^ none of those are RPGs, with the exception of the Dragon Ages which become less RPG as the series goes along. They have more in common with God of War than any RPG in the D&D tradition. The only difference is you get to choose which abilities you get as opposed to them being linearly given to you.
You are so wrong, it's amusing. Here's the mistake you and all the other people from that school of thought make:
You assume that just because something started out a certain way, that will always define its nature. But that's just not how life works. Things start out a certain way, and then change, and in subsequent times, people associate them with their current manifestation, often forgetting the original altogether.
RPGs started out of PnP sessions, so that's where the moniker came from, but it should be fairly self evident that cRPGs were always vastly different from PnP RPGs, nor should they be similar. PnP RPGs were about a group of friends role playing some imaginary adventure, whereas cRPGs were always about immersing the player into some cool virtual world. Everything else (C&C, stats, etc) is secondary to this. That is exactly why you are seeing so much cross-genre bleedover now, because ultimately it doesn't matter if your game is an RPG, a shooter, an action adventure hybrid, or whatever.
What people fundamentally want are interesting virtual worlds, with everything that goes with that, be it deep gameplay mechanics, good writing, interesting characters, simulated NPCs, nice puzzles, whatever. That's why this nonsense about C&C and stats and spreadsheets is completely irrelevant, and why its most devout supporters are playing shit like Kingmaker, while most of the world (including not just the unwashed masses, but most intelligent players) has moved on to quality aRPGs.
Just because historically, cRPGs were associated with PnP RPGs and their aspects like C&C and stats and numbers means nothing today, because that's not what most people associate these games with anymore.
