The Adventure of Link Convinced Me That Zelda is an RPG

GenGAME writes: "Zelda II definitely plays like a role-playing game, but as it does so, it captures the heart of what makes the series great."

[mike1up]

Nice read.

[dedicatedtogamers]

If you look back at the context into which Zelda was released, it was neither an RPG nor an action game. The marketing used taglines to describe it as "the action of the arcades meets the depth of the computer role-playing game".

[CLOUD1983]

Zelda is not rpg get serious it's an action-adventure with a lot of platforming, stop this bullshit already.

[mike1up]

If you actually played Zelda 2, or read the article, then you would know that it is the ONLY RPG in the series!

-Random encounters
-XP
-Freedom to choose how Link levels up

It's not BS, it is a fact.

[Patriots_Pride]

I think the term Role Playing Games is subjective.

You ave people that play games like FF,Crono Trigger, Last Odyssey, Blue Dragon and you have people that play games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Fall Out, Skyrim, Dues Ex.

So Clouds view and your view of RPG is different but in the end RPG is just that a ROLE PLAYING GAME which to me even games like The Sims and Kinectimals are RPG's.

[mike1up]

@Patriots_Pride

Agreed, and excellent points. I just got irritated because the author never argues that the Zelda series, as a whole, is an RPG series.

The point of the article was that heavy RPG elements from Zelda 2 were completely abandoned. The author only challenges the proverbial "black sheep" label, and ponders what the series would be like if RPG elements were kept intact.

The "BS shoe" definitely does not fit here.

[CLOUD1983]

1 game is not enough to call the whole series rpg dont u think?

I play mostly JRPGs for the past 15+ years, ppl who call games like Zelda, Mass Effect, Fall Out, Dues Ex & many others rpg they dont have idea for what they r talking about, it's a different thing when 1 game is pure rpg & different when it's a shooter, action-adventure with rpg elements.

Every clueless dude out there believe that a game is an rpg when it have some dialogue screens & u can choose to answer differently for your char a few times on some occasions, my advice to those ppl? get a clue.

[itBourne]

I did like the article as well, but I still think Zelda is the most overrated franchise ever.

[Patriots_Pride]

Really?? You must have never played a game called Mario.

At least Zelda has some sort of Story.

[TheFirstClassic]

Mario doesn't need a good story to be a great game, because the most important part of a game is gameplay. Super mario 64 remains one of my favorite games of all time and it barely had a story. Same for smb 3.

[itBourne]

Dont get me wrong Zelda games were great back in the day. But the formula as grown tiresome and old.

I think it gets a free pass in a lot of areas simply because its Zelda.

[DivineAssault]

Zelda 2 was one of my favorite games on NES.. That game was under rated as hell.. It was excellent

[WeskerChildReborned]

I'm really hoping that the Zelda tech demo for Wii U will become a game. BTW, nice article.

[Jirachi]

The term rpg means it has some roots in d&d,not that your playing a role(if that was the case every game but tetris would be an rpg) every single rpg ever made has at least 2 of these things

1.exp 2.turn based battles 3.the gameplay is a means to advance the plot(which is the exact opposite of zelda) 4.voice acting 5.2 or more people in a party(st is the closest zelda's come to this) 6.is inspired by d&d or inspired by a game that was inspired by d&d.

Zelda doesn't have any of those things.

[Treian]

Zelda 2 is the black sheep in the series...

[gamerben]

How can you blame it? It's the second zelda game ever made. They didn't know the play style yet...

[Treian]

even the creator of zelda said it was the odd game :P

[tweet75]

it was odd but as good as any other zelda in its own way

[CouldHaveYelledUiiW]

Good Read.

I thought that SS brought some of the combat back too.

As many enemies in SS had to be swung at from an undefended direction.

Also, the Upgrades of weapons seemed like a step toward the old days.

Neverthless, I thoroughly enjoyed Zelda 2 and I think that it's one reason why I did not like LTtP as much as everyone else.

I hope someday that Nintendo makes a kind of "Sonic Generation " game that showcases all of the Gameplay styles that Zelda has had over the years

Maybe When Link travels in to the past he goes into Zelda 1's game style and continues onward thru SS graphic style.

But it would be hard to make such a game cohesive.