PST is one of my favorite CRPG's of all time.

PST still has a combat system and you do have to use it, here and there - so, yes.

Even though, you can get through a ton of the game...without running into major combat battles or things of that sort, if you spec your character out in that direction.

The game does have checks on your items (sometimes) and often on your stats & skills - for when you make decisions in dialogue or are trying to gather extra information on other NPC's, yourself, quests, etc etc.

PST's combat is nowhere as great or as strategic as other classic CRPG's like say BG1 and BG2 - but you can certainly run into it.

I consider CRPG to be a term that refers to all RPGs that are played on a computer (or specifically every computer game I count as an RPG), in order to differentiate such games from table top RPGs (and things like LARPs).

In any case, when it's clear the context is computer games, and table top RPGs are not something being discussed, I just drop the "C" and use the term "RPG".

(Note that this means that all JRPGs are CRPGs.)

CRPG's to me are from the BioWare and isometric era, from the late 90's in style and fashion...and probably up to Dragon Age: Origins.

While some might be party-based, grid-based, turn-based, and/or action-point based (i.e. Fallout 1+2) and things of that sort - many are real-time combat with strategic pause like BioWare's stuff (BG1+BG2); and were best played with the entire keyboard (w/ loads of hotkeys and whatnot) and the mouse (to do the pointing and clicking for movement & queuing attacks up).

But not all JRPG's are on the PC, so they all can't be called "CRPG's" if we're saying a "Computer Role-Playing Game." To be honest, many JRPG's were built around "controllers" - so in that case, maybe those could be considered "Console Role-Playing Games?" :oP

Sure, we got Chrono Trigger finally on the PC officially, if you are going by "CRPG" as a RPG played on the Computer - but we're still missing Chrono Cross officially on GOG or Steam, for example. :oP

Also, games like Final Fantasy (i.e. FF10 and earlier) and many JRPG's were linear in story-telling and character development. They were often strategic w/ the combat and often turn-based, but there really weren't choices & consequences systems in those.

Consoles are computers; it's just that you're more limited in the ways you can provide input.

Also, "C" can stand for "Console" as well as "Computer".

Choices and Consequences are really an adventure/VN element, not an RPG element, so they don't affect whether a game is an RPG (though, unlike action elements, they don't *conflict* with a game's RPG-ness).

Yeah i have played it i was just curious why you didn't include it in your list of CRPG. Guess that was because Bioware didn't make it?

But, I did.
I used short-hand for it.

Oh i didnt see sorry

A real RPG game would be a game where you can actually use an RPG. I'm sure an RPG would be effective against Diablo, though.

What if it's a game where you can use an RPG, but doing so is not the best strategy, as said weapons are too expensive and better off sold? (Use the money on chainsaws that don't get use dup and ammunition that's much cheaper.)

and what is a 'real' or 'fake' RPG?

No, I don't. They are not RPG games at all, they are action games. It isn't, what are the different roles of those classes? Nothing. If you dont know what is real rpg thats sad :(
Try out baldurs gate or similar game.

You're right that Ultima and Might & Magic certainly weren't about dialog choices, but it did become very important to Western RPGs over time. How much that matters can be debated, but my overall point is one more of gameplay distinction.

Games like Risen, Divinity Original Sin, Deus Ex, Pillars of Eternity and Diablo 3 are all very different from one another. I don't think ARPG and RPG are enough terms to really classify that difference. If you go on a forum and ask what kind of game "X" is, you're much more likely to be told "it's like Skyrim" than "it's an ARPG," because ARPG doesn't really mean anything to anybody anymore. Maybe genres don't mean anything in general.

Deus Ex series - A FPS/Action/RPG hybrid of sorts. Also falls on the "immersive sim" category.

Divinity: OS series - Old-school style CRPG, but with turn-based combat.

Pillars of Eternity - CRPG done in the style of BG1+2 and Icewind Dale.

Diablo 3 - Diablo-like game. An isometric looter-ARPG with lots of click and pointing for everthing.

Risen series, ELEX, Gothic series - PB-style RPG. Direct-control style RPG with camera behind the player and decision-making elements that matter.

Why "but", here? Turn based combat is easily the way old school CRPGs, and even RPGs that predate the earliest CRPGs, play.

This is what i think of the whole thing.