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When did "RPG" become synonymous with action games?

C

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
I'm an old-school gamer. Started playing in the early days of the original NES, and computer games such as pool of radiance, ultima 6, kings quest 4, dark castle, etc.

Back then, there were RPGs- such as dragon warrior, final fantasy 2, or pool of radiance. And there were action/adventure games, like the legend of zelda or dark castle.

Now, it seems like every game advertised as an RPG is really just an action/adventure game with stats added. I like these games, but sometimes I wonder why no developers are working on any "true" roleplaying games, especially MMO style games.

I'd love to play a pvp game where strategy and knowledge are more important than quick reflexes and the ability to click on a tiny target successfully. I've seen only a few retro styled games released in the old RPG style, and none of them are MMO games.
 
It's the market. The mainstream"-ing" of games has led us to where we are today. The average Joe wants to pick up a game, play and feel as though they are getting somewhere. As games have done this we are seeing them becoming more popular. Popularity = $$.

I played most of the PC and old school nintendo games you listed. Specifically I remember telling a friend to try Final Fantasy 2. He hated it, made the wrong kind of party and overall wanted to smash buttons, not think or plan out a battle. Unfortunately I think the times for these games are past, but their are always people trying to do remakes or something like it.
 
Adding a rudimentary leveling system to an action game and calling it an RPG allows you to promote it to both fan groups. It's just a marketing scheme, but it's worked wonderfully.
 
Chiropteran said:
I'm an old-school gamer. Started playing in the early days of the original NES, and computer games such as pool of radiance, ultima 6, kings quest 4, dark castle, etc.

Back then, there were RPGs- such as dragon warrior, final fantasy 2, or pool of radiance. And there were action/adventure games, like the legend of zelda or dark castle.

Now, it seems like every game advertised as an RPG is really just an action/adventure game with stats added. I like these games, but sometimes I wonder why no developers are working on any "true" roleplaying games, especially MMO style games.
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So is Ultima VI an RPG or an action/adventure in your book? It's real time and light on stats, and so closer action/adventure game like Legend of Zelda than a "true" RPG like Pool Radiance. Yet everyone thinks it's an RPG, and I'm guessing so do you.

The fact is that there's tons of RPGs being made today. From MMORPGs that have stats up the wazzoo, to the BioWare's games with their epic stories. From the struggling, but not dead yet, Japanese console RPGs to the relatively new on the scene European "indy" PC RPGs. They may not be games you want to play, but the genre isn't defined by what you like and what you don't like.
 
Casual gamers do not want to read walls of text, try to figure out non-trivial puzzles or try to take in a significant degree of character development to understand some kind of far reaching plot.

They want action, but not action that requires eye-hand coordination, since a controller is not precise. So, we have third-person shooters with stats and levels.
 
When did "RPG" become synonymous with action games?

Rocket Powered Grenade. Someone somewhere along the lines got confused 😀
 
In the end, RPG is about using stats to define results in the virtual world.

It's essentially an idea based around character stats and virtual dice; how the world and how the gameplay is centered around that shouldn't be defined as important criteria when defining a game's genre.

You can have RPGs like Final Fantasy, and you can have RPGs like The Elder Scrolls series (which is really just a fancified dungeon-exploration game).
Stats can be calculated real-time (or so damn close to real-time you can't tell... Elder Scrolls, where does it fall into this?), or the game can be turn-based. Or you get games that are a strange combination of the two, where you get to attack at pre-set intervals, and each attack is still subject to virtual dice-rolls. MMOs are often that odd mesh of gameplay. (which is why they bore me so much - I hate the "hey, it almost looks like real-time", feels worse than real-time and feels worse than true turn-based action)
 
KMFJD said:
Just curious as i can't remember but what was the last succesfull turn based RPG?
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THe entire game or just combat?

The Fallout games were turn-based combat. They did it brilliantly.

Kings Bounty series which is also turn based combat, and that's a recent series. Although I'm not sure how popular they are.
 
KMFJD said:
Just curious as i can't remember but what was the last succesfull turn based RPG?
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Depends on how you strictly you define turn-based RPGs. If that includes games with turn-based combat but everything else in real-time then the newest games I can think of on the PC are Wizardry 8 or Arcanum. If you mean pure turn-based I think you have to all the way back to Pool of Darkness or whatever was the last Gold Box game to be released. On the hand if you're a little less strict, Bioware's pausable real-time combat plays like turn-based if you enable pause at end of each round.

On the consoles and handhelds there's still a slow but steady stream of RPGs with turn-based combat, in the form of tactical RPGs like Disgaea 3 or traditional JRPGs like Golden Sun: Dark Dawn.
 
The RPG "genre" is the loosest genre in terms of what exactly classifies it. Hell, the name in itself doesn't define much... "Role Playing Game." Typically, RPG is even combined with something else to help forge a better meaning... such as "Action RPG" (Diablo, etc), FPS-RPG (Borderlands) and so on. Not to mention classifying games under certain regions (wRPG, jRPG, etc).
 
RPG doesn't necessarily say "stats". To me it means there's some kind of coherent storyline. And, uh, role playing.
 
arkcom said:
RPG doesn't necessarily say "stats". To me it means there's some kind of coherent storyline. And, uh, role playing.
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I think originally that was the whole idea behind the slow turn-based combat systems, to differentiate between your characters skills and yours.

For example, you may have terrible hand-eye coordination and you might have the reaction speed of a rock, but if the role you are playing is that of a quick witted assassin your character will "react" as fast as he should, based on stats in a turn based combat system. When you try to play the same game as a real-time action game, suddenly it's your actual reactions and coordination that mater, despite the "role" you are playing. Whether you are playing a clumsy or agile character your reactions are going to be the same, so you aren't really playing your "role", you are just playing yourself.
 
I miss the days of games like Star Ocean and Final Fantasy 2 / 3.

My buddy showed me the latest "Final Fantasy" game, what a joke. Every level is a linear path you walk down, there weren't towns, and it wasn't an rpg at all. It was an adventure game with some leveling.
 
sactoking said:
Definitely before that. Diablo was 1996; Eye of the Beholder was 'actioning' up RPGs back in 1990.
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Now that's old school right there. I remember the sound the spiders made before they came into view. Used to make my skin crawl. Might and Magic III, anyone? Arena? We used to call these "hack n slash" games or "dungeon crawls."

I don't think the acronym "RPG" has a very definite meaning, but in my view it describes a game that has to have some basic features: an open world, multiple independent interactive story lines, hidden treasure that can improve character capability and build wealth, some stats or means of measuring capability, lots of hidden, dangerous places to explore, etc.
 
RPG is a term that means less and less as games evolve. I'm not even sure it is truly a genre anymore. You can have RPG Elements such as getting new weapons (or upgrading them), and stats but do those really define a game?
 
Actually, stats and power growth are about the only universal link you'll find in the genre.

An action RPGs go way back. I'm pretty sure I'd put "Gateway to Asphai" either in the category, or as an early prototype of it. And that's in 1983.
 
As others have said, there isn't really a correct definition of RPG. Grammatically, UT was an RPG since you were role playing a futuristic soldier who shot a lot of other futuristic soldiers.

At the lowest level, an RPG to me is a game where you have a main character that starts off weak but gains power as they level, and generally you can build that character to different strengths as you spend leveling points in skills. There are a bunch of other things I expect as well, such as upgrading gear and weapons and making plot decisions that influence the game. But the fundamental idea to me is that you start out getting killed by a level 1 rabbit and after X amount of effort you end up being more powerful than a level 100 dragon. To me, turn based exploration centered games are subsets of the RPG genre but not the defining qualities of it. Morrowind and ME2 were both RPGs in my book.
 
JoshGuru7 said:
As others have said, there isn't really a correct definition of RPG. Grammatically, UT was an RPG since you were role playing a futuristic soldier who shot a lot of other futuristic soldiers.

At the lowest level, an RPG to me is a game where you have a main character that starts off weak but gains power as they level, and generally you can build that character to different strengths as you spend leveling points in skills. There are a bunch of other things I expect as well, such as upgrading gear and weapons and making plot decisions that influence the game. But the fundamental idea to me is that you start out getting killed by a level 1 rabbit and after X amount of effort you end up being more powerful than a level 100 dragon. To me, turn based exploration centered games are subsets of the RPG genre but not the defining qualities of it. Morrowind and ME2 were both RPGs in my book.
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Actually there is but most of you video gamers have no clue and wouldnt like it if you did know.
 
If a game offers no other alternative to completing objectives/quests except for "KILL KILL KILL" then I don't consider it an RPG; that's an action game.

Temple of Elemental Evil wasn't too bad (once patched) for a turn based game, plus it had the isometric view as well! I really miss the old top-down RPG games, still waiting for a modern day release of a game designed in the same vein.
 
I also miss the Old RPGs, The only one I have now is ToEE, Works fine, Sucks that the trainer/fix for the cash doesnt work with Win7 or AVG, Cant remember which interfeared.

I tried the last Pool of Radiance (Title not on my mind), THe gfx are horrible and stutters badly.
Im hoping to get Dosbox going and try the first PoR again.

I like turn base games alot if they plot well, Even things like the old TAC tank games and Psyberpunk like Mars Saga.
 
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