Now here is something I think many people debate about. Can any of the Zelda games be consider RPGs or are they really just action-adventure games with some RPG elements in it?

I had a long discussion about this before... We concluded they were action-adventure games with slight role-playing instances involved.

If you say "Well, you play a role, so it's a role playing game", thats just crap. That makes Half Life 2 a role playing game, Doom 3 a role-playing game, as you have items and interact with other characthers as well.

I would call them adventure games more than RPGs.

Action, with some RPG elements, but not that many.


Deus Ex is more of an RPG.

Zelda doesn't encourage roleplay. By definition they are not roleplaying games.

Final Fantasy games do, sorta. They're what one would consider 'RPG Lite'. Then you have games like the Elder Scrolls series, which focuses on character development and freedom, and games like Neverwinter Nights that basically have no redeeming features apart from the roleplaying opportunities.

Zelda encourages just about as much role-playing as any other cRPG. Take that as you wish.

There's at least one major element that makes it an RPG -- in that there is a "leveling" aspect. You do not gain more hitpoints or skills in Half-Life or Doom3, or even what I think of the standard for action games: point-and-clicks like Monkey Island. In EVERY Zelda game, you gain hearts (hitpoints) for bosses and side-quests and, in the later games, learn sword techniques. The "leveling" aspect is most apparent in Zelda 2, where they assigned experience for ALL the monsters you faced, and not simply "leveling" you after dungeons. You also talk to villagers and the like to complete sidequests and such, and such role-playing was VERY obvious in Ocarina of Time and especially Majora's Mask.

Now if you wish to call Zelda "RPG lite" I have no objections: there is certainly an equal amount of action-adventure in it. However, it DOES constitute as an RPG at least as much as any other cRPG.

Yeah I'd consider Zelda 2 more of an RPG. The other Zeldas are definately not imo.

People seem to think that leveling and a certain type of combat automatically make an RPG. In my opinion, however, you actually need to do some role-playing for it to count. You have to make decisions that affect how people treat you and how the game turns out. There has to be more than one way of doing things. I've never played any Zelda, so I'm not really qualified to comment, but they seem to me to be more action/adventure games with a bit of leveling.

Character development != RPG

Zelda is definitively action/adventure.

Well duh! If you play a role, it's automatically a game where you play a role, a roleplaying game! Oh geez! That's by logical logic.

Character development may not be the end-all definition of a 'straight' RPG, but in the means of classifying videogames, Zelda would be classified as being RPG in a significant aspect.

Again, I point especially to Majora's Mask.