Action-Adventure... isn't

[jfrost]

LOL, by all means, lecture us on the meaning of trolling too, TornadoCreator.

[TornadoCreator]

I think dragon age falls under western pc rpg style. Like baldurs gate and the old fallouts. I dont see it as much as an action RPG.

I was considering making it two seperate genres but I didn't see enough of a difference between say Mass Effect, KOTOR, Dragon Age and Baldurs Gate that wouldn't simple be variations within genres. If you make genres too specific they loose meaning and you may as well just use the game title. 35 genres was already a lot more than I was hoping I'd end with, I was originally hoping I could justify as little as 20.

Diablo 2 is also an RPG. It doesn't belong in th action category or in the same category as zelda. I would say it is a dungeon crawler rpg.

I get more of an action vibe than an RPG vibe, but to be fair the whole "Hack n slash" genre is right on the border of RPG and Action so I'd be happy to move "Hack n slash" into RPG wholesale. Honestly, whether we call it "Hack n Slash" or "Dungon Crawler" I'd say is incidental, they both mean the same thing really... and as for Zelda, not a Dungeon Crawler, yeah.... I was playing A Link To The Past earlier, I crawled though some dungeons, got some amulets, crawled through a castle dungeon and then went into a dark world where I imagine I'll be crawling through some more dungeons. It's the same genre.

Umm no Zelda is not an RPG, but Diablo 2 is.

Well what makes Diablo 2 an RPG that Zelda lacks? Because they seem pretty similar to me.

Baldur's Gate also does not play like Mass Effect. Mass Effect is more of a shooter rpg.

I'd argue they play quite similar. You have a story driven game with branching conversation teams, and group combat where you control one party member and can switch between them. You can see a natural progression though the genre though Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: KOTOR etc. but they're still the same genre... it's just a different setting and almost 2 decades of tweeks to the genre which make them seem so different. Like I say, if you make the genres too specific you end up with one genre for every game and the genres become meaningless.

[TornadoCreator]

I would agree that the term "action-adventure" is usually a non-description. However, there are a few titles I can think of that don't easily fit into other genres. For instance, Beyond Good & Evil or Psychonauts. They both feature a lot of 3rd-person action, but also contain elements of adventure games; item collection, talking to characters, etc.
Calling them action games undermines the non-action, exploration parts of the games, which take up a CONSIDERABLE portion.

For the video game industry at large, "action-adventure" might just be a box to dump any title which isn't in a more obvious genre (RPG, FPS, RTS), but there are times when it's useful.

I've never actually played Beyond Good & Evil so I can't judge, but Psychonauts is clearly a Traditional 3D Platformer. Sure it has humour and a storyline and such but that doesn't stop it from being a platformer at it's core.

I think my main problem is it's making shops lazy and gaming even harder. I like Brawlers for example, but you can't just search online for Brawlers, no-one knows what you're talking about anymore because they're all thrown under the "action adventure" umberrela term, which was my point.

PS: Thanks for being the first person to address the topic of the original post and not complain that I dare sully Zelda by giving it a genre.

[alienjesus]

Honestly man, the only one who sounds butt hurt is you because someone disagreed with your classifications. If you are going to get hostile with peple disagreeing with you adsee only what you say as being correct, why even put it up for discussion?

I don't think classifying zelda as a hack n slash isn't slighting the game, nor were they trying to defend zeldas honor. They were just disagreeing.

A two line response which shows they didn't even read the whole post isn't disagreeing, it's trolling. I'm quick to act hostile towards trolls, I don't mean to make your feel uncomfortable. Sure, if someone wants to disagree with me, great, they should explain why they disagree and we can discuss it. Swaning in, calling my point laughable and not explaining why (especially when they're wrong) or saying anything at all that would further the discussion is trolling. You also disagreed and I wasn't rude with you (or at least I hope you didn't take my response as rude, it wasn't intended as so).

You're calling ME a troll?

It seems to me pretty much all you've done since you joined the forum was tell everyone how all the games they loved are shit, and if they disagree with you they are wrong.
Hell, I even agreed with a lot of your points (particularly about Sega games being left off of top games lists), but you always seem to try and phrase them in a way to cause offense. You don't say 'I don't like Mario 64' it's always 'Mario 64 is a BAD game and now I've probably upset some Nintendo fanboy but I don't care because it's true'. Not to mention you're lovely tirade about how Nintendo is full of racists because they didn't release RPG's in Europe of the SNES. That one was my favourite - certainly not baiting people at all!

Either way, my point had nothing to do with 'sullying zelda by giving it a genre'. I was demonstrating that it's not so easy to just decide on a category for a game. They often fit into multiple categories, and people will disagree about which it should go into. You can't really just say 'lets agree to just use these definitions now', it just won't work.

[Opa Opa]

[TornadoCreator]

So what? GAME.com thinks New Super Mario Bros. and Carnival Games: Kinect is an "Action-Adventure". That proves nothing.

Except it proves that people would dispute it being a hack and slash. These genres aren't set in stone, and frankly, there's too much crossover and blurred boundaries between them to just be able to define every game within a genre. I would call Super Mario a platformer, but tbh I don't see the problem with calling it an action adventure. There is platforming action, you go on an adventure. voila.

Exactly, almost anything counts as "action adventure" therefore the term is practically useless. After all, the whole point of a genre is so you know what games you prefer. If you like God Of War, chances are you'll probably like Dante's Inferno or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, because they're all Brawlers. The thing is if you like New Super Mario Bros. that will have no baring on if you like God Of War. They're completely different, the genre may as well be "game".

Now, even I would disagree with Carnival games being an action adventure, but thats just the point. Not everyone is going to agree with these classifications and getting angry about it is a pointless and futile exercise.

I'm not expecting everyone to agree. I was expecting some people to dispute a few things... especially with RPGs which are hard to catergorise, but generally to agree with the overall point I was making. I was also half expecting Zelda fanboys to jump on the topic with ferver and tell me I was a retard for daring to sully Zelda with the genre of 'Hack n Slash' after all, we all know that Zelda is a precious little diamond of a franchise which is unique in every way and is therefor in a genre all of it's own... yeah, I was kinda hoping racketboy would be above that though, after all, whether you call it "hack n slash" or "dungeon crawler", both mean the same thing, the genre clearly applies (except to Zelda 2 which is a Platformer obviously... or are people going to dispute this as well).

[MrEco]

At least I didn't hear anyone call Zelda an RPG.


But seriously, how about you all quit with the arguing and try to get on topic? I agree that "action-adventure" has become way too common of a label.

[alienjesus]

So what? GAME.com thinks New Super Mario Bros. and Carnival Games: Kinect is an "Action-Adventure". That proves nothing.

Except it proves that people would dispute it being a hack and slash. These genres aren't set in stone, and frankly, there's too much crossover and blurred boundaries between them to just be able to define every game within a genre. I would call Super Mario a platformer, but tbh I don't see the problem with calling it an action adventure. There is platforming action, you go on an adventure. voila.

Exactly, almost anything counts as "action adventure" therefore the term is practically useless. After all, the whole point of a genre is so you know what games you prefer. If you like God Of War, chances are you'll probably like Dante's Inferno or Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, because they're all Brawlers. The thing is if you like New Super Mario Bros. that will have no baring on if you like God Of War. They're completely different, the genre may as well be "game".

Now, even I would disagree with Carnival games being an action adventure, but thats just the point. Not everyone is going to agree with these classifications and getting angry about it is a pointless and futile exercise.

I'm not expecting everyone to agree. I was expecting some people to dispute a few things... especially with RPGs which are hard to catergorise, but generally to agree with the overall point I was making. I was also half expecting Zelda fanboys to jump on the topic with ferver and tell me I was a retard for daring to sully Zelda with the genre of 'Hack n Slash' after all, we all know that Zelda is a precious little diamond of a franchise which is unique in every way and is therefor in a genre all of it's own... yeah, I was kinda hoping racketboy would be above that though, after all, whether you call it "hack n slash" or "dungeon crawler", both mean the same thing, the genre clearly applies (except to Zelda 2 which is a Platformer obviously... or are people going to dispute this as well).

I am a bit, because I would've called it an action RPG. I can see platformer working too though. Same goes for the Monster World series - a cross between the two genres.

I didn;t even choose Zelda because it was a franchise I liked. I just chose it because it's one where its not so easy to categorise as one of the genres you suggested, and one where I think Action Adventure is most appropriate. I'd say the same goes for Beyond Good and Evil too, which has a similar gameplay style to 3D Zelda games, whilst adding in lots of new things of its own - in that case, it's very similar to playing a zelda game, but even less of a hack and slash.

[Sideroller]

Zelda is the Zelda genre.

I lul'd

[TornadoCreator]

You're calling ME a troll?

It seems to me pretty much all you've done since you joined the forum was tell everyone how all the games they loved are shit, and if they disagree with you they are wrong.
Hell, I even agreed with a lot of your points (particularly about Sega games being left off of top games lists), but you always seem to try and phrase them in a way to cause offense. You don't say 'I don't like Mario 64' it's always 'Mario 64 is a BAD game and now I've probably upset some Nintendo fanboy but I don't care because it's true'. Not to mention you're lovely tirade about how Nintendo is full of racists because they didn't release RPG's in Europe of the SNES. That one was my favourite - certainly not baiting people at all!

No I'm not baiting I actually hold those opinions, but can we not drag other threads in here.

Either way, my point had nothing to do with 'sullying zelda by giving it a genre'. I was demonstrating that it's not so easy to just decide on a category for a game. They often fit into multiple categories, and people will disagree about which it should go into. You can't really just say 'lets agree to just use these definitions now', it just won't work.

OK. Why don't you explain which genre Zelda belongs to then if I've got it so wrong, because I was playing it earlier today and I was hacking and slashing my way through enemies whilst crawling through a dungeon, the only way this could be closer to Diablo is if the game had me going into hell and killing the devil.