Any action RPGs made in OHRRPGCE?

[TheLordThyGod]

Any Zelda-likes or other action RPGs in OHR?

[Foxley]

I've been making one on and off since last November. Still not sure if I'll finish it, I stopped regular development a couple of months ago.

[TMC]

Honestly I'm not entirely sure what an action-rpg that isn't a zelda-like is. I think I specifically avoided tagging games "action rpg" because I didn't know where to draw the line. Does this count? I guess you mean something with a top-down view and on-map combat? That seems to exclude the large majority of OHR games with custom battle engines. Plus most with on-map combat are sidescrollers.

Searching for "zelda" produces a lot of results, but a lot of these games (eg this) look like they aren't actually action RPGs.

However, all of the following categories seem to contain a lot of games of the sort you're looking for

Games tagged action rpg on SS
Games tagged tactical on SS
Games tagged survival on SS
Gammes tagged shooter on SS

If anyone identifies any action rpgs, it would be great if you tagged them 'action rpg'.

[TheLordThyGod]

Thanks. I usually define an action rpg as one in which combat is mostly determined by some sort of button-press rather than a dice roll. There's definitely some vague middle ground - in Elder Scrolls you swing/fire as an action, but dodge and damage are (I think) calculated from stats (at least in the earlier entries, not sure how Skyrim works in that regard). Hell, I guess you could even look at Symphony Of The Night as an action RPG that happens to be side-scrolling. Or is it an action-platformer with RPG elements?

[TMC]

EDIT: Here's another game that's missing: Buelle: The Lance's Tale

That's a good start... but it has to be an RPG too, I guess. And what on earth is an RPG? Is it defined more about what you're doing in the game (playing a protagonist, following a story (often a quest), talking to NPCs or at least inspecting things) or by mechanics (such as character advancement, collecting items, combat)?
Nobody would argue a 3D game can't be an RPG, so there would seem to be no sense excluding sidescrollers just because they have a different perspective.
I also feel like adventure games aren't really counted as RPGs, although I don't know why? Is it just that they're described as adventure games to be more specific? Closely related to exploration games, and a lot of those have no character advancement and no NPCs or combat.

This may seem like a pointless debate but I do actually care a lot, as I'm trying to help come up with acategorisation scheme for OHR games, plus I do a lot of tagging on the gamelist.

[TheLordThyGod]

EDIT: Here's another game that's missing: Buelle: The Lance's Tale

That's a good start... but it has to be an RPG too, I guess. And what on earth is an RPG? Is it defined more about what you're doing in the game (playing a protagonist, following a story (often a quest), talking to NPCs or at least inspecting things) or by mechanics (such as character advancement, collecting items, combat)?
Nobody would argue a 3D game can't be an RPG, so there would seem to be no sense excluding sidescrollers just because they have a different perspective.
I also feel like adventure games aren't really counted as RPGs, although I don't know why? Is it just that they're described as adventure games to be more specific? Closely related to exploration games, and a lot of those have no character advancement and no NPCs or combat.

This may seem like a pointless debate but I do actually care a lot, as I'm trying to help come up with acategorisation scheme for OHR games, plus I do a lot of tagging on the gamelist.

There will be some games that are really clear-cut examples of a specific genre in its purest form; but a lot of genres have influenced each other, share overlapping elements, or have been hybridized in various ways over the years. And there are always fringe cases and exceptions that defy easy categorization.

As I see it, an RPG is a game that has evolved (directly or indirectly) from D&D rules and maintained some degree of resemblance to the source (almost every game has HP now, but I don't think that's enough to qualify). Typically this means some combination of quests, exploration, narrative, dungeon crawling, monster hunting, loot collecting, stats, perks, and equipment. Ultima, etc.

An action RPG replaces the D&D-influenced stat-based combat system of typical RPGs with button-mashing linked directly to verbs (often supplied by equipment) a la Zelda. Most action games with RPG elements could potentially fall into this category.

Early adventure games drew from the exploration and narrative sides of D&D (and sometimes even included combat), but the two genres diverged at some point with adventure games focusing on puzzles and RPGs focusing on combat. King's Quest, Myst, Monkey Island... Very few adventure games use character stats/skills/perks. Quest For Glory does.

[TheLordThyGod]

Platformers are focused on navigating a character from platform to platform, usually by jumping (or some proxy for it). 2D platformers are typically side-scrolling. Mario is the prototypical example here.

Action platformers are platformers with verbs tied to button-presses (usually combat actions). I guess the original Castlevania would be a good example.

Metroidvania is a subgenre of action-platformer that emphasizes non-linear traversal of a map that can typically only be fully explored by acquiring new verbs from equipment upgrades. Super Metroid is the prototype. Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night added RPG elements like stats, loot, and leveling to the vernacular of the genre.

[TMC]

As I see it, an RPG is a game that has evolved (directly or indirectly) from D&D rules and maintained some degree of resemblance to the source

Hang on, it sounds like you're talking about "Western RPGs". What about Dragon Warrior; was that inspired by DnD? I don't actually know.

Seems like there's a lot of overlap between rpgs, adventure games and exploration games, but if a game had all of those aspects it would just be called an RPG.
Not sure about the link between exploration and adventure games. Are narratives and puzzles (or at least a lot of item and character interaction verbs) essential to adventure games?


Oh yes, I forgot about the sidescroller vs platformer distinction.
Wait, are games where you can't jump (or fly or otherwise move off the platforms) really called platformers? I always referred to those as side-on games? There are some OHR games like that.

Excluding games where you can't jump, I guess a non-action platformer is a game where you only jump, and don't attack or perform much in the way of other timed actions (does that include dodging hazards)? I think most of those are either exploration games, like Seiklus, or jump puzzles. I can't think of any OHR games that fit in that category.

Saying that not all platformers are side-scrollers is bothersome though. It shouldn't really matter at all whether the screen scrolls or not, and yet "side-scroller" says that it scrolls. Should side-on view games be called "side-on" instead?
And what about vertical scrollers, are they not considered side-scrollers? I find it ambiguous whether "side" refers to side-on perspective or sideways/horizontal scrolling.

An attempt to make sense of this (categories and subcategories are not exclusive with each other):

* RPGs
** Traditional JRPGs (Final Fantasy- and Dragon Warrior-likes)
** Action RPGs
*** Zelda-likes
** Dungeon crawlers
*** Roguelikes

* Roguelites

* Adventure games
** Text adventures
** Point-and-click adventures

* Exploration games
** Pure exploration (minor amount of character or item interactions?)


(Don't know whether to add puzzle-exploration or puzzle-rpg categories)

* Scrollers and side-on games
** Scrolling shooters
** Vertical scrollers
** Side-on view
*** Side scrollers
*** Platformers
**** Action-platformers
***** Metroidvanias
*** Falling-block puzzles (Tetris-likes)

[TheLordThyGod]

Hang on, it sounds like you're talking about "Western RPGs". What about Dragon Warrior; was that inspired by DnD? I don't actually know.

Yes, sorta. From what I understand, it took a few years for D&D and other tabletop RPGs to catch on in Japan; but once they did in the early 80s, Japanese programmers started trying to emulate these games (and the Western CRPGs they also inspired) pretty immediately. Dragon Warrior was primarily influenced by Wizardry and Ultima, which were themselves influenced by D&D.

Seems like there's a lot of overlap between rpgs, adventure games and exploration games, but if a game had all of those aspects it would just be called an RPG.

You're right that an RPG could potentially include everything that defines an adventure or exploration game, but I don't think those are necessarily sub-genres of RPG so much as parallel genres that frequently overlap.

Not sure about the link between exploration and adventure games. Are narratives and puzzles (or at least a lot of item and character interaction verbs) essential to adventure games?

An adventure game is focused on exploration of (and interaction with) a map through which the player needs to progress (usually in order to further a narrative of some sort). The map (and thus the narrative) is gated by some sort of obstacle (typically a puzzle of some sort) that is eventually circumvented by clever manipulation of the environment or items in the player's inventory. This genre fell out of favor in the mid- to late-90s, but a lot of the basic ideas were absorbed into other genres. Adventure games started coming back into the mainstream again (albeit with reduced prominence) in the last decade, with the rise of Telltale Games. These newer games still retain the basics logic of the old ones (interact with characters, collect items to solve puzzles to advance stories), but there tends to be way less emphasis on map exploration. Intricate mazes used to be a fixture of this genre as well, but are now largely frowned upon as cheap ways to pad game length and difficulty.

Oh yes, I forgot about the sidescroller vs platformer distinction.
Wait, are games where you can't jump (or fly or otherwise move off the platforms) really called platformers? I always referred to those as side-on games? There are some OHR games like that.

"Sidescrolling" does get used pretty loosely (including by myself). I think technically it should mean that game actually scrolls, and does so horizontally. Often gets used to mean any side-view game where progression happens mainly from left to right.

Excluding games where you can't jump, I guess a non-action platformer is a game where you only jump, and don't attack or perform much in the way of other timed actions (does that include dodging hazards)? I think most of those are either exploration games, like Seiklus, or jump puzzles. I can't think of any OHR games that fit in that category.

You could probably just classify platformers in general as a sub-genre of action games. I just tend to think of "action platformers" as games that are more about beating stuff up than hopping around from island to island. This probably doesn't warrant too much analysis.

Saying that not all platformers are side-scrollers is bothersome though. It shouldn't really matter at all whether the screen scrolls or not, and yet "side-scroller" says that it scrolls. Should side-on view games be called "side-on" instead?
And what about vertical scrollers, are they not considered side-scrollers? I find it ambiguous whether "side" refers to side-on perspective or sideways/horizontal scrolling.

2D platformers TEND to be side-view simply because this is how you can best display the simultaneous vertical and lateral movement of "jumping" on a 2d plane. Early 3D platformers went through a pretty awkward phase where developers struggled to figure out how to present jumping in a 3d space. Movable camera perspective seems to have been the solution, for the most part.