Dark Souls is absolutely an RPG, explanation

There are two categories of people:

1) Those who think that Dark Souls is an action RPG.
1) Those who think that Dark Souls is an action game with RPG elements.

I am favoring the latter. Why? Because when I think of an RPG, I think less about the mechanics (leveling up, quests, etc.) and more about what these mechanics are supposed to accomplish. Together. Because to look at the RPG elements in isolation is not enough. They serve as a coherent framework for both the players and the MG to play the actual game.

Let's say the quest is "Bring me 100 gold before the forthnight!". The quest is there to give you context. A reason to do something. But that's it. What happens from that point on, how you accomplish the goal, is entirely up to you. Do you rob houses and steal from people at night? Or do you go to a dungeon, defeat its monsters and bring back the loot to sell in order to get the necessary sum?

Dark Souls is purely a combat-oriented game. There is literally nothing outside of combat. Moreover, you don't really have different ways of accomplishing your goal(s). You can change your armor, your weapon, etc. but it's still all about killing stuff with button pushes. Yes, in RPGs you also kill stuff (and there are whole books dedicated to combat, enemies, encounters, etc.), but the combat itself is but a part of the whole spectrum of potential interactions. And there are a lot of interactions possible outside of combat (between players themselves, between players and NPCs, the environment, etc.).

So to me it's all about how interactable the game is. Or, to say it differently: what you can do to accomplish the task you want to complete. And Dark Souls - as good as the game itself is, for what it is - doesn't offer much in this regard.

 

3) Those who don't give a fuck about retarded questions.

 

People who fall under 3) category don't count. They are too manly to visit threads such as this.

 

Nowadays, when I read "action game with RPG elements", I think of a synonymous of "mainstream casual game".

 

Dark Souls is mainstream hardcore game. Everybody knows that.

 

I will invent my RPG definition - the thread

p.s. Dark Souls is briliant!

 

In your ass. DS is a thinking man crawler. A true masterpiece. Diablo is just a piece of shit played by retardos with short attention span.

 

Dark Souls was boring, banal shit. Maybe if I played it with a controller I'd enjoy it more, but I doubt it. Give me an isometric game or go fuck your mother.

 

Dark Souls is a ARPG, just like Gothic. What is not a action role playing game is the barbie dressing games like Diablo 3 and Albion online where your character is nothing but a clone of everyone else of the same class and your char muscle mass/IQ is 100% tied to the boot that he is wearing.

Sekiro is the unique FS game who isn't a RPG and even sekiro, has more RPG on it than any post wow mmo that i know.

 

That all sounds good.. but I can't romance all the npc's. Checkmate Ruskie.

 

retadred x 1
Cat Dude

Why retarded? NWN has 11 classes plus a bunch of heroic and prestige classes, and everything can be multiclassed however you want. And that's not including all the custom content classes and custom spells etc... Also a lot of classes can be built in multiple ways too.

 

If DS is an RPG so it is Doom Eternal and almost all modern action games.

 

DS is basically edgy Zelda. So if Zelda is RPG, then DS is, too

 

Pikmin 3 on the WiiU is way more hardcore than dark souls ever was. Time limit, death had consequences instead of just respawn and do it again, messing up has consequences, there's resource management. Dark souls is the game that casuals like to use just to prove that they're hardcore.

I actually really like the games though. Wouldn't consider them hardcore and the rpg elements are too lite so I would consider it an action game with rpg mechanics on the side, the same way skyrim is an action game with puzzle mechanics on the side because occasionally you dick around with assigning more str or some faith then best anything with developed player skill anyways

 

Bitch please

 

In my 'umble opinion RPG is the genre when player is given a choice and this choice matters. Let's take Fallout for example - most people here agree that it's an RPG, innit? Character creation screen - where you given choices in the form of stats, skills, traits. Does it matter? Yes, it will severely affect your gameplay. Then you are thrown in the outside world - and given choices where to go. Vault 15? Shady Sands? Or make it straight to Junktown or even Hub? In each town player presented with the selection of quests. And again - choices: what quests to take, what side to pick, in what way resolve this quests. Small choices along the way: kill people, avoid fights or talk them down? Do you want to take Rad-X to The Glow or you want to permanently fuck up your character? Do you want to talk down Master, just straight out waste him or skip the encounter altogether? The holy trinity of RPG games - Kill, Steal and Talk (or Combat, Stealth and Diplomacy if you fancy) is what it actually comes down to - choice and solution.

That's why, for example, Stalker is not an RPG - despite the presence of NPCs, factions, quests, complex A-Life, locations and other stuff player given very little choice and all boils down to combat. That's why Fallout 3 is a shitty RPG, with game focusing heavily on combat and cutting down steal and talk parts. Dark Souls games are right in this ballpark, when game has some RPG elements, but is an action game at it's core.

 

The C&C-fags are the most insufferable of them all

 

Ah, the mighty captain Nathaniel Joseph Claw!

I still haven't finished this fucking game. Now I'm going to reinstall it, I will have a blast through the amazing gem that this game is and then I will get inevitably stuck around the Temple level.

 

The highest of IQ takes: Dark Souls is a classic Metroidvania in the style of Symphony of the Night but with 3d action combat instead of 2d.

 

People forget that DS is a hardcore ACTION game. Of course it doesn't have the complexity levels of grognard wargames like Gasry Grigsby series or require the same lighting-fast tactical decision making and brain multitasking like competitive RTS. But as far as action games go, DS is kinda hardcore and it never really pretended to be more that it is, it's the retarded casual fanbase that acts like they are the hardest games ever and brags about beating a game (lol) every corner

Good taste for playing pikmin3 tho

 

So it's just Zelda/Soul Reaver with minimum puzzles and more focus on combat?

 

the most important element of every metroid-like game is gating progress through items/abilities. Dark Souls gates stuff through keys, hence it's not a metroid-like.