[mag]

Originally Posted by sethsez

Right. And in Zelda, you can take away the character advancement and such, and you'd still have Zelda. The focus in that series is the exploration and the puzzle solving, with combat second.

I disagree. For one thing, combat is the main part of Zelda...hence, why I refer to it as an action game. Without the fighting, there would be no Zelda. As for character advancement, it's much lighter than in a pure RPG. But it's still a pretty important part of the game. Much more so than puzzle solving, which is so minimal that it's hardly even worth mentioning. And while it's true that you could take out the character development elements and still have a game, that game would not be Zelda.

Zelda is weird, though. It's one of those games where the genre is harder to describe. I think "action-RPG" is the best term to sum it up. But I can also see using "action-adventure" or even just plain "action." I really can't see calling it a pure "adventure game," though.

Originally Posted by sethsez

I believe that it's a combination of puzzles and exploration, which is why I think Zelda, Metroid and Silent Hill all qualify, albiet maybe in subgenres, because combat exists in them primarilly as something to do while you're exploring, and although the puzzles in them are generally of a different style than LucasArts, Sierra or Cyan, they still qualify as puzzles in my eyes.

I'll agree that the adventure genre is harder to define than others. But even given your definition, I fail to see how those games qualify as adventure games. The only one that really works under your definition is Silent Hill. The "puzzles" in Zelda and Metroid are minimal. They really only exist as a way of breaking up the action. The action constitutes almost the entirety of the gameplay in these games.

Also, "exploration" may be something of a nonsense criterion since it's something that's heavily featured in most games, regardless of genre. I'm not sure adventure games emphasize exploration that much more than RPGs or first person shooters.

Originally Posted by sethsez

But as I said earlier, I think action-adventures have just as much right to the term "adventure" as romantic comedies have to the term "comedy."

I don't know if that's really a valid comparison, though. When you talk about comedy vs. romantic comedy, you're talking about story genres. It doesn't change the actual experience of watching the film. What we're talking about here is gaming genres. And that's something that has fairly important implications with regard to what the gaming experience is going to be like.

Referring to an action-adventure game simply as "adventure" seems somewhat dishonest in that regard, especially considering that there is another type of game called "adventure" that is very different from action-adventures. The difference between the two is much bigger than the differences between a general comedy and a romantic comedy.

mag