JRPG's are not RPG's, more like Action Adventure games

[Lynxara]

His point is: how is that different from an action adventure game, like Zelda?

If the combat engine is more directly derived from Wizardry, it's going to feel really different.

I kind of like the "console" RPG qualifier. I don't think having "preset" characters makes the game not an RPG, I do think it makes it a simplified RPG, though. Early on this was done on consoles largely because there was no way to make storylines on console RPGs more complicated without named, defined characters.

We're just now hitting a point where technology allows for something like the Mass Effect series, where you can have a totally defined storyline and a largely malleable protagonist.

 

[MrMonk]

I kind of like the "console" RPG qualifier. I don't think having "preset" characters makes the game not an RPG, I do think it makes it a simplified RPG, though. Early on this was done on consoles largely because there was no way to make storylines on console RPGs more complicated without named, defined characters.

We're just now hitting a point where technology allows for something like the Mass Effect series, where you can have a totally defined storyline and a largely malleable protagonist.

I honestly think that technology has progressed to the point that the RPG name is 'fuzzy', as RPG mechanics are prevalent in nearly every genre.

Hell, Mass Effect 2 alone is so difficult to categorize as gameplay is primarily TPS, but the glue that connects it together is definitely RPG.

 

[blowy]

RPG was always a fuzzy term...there is so much difference in feel between a "hard RPG" (say an Ultima), and a "soft RPG" or "adventure RPG" (say a Zelda or a FF7), that there's many people that only want to play one or the other.

For me, the hard RPG is where the main aim of the game is to deck out your character, whereas a soft RPG the main aim is to experience the story/world you're in. Both types of RPG have both elements though, just the proportions vary, and it's not really possible to put a line in the middle and class them as one or the other...

Japan produces plenty of both, but not so many of their hard RPGs seem to get translated.