Musashi Samurai Legend should be indeed in the standard RPG list and not in the borderline category. I updated the list accordingly.Originally Posted by vaportransmitter
Digimon World 4. It is indeed an action RPG which plays much like FF Crystal Chronicles. I guess the Digimon title threw me off, I added it to the standard RPG List. THANKS!!
About your other suggestions:
This goes in a direction I tried to avoid, namely the definition of a RPG since you address important fusion categories. No matter how we define a RPG (from a minimum definition to a maximum definition) and/or identify specific elements as necessary but not sufficient elements of a RPG (e.g. statistics for characters, leveling up by various methods of increasing these statistics, menu-driven combat systems, and others), there will always be hard to define cases, borderline cases, and exclusions of games we actually want to include and vice versa.
The fusion categories strategy/RPG, action/RPG, adventure/RPG, and simulation/RPG are not only the result of insufficient genre definitions which plague videogames since their origins (the unfortunate and non-sensical ‘arcade game’ comes to mind), but are the result of design development in the last twenty years towards hybrid games as well. Even sports games nowadays have trivial RPG elements, and the separation lines between the genres are awfully thin at times. (Thinking about Alundra, the Zelda games, or Shadow of the Colossus.)
In the end we can only evaluate certain RPG-elements of specific games if they dominate or are pushed into the background in order to flavor a certain genre of a game.
Castlevania games: nah, otherwise we should include Devil May Cry and many other games too. One or two elements we’d identify as necessary for an RPG isn’t enough to be recognized as an RPG, otherwise we might include Madden games as well. (otherwise I share your enthusiasm for Castlevania games completely, from the first NES Castlevania to Curse of Darkness the series is one of my all-time favorites. Too bad that the first Devil May Cry was what Castlevania LoI should have been - bad Konami, great Capcom!)
Fallout Brotherhood of Steel. The similarities to Baldur’s Gate are clear since the same game engine is used, but the few RPG-elements (exploration, leveling up with upgrading armor and weapons) are clearly minor and the action elements are emphasized. It is a hack’n slash game with RPG elements added as nice spices, but the action dominates to such a degree and in particular the story is pushed into the background to such a degree that I wouldn’t put it even in the borderline category.
Same as the above goes for the two Gauntlet games. To add some collecting elements and customization elements to an otherwise button mashing hack’n slash fest spiced up by some weak story isn’t enough to make a game a RPG. I regard the three games as much a RPG as the original Gauntlet or the new Ninety-Nine Nights.
Harvest Moon and River King: my weak defense/justification is to be as inclusionary as possible, and the weakest justification for listing them is the agreed fusion category simulation/RPG which is out there. I can’t justify the listing with gameplay elements since I never played a Harvest Moon game. Maybe you can argue for the inclusion or exclusion from the list, and others can provide their input too. I’d have no problems to remove them or putting them in the borderline category.
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