertainment, greatness transcends genres.

Hear hear, damn right. So true.

There's also the fact that modern popular music, particularly music that uses instruments like electric guitar or the modern pop/rock singing style (as opposed to operatic or broadway styles), has been known to give me headaches, so I really can't listen to it; classical music doesn't have this issue, and neither does 8-bit chiptune music. (16-bit is when I start having to be careful, as that's the point when the sound chips can start mimicing the electric guitar.)

(Yes, I know there are people who can't stand operatic singing, particularly high sopranos; I don't mind that, though my preferred musical instruments to listen to are the orchestral woodwinds.)

Thanks for the kind words. :)

Didn't expect to see this interesting discussion of what makes an RPG. I have so much to say on this topic, and in response to everything that's been said on this thread so far, that I don't even know where to begin. In fact, I tried to summarize my take on this discussion in my post, and I kept deleting my sentences and starting over.

I think you're both extremely right, and both just a little bit wrong. God willing, I'll explain why tomorrow, when I'm a bit more clear-headed. :)

Peace.

If I could roll my eyes any harder at all this, I would have whiplash.

You and I have different ideas of what interesting is. And how dare you both conspire to put me in your infernal time machine back to 2002. How dare you. Do you know that this debate was so neuseatingly ubiquitous that it is covered in the introduction to Matt Barton's book on the history of CRPGs? He fucking jokes about it right there in the intro. And what is his best example of the hinge of the debate? You guessed it, Deus Ex, still recognized as it always has been as both a FPS and a landmark RPG.

Don't tell me I'm a little bit wrong when I'm very much not. And she is not extremely right, my god, she's not even scratching the surface of the debate I've lived through. The absurdity of this stupid debate that began 30 fucking years ago is only perpetuated by ignorance, not intelligent analysis. It's closer to ethnic or sexual or gender-based prejudice than it is anything else.

It's based in the simple ignorance that certain games, because they look a little bit different, or act a little bit different, aren't RPGs. But when you do the genetic testing and study them, when you look at their code and how they actually work - especially as a modder or developer, as I am and have been for 25 years - you see that they're exactly the same, and their differences, which should be celebrated rather than feared, are merely surface-level. The color of their skin is just window dressing for the true games that lie within.

If it's the book I'm thinking of, that book does not treat JRPGs equally to WRPGs, as JRPGs are just as important in CRPG history as WRPGs are.
It's not that I'm fearing the difference; it's just that I consider the difference, in some cases, big enough that the game no longer fits the definition. For example, I've mentioned that I've been playing Celeste (just beat Chapter 5), and have been enjoying it, yet the game plays nothing like an RPG, and I don't think anyone would classify it as such.

Consider a game that played just like, say, DOOM, except that it was turn based rather than real time. Would you consider that game to be in the same genre as DOOM?

I'd love to hear your feedback on my opinion, once you know what my opinion actually is. Now, there's no need to get angry about any of this.

If you think that an RPG can in fact, involve player skill and remain firmly within the genre, I 100% agree with you. No doubt from me on that point at all. Yes, dtgreene's restricted definition goes way, WAY too far. I most certainly am not going to put you in my time machine (back to 2002 or any date), whether it be by way of conspiring, by clubbing you over head, or even if it were your idea to voluntarily hop inside in the first place. Thanks for that embellishing flair, though. I did rather like it.

Before I get started on my view of what makes a game an RPG, I'm going to take a step back: I think we can all reasonably agree that the FarCry games are not RPGs.

Since you are, by the qualifications that you exhibit as a person well-versed on intellectual analysis within the game industry, able to understand the prevailing criteria within the industry for what constitutes an RPG, then maybe you can explain why something like the FarCry games are not RPGs (by that criteria).

Why are the FarCry games not RPGs?

Either there is a good answer to that question and I get to be a little more enlightened on the game industry's line of reasoning (kudos to you), or we know that modern developers' criteria means absolutely fuck-all.

Assuming there is a good answer, that still wouldn't in any way imply that the conclusions which established developers have come to in their effort to sell games are automatically the gold standard for determining what makes a game what it is. It just doesn't.

If however, you believe that the consensus among so many game devs is a solid one because it's founded upon good reasoning, then I'd love to talk about that reasoning with you. I'd also like to share my thoughts on the matter, and hear your opinion about how well you think my thoughts on the matter hold up under scrutiny, if that's alright with you. It should be pointed out though that as of right now, you don't really know what my thoughts on RPGs are (aside from questioning the canonicity of the genre's classification by modern devs).

Imo, only JRPGs currently can be considered true RPGs: games with statistical progression, where your character stats (and not the dexterity of fingers) decide the outcome of combat. That's defining trait of the genre, otherwise definition becomes too loose, and games like DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D might be called RPGs according to modern definitions, because they have character progress (you get better weapons, some health boosts etc.), choices in exploration (labyrinthine design), and you play role of some soldier.

There were barely any good single player WRPGs since 2000s. Most of them were solo hero games and/or real time games (those two factors I consider to be deviations from the genre). And those few games (Lords of Xulima, Divinity Original Sin 1/2, some others), which tried remaining faithful to genre, all of them have severe artificial limitations (one of those or both), making them not enjoyable to play:
1. Low level caps, which heavily limit the progress of characters and slow it down.
2. Limited resources/enemies.

There is one more offender to the genre, it is called level scaling, which I consider totally ruinous to the whole genre, I omit it, because I don't look at games with level scaling as RPGs at all.

I think that realm of JRPGs is the only place where one can currently find games faithful to the genre, which satisfy the feeling of character progress and world exploration. It is sad that we didn't get proper Might and Magic X and most likely won't get Might and Magic XI, and it is sad that there are no truly similar WRPGs of that kind, which were released in the past 20 years. However, JRPG realm is still the paradise for those who like MM kind of games.

Or there are Wizardry-likes, like Elminage Gothic and Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, which still play like the old ones, with turn-based combat and an infinite supply of encounters. (Other games to maybe look into are Serment: Contract With a Devil (though note that there are deadlines where you need to get enough money or it's game over, much like in Racettear), Mary Skelter: Nightmares (haven't gotten this game to run under Linux yet), and StarCrawlers (which I have owned since it was In Development, but still haven't actually gotten around to playing; I think that game may have infinite random missions).

I find it interesting that your notion of RPG has some similarities to mine, but still places some importance on character progression, something that I consider not to be a genre defining characteristic. For example, if we look at platformers, we have games like Timespinner, which do have character progression, and games like Celeste, which do not. Yet, they're still both platformers of some sort. (With that said, they are in different subgenres; they're probably at least as different as JRPGs and WRPGs.)

I also don't consider level scaling to be an RPG defining factor; having enemies scale may not be a good design decision, but it's irrelenat to the definition of an RPG.

By the way, one solo hero WRPG that otherwise fits your criteria for an RPG is The Quest; it's turn based, you can level up and get stronger, enemies do (eventually) respawn, and there's no level scaling.

All those games that you listed are made in Japan :) Except maybe for StarCrawlers.
It is hard for me to remember any good RPG which had no character progression.
I don't know, something puts me away from this game. Maybe it is just some kind of silly prejudice. I also had prejudice against Labyrinth of Touhou I and II, but then I tried them, and found them to be masterpieces, and they are now in the top of my list of favorite RPGs.

I think dtgreene hit the nail on the head when she said that RPGs should revolve around your character's skill, not player skill. Modern "RPG"s lose sight of this.

That said, I don't think player skill has to be excluded altogether from a game for it to be an RPG.

I think an RPG can have player skill in a supporting role. In fact, if one were to exclude player skill altogether, perhaps every RPG ever made would have to be disqualified.

Each and every RPG challenges the player in some way. Responding to that challenge is the prerogative of a player's skill. Otherwise, RPGs would play themselves. At the very least, players need to exercise discretion with regard to what they think they can handle at any given time.

The problem is merely that character stats/skills/etc are no longer the central principle of the game, as they used to be. Now that centrality is diluted by games having a few different main principles at the same time, with the stats/skills being relegated to the most boring of them.

Stats/skills don't have to be boring, but since progression systems haven't seen much innovation, developers feel like they need to rely on other types of gameplay which have evolved in order to carry the experience.

The developers are wrong, but that doesn't mean that "RPG"s couldn't include more types of player skill (perhaps even action) provided that it were implemented in a supporting role and not as a central pillar of the game. This just hasn't been done yet.