Is Zelda in it's own genre?

ok we know that zelda is neither totally an rpg or action/adventure. its got attributes of both genres. that is why i think its a genre all its own. what do you think?

Pretty much, yes. In technical respects, Zelda is in fact an action-based RPG (as opposed to a menu based RPG ie: Final Fantasy), but, there are so many rules to a Zelda game.

For instance...ever heard Link speak? Pfft...nope. Not even in Soul Calibur...It's just a rule, always repsected. Along a journey with many weapons at your disposal, what's the one that you always, always use the most? The sword, of course. How about those clothes...don't they always start off green?

That's just how it goes. There's nothing else like it either.

I don't think it's really a genre of it's own. It's true the Zelda games are unique and such, but to call it a complete different genre goes to far IMO. I think it's an action-adventure.

We just gave it a genre right? Blue Taboo also did. Then how can we say it's a genre of it's own? Is Zelda the only action-adventure around here? I highly doubt it. As for all those specific points, like using swords most of the time, traditional items like the hookshot and such, those don't let teh game fall under a genre. The Zelda games are a serie. and of course you must imply those "rules" to keep the games in teh series a bit. The games must have some connection, in story line and gameplay.

We have genres for a reason. They act as a system of loose classification, and a means of identifying characteristics without the mandate of specific knowledge. How useful is it to someone unfamiliar to Zelda to describe the games as simply "Zelda"?

Or, for analogy, consider someone named Dave who is neither fat, nor thin. We wouldn't describe his weight as "Davesque" because that's completely useless to anyone that doesn't know Dave. Further, we already have subclassifications in place that no doubt cover Dave.

This carries over to the issue of being completely frivilous in forcing distinction. There is no perfect standard for any genre. There will always be titles that break the mould. However, we don't devise new genres simply to compensate for these minor differences. Instead we depend on loose conformance to the major genres and their derived minor genres.

Zelda is an Adventure-RPG. It's a large subgenre. Live with it.


Out of curiosity, why must polls continually be made out of issues already being discussed in other topics?

Dryth pretty much expressed all of my thoughts on the matter... in more eloquent terms, of course

Who's Dave?





o.o'' Okay, I agree with what Dryth said, I couldn't have said it any better, that's for sure.

lol mercutio. Who doesn't know what the Zelda series is though? Well to those who know the series, its technically action/adventure/rpg, but we know Zelda games as, just Zelda.

Zelda is a genre of it's own, just like GTA is you don't go and play GTA saying it's just like the getaway or something just like games h that try to shamelesly rip Zelda, I have not heard a single person not yet say oh it's just like Zelda, Zelda sets the benchmark for pretty much everything and a genre completly of its own

Zelda is zelda...it's not apart to any genre yet it's not a genre of it's own...

Zelda is a genre of it's own, just like GTA is...

No, GTA is a franchise. The GTA games all fall into the Action-Adventure genre.

Genres aren't popularity contests. Even if they were, there are a lot of people that don't know anything about Zelda. Wait until you enter post-secondary education and the working world, and you'll meet them.

The whole point of genres is that they act as categories. They are independent of franchises, companies, and demographics.

That doesn't stop people from comparing other titles to Zelda, or using it as an informal basis for preference, but genres are far more global.

Most definitly Zelda is it's own game.

How many real-time combat RPGs are there out there? And was Zelda the first one? If so, it is its own genre, with others following.

Classification of games is harder than Dave's weight because fat and thin are two extremes on one scale, therefore it is quantity relative. As for games, you are measuring qualities, not quantities. It's like trying to compare numbers to colours.
Numbers are not genres.

It doesn't matter Zelda was the first game in the genre. That wouldn't make it the Zelda genre. Other games aren't based on Zelda are they? And how should people know Zelda was the first game? The Zelda game was also based on a idea to create an action-rpg. They already knew the genre and they weren't creating a new genre itself.

Another example.
When people made the first racing game, the called it for instance indi 500 or something like that. It was the first game in the series of racing games, but do we call a racing game indi 500 games? No we don't. That's because before teh game is made, people plan to create a game on an already excisting genre. They do have made a new genre, the racing game genre, but it would confuse to call it the indi 500 genre. Genres are to give people an small idea what the game is all about.

The analogy of Dave's weight was directed more toward the issue of "Davesque" being a completely useless standard of weight measurement than the actual intent behind the term's usage.

There were doubtless "real-time combat RPGs" before Zelda, although the term "real-time" could be deemed less relevant given the state of gaming preceding Zelda. Titles such as the original primative Adventure and Castle Wolfenstein come to mind.

This discussion is becoming almost as farcicle as the "Why 'rock' is not a valid food group" debate...



The point, as always, is that there are a lot of games similar to Zelda in fundamentals. These games are all adventure-RPG titles. You don't see a Landstalker genre, or an Alundra genre, or a Brave Fencer Musashi genre, or a Soul Blazer genre, because we have one big genre to encompass all such games with both adventure and RPG aspects. It's the minor genre of Adventure-RPG. Even if we were to derive a genre exclusive to Zelda, there would be absolutely no practical purpose for this genre.

To elaborate, this statement is horribly misleading: "Brave Fencer Musashi is a Zelda game."

It implies that Brave Fencer Musashi is part of the Zelda category, operating as a franchise category because it now holds dual meaning. We can, however, state the following: "Brave Fencer Musashi is like Zelda."

However, this statement does not suggest categorical inclusion, which is required of a functional genre, the genre itself being a form of category. As such, the only games that can effectively be contained within the Zelda genre would be games in the Zelda franchise, thus rendering it useless.

Of course, that's a very glib approach. Alternatively we could label the genre "Zelda-like" or "Zeldaesque." However, we still run into two problems; We suggest that there are some universally accepted and acknowledged standards by which "Zelda-like" games abide, for purpose of recognition, and we already have a valid minor genre covering this exact classification in Adventure-RPG.


It probably sounds like I'm using language semantics as a crutch, but categorical specification is entirely dependent on the level of semantic and functional distinction.

Well, my opinion is Drythesque.... eh?
I mean, I was gonna state an opinion much like Dryth's, but he's way better at in than me anyway
So I agree with him. ^^

I can go into the debat wether zelda is a first person action adventure or rpg, but i think its safe to say that zelda is such a great, unique series of games that it is worthy of its old genre.

okay... i didnt mean that zelda should have its own genre and classify other games as zelda, thats just silly. what i meant was that zelda is in a genre by itself because no other games are quite like zelda games and there would be no other games in the zelda genre. it would merely be just zelda by itself, with no other games.

If that's the case, you shouldn't call it a genre. It's the serie of Zelda games which we like and which is good, not the genre.

im not quite sure im following you, could you explain yourself better?

I voted yes because I can.