What defines an Action RPG?

I can't figure out what makes an Action RPG. I'm a fan of RPGs, but I can't figure out what defines them. I normally think of them as games with stats that the players can see and complex stories, but there are games that are called Action RPGs by many people that don't fit into both of those categories.

Monster Hunter is often called an Action RPG while The Legend of Zelda: OoT is called an Action Adventure. Monster Hunter has only a basic intro and a description of your quest for story and only your weapons and armor have stats. The Legend of Zelda is called an Action Adventure, but Link does have health and magic meters which are upgraded over time, but his weapons and armor don't have any stats and its story is complex.

The "Metroidvania" games in the Castlevania series have character and weapon stats that increase over time, but they're Action Adventure games. In the God of War games, you can increase your health and magic meters and increase the powers of your weapons and it has a story. What makes the difference between an action RPG and an Action Adventure game? I guess that I'd say that the gameplay defines it. What else defines an Action RPG or a regular RPG?

It's a pretty fine line distinguishing them at times I suppose. But I think RPGs require some level of customization. Often you choose what to equip in terms of armour and weaponry to make your character stronger, for example. In Zelda, this isn't the case. You simply collect items, and they increase your health bar or magic metre. Same with God of War, although you can change your weapons, but they only affect your fighting style. It's kind of different. RPGs require more thought, I guess.

As much as I love Ocarina of Time, there's nothing RPG about it. It's an action-adventure game. To me, Oblivion was more action RPG than pure RPG as was Morrowind. I also view Fable as somewhat action-rpg, rather than straight RPG.muthsera666

I define action RPGs as RPGs where there is more of a linear story in the sense that you don't make very many if any real chocies and the ones you make don't amount to much. There is also a much more heavy focus on combat. Some games like say Titan Quest would easily fall into the action RPG sub genre in my books while Mass Effect kind of straddles the line because the choices are there but the combat is very much front and center.

Whether a game is an RPG or not is becoming very hard to determine. It used to be simple, an RPG was any game that was strongly story driven and where you earnt the ability to modify aspects of your character. The way you modified your character determined how you played the game. I guess, for me, RPGs started out as the electronic form of Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyway, RPGs fall into two main categories. Action or traditional. Traditional RPGs are turn based games like the initial Final Fantasy/Breath of Fire/Ultima games. They have much more focus on strategy rather than performance skill. You character/item stats tend to play a very important part in the outcome of each fight.

Action RPGs are games where the combat is real time and your skills as a player form a large part of how succesful you are. Examples of current Action RPGs are Oblivion or Fallout 3.

Where this definition starts to fail is when a game has RPG elements. For example, is Dante's Inferno an RPG? You get experience, upgrade skills/health and then use this when fighting bad guys. It's not an RPG, but it has RPG elements designed to provide you with reward for playing. What about Borderlands?

So many games nowadays are blurring the lines between categories it can get hard to classify them under any one heading.

That is a blurred subject. Each person has his or her own way of thing about it. Here is what I think of it.

It is more of large picture of what a game is and not about the game play. For that reason I brake RPG up into three groups most of the time:
JRPG
WRPG
Action RPG

First off an acion RPG is not an JRPG or a WRPG. For me an action RPG is a game the rely heavily on RPG level system that include stats increase at increase in level. Normally they have a long dungeon that you control a single character through. They have little to no muilt choose dialog. The game play is a large number of enemies attacking you. Game like Too Human or the hack game are example

Zelda is not an RPG because the improvement to "Link" come from the improvements or gathering of items. In a game where the player gather item to "Buy" power up are not Action RPG like God of War.

Action RPG would probably be defined as something like a hack 'n slash game with RPG elements. Or some other kind of real-time combat.

In order to define an Action RPG, you have to define what an RPG is first.

An RPG is a game that involves manipulating visible stats, a greater focus on narrative (i.e. a lot of reading), and (usually) slow-paced combat. Combat usually takes place on a separate screen. Action RPGs have the traits of standard RPGs, except for some key differences:

• Combat is fast-paced, and the player has direct control over the character's movements and abilites. In other words, combat is in complete real-time
• There is no screen transition when combat begins. Combat and exploration are all done on the same screen.

Going by the above definitions, Zelda is not an action RPG, since you can only increase your stats at specific points in the game (e.g. beating a dungeon boss). Your stats are not represented as numbers, but as hearts and meters. You could say that each heart = 4 HP, and losing a 1/4 of a heart is 1 damage, but we don't know since the numbers are hidden.

FF12 doesn't have screen transitions during combat, but combat is not in real-time (try moving out of the way of an enemy's attack). FF12, by definition, is a standard RPG.

Games like Diablo, and Diablo 2 are action RPGS. They also call em hack and slash.

Some other action RPGS, see if it helps...

- Kingdom Hearts

- Diablo

- Fallout

Versus 'normal' turn based RPGs...

- Pokemon

- FF

-DQ

Versus action adventures games, but with RPG elements (Magic Power, Upgradeable life bar, weapons etc)

- Zelda

- Devil May Cry

- Ninja Gaiden

A console version of action rpg would be Phantasy Star Online. I play it offline on the original xbox with a friend and there is a ton of tweaking stats and grinding weapons etc. going on. Animations are spot on for an old game.

An action RPG is a game that focuses on the action, i.e. not on customization, or strategy (such as games that are turn-based, and allow time to strategize the next move). It is essentially an action game with RPG elements (such as a deeper plot and stats or items and equipment). A couple good examples would be TESIV: Oblivion and Kingdom Hearts.

Zelda is most definitely not a action RPG. It is action-adventure.

Action RPG games generally take place in "Real-Time"

Turn Based RPG's Allow you to choose all tactics before unleashing.

And then there are blends and Mixes of the two like strategy RPG's