I agree this is the general thought process, though I do think there's a large difference between Diablo and an action RPG like Risen where players have much more control over character development and there are faction and dialog choice systems at play. I've long thought Diablo type games should have their own genre title, or at least their own RPG subgenre.

Diablo uses more of an overhead and isometric type of view w/ just click-and-pointing to move & attack...
...meanwhile while Gothic and Risens are more direct where you literally control your movements, actions, combat, etc.

Yes, but more importantly IMO Diablo 3 makes all your stat and ability unlock choices for you based on class, and there are no interactive dialogs or choices to be made really at all. Yet it and Risen are both "ARPGs" with no further sub-classification. I've never liked that.

Also I'm an RPG nut but hate Diablo style games, so... *shrug*

Yes, I'd probably be happier w/ terms for Diablo's as Diablo-likes or things of that sort.

There are other ARPG's like say Dark Souls, Gothic, Risen...and those are much different than say Diablo games.

Heck, in many ways - Souls-likes (which is what games like Dark Souls series, Demon Souls, Bloodborne, The Surge series, Lords of the Fallen, and other games of this sort many refer to these games) are also still much different than PB's Gothic & Risen games.

Gothic & Risen games still have loads of NPC's to talk to and interact with; reputation systems; decision-making / choices & consequences; and things of that sort - Dark Souls and many Souls-likes do not have that stuff...or have very little of that stuff.

What is real RPG?

I'm not familiar with the particular game you mention, but I would probably lean no, but not for the reasons you mention. I'd actually classify games like Alalabeth as what I would call proto-RPGs. Basically, these are RPGs from before the RPG genre fully established its conventions. In the case of Akalabeth, note that:
* I am pretty sure it doesn't have levels and XP.
* There is no maximum HP; HP is like gold in that it's something that you can acquire and lose, but there isn't any notion of "restoring" it.
* The world is procedurally generated, much the way it would be in a roguelike, but which you don't see in other RPGs and RPG-like games. Yet, there's an overworld (however primitive) and the dungeons are first person.
* The amulet can sometimes change your stats drastically and permanently; this is another mechanic that's disappeared as the years have gone by.

Other games that I would put in the proto-RPG category would be Oubliette (and perhaps early Wizardry, but not to the same extent), Ultima 1-2 (maybe 3, but not 4), and even the original Dragon Quest (open-world single-character game with mechanics like dark dungeons that you don't normally see in JRPGs). Perhaps the original SaGa could fit here as well, even if the conventions had already been established, but mainly because it avoids many of those conventions and doesn't really establish even the conventions of the series it belongs to (your actions don't affect stat growth in SaGa 1, for example, unless you count RNG manipulation). Actually, from what I have read Diablo was apparantly planned to be turn-based, but they changed it to real-time during development (perhaps because upper management didn't feel that turn-based would sell). There's still unusual cases, like Wizardry 4, which really feels like an adventure game (of the classic variety; there's even a "dead end" (but at least the game gives you a warning and 8 save slots)) disguised as an RPG.

Edit: Why the low rating? Why have I been punished for putting so much time and thought into this post?

But what about games like Wizardry 1 and other Wizardry-likes? The games are all about getting loot and leveling up, but are clearly not action games of any sort.

(Funny thing is, GOG actually miscategorizes Elminage Gothic as action, when it's clearly the same type of game as Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, which GOG doesn't put in that category.)

Actually, with respect to the games called "ARPGs", I don't like using the "RPG" term for them at all, as they are not what I'm looking for when I'm thinking of what game to play, and the action element actually makes the game inaccessible to people who can't play action games, and who stick to genres like RPGs instead.

I'd argue that dialog choices are really not an RPG element, but rather a visual novel element. Hence, I could argue that said games might actually be hybrid, with one of the genres being Visual Novel.

Wizardry games fall under the RPG part - you still upgrade your character(s) and their stats, skills, etc etc.

Wizardry games and things of that sort are party-based; strategic & turn-based; and (in many instances) dungeon crawling type of games.

So...Wizardry-likes, I guess?

EDIT:
Also, about decision-making and visual novels - "Create your Own Adventure Books" did that decision-making before Visual Novels; and so did Maniac Mansion.

What if we take a game like Wizardry, but remove the abilitiy to upgrade your characters? (The game would otherwise remain the same, aside from the balancing changes needed.) Would the resulting game still be an RPG? (I would say "yes".)


CYOA books, if you think about it, are really just visual novels minus the "visual" part. So yes, I could consider them to either be in the same genre, or to be the predecessors to VNs.

Also, with Maniac Mansion, we start to get into adventure game territory.

(By the way, if you take away decision-making from a visual novel, you end up with a kinetic novel; similarly, take away decision-making from a CYOA book and you have just a regular novel.)

Hmmmm...this is where stuff gets kinda' dicey.

You still have turn-based combat & strategy elements, which was more common in the older style of RPG's. These days - eh, not really as common; especially in the AAA space.

Though, if you took out all of stat-stuff, leveling-up, and upgrading stuff out - Wizardry might now fall more so under the strategy games umbrella.

It's been years since the crpg genre evolved from the tabletop rpg or role playing games played with a rule book. Due to the nature and potential of the media (computer/console). The same happened with the movies compared with the theatre.
A new language was created.

So, now an CRPG can be turn based, real time, linear, open ended, literary, or basically combat based etc.

Now I use to simplify, because of recurrent debates that overcomplex and does not give any light.

To me if a game is based in character leveling, character evolving/creation, Importance of Stats, and Gear etc... It is a CRPG.

Things gone so far that just one invented subgenre is not enough to define a specific game. And that breaks the original utility of tags and labels.

That depends entirely on taste. The more complex tree of genre definition does help and shed light.
For example, I love H'n'S games, but I absolutely hate Spectacle Fighters.
Sadly, both are often called ARPG's so finding new (or old/contemporary) games within that genre is very, very, hard.
Try it yourself.

The better solution would be to use a tag-based type that incorporates camera, controls, mechanics, etc..
Though I'm sure that would get muddled to..

Except that strategy games are tactical (in other words, position is a factor and something that has to be constantly managed), where as that's not the case with classic Wizardry.

Reminds me:
Back in the day, the term "RPG" used to mean something; specifically, that it was a thinking person's game. Instead of controlling your character directly, you would instead just manage the character or party, decide what everyone would do, and then sit back and watch as the actions unfold.

These days, the term "RPG" has been used to refer to games that are nothing like that, and would be inaccessible to players who can't handle action-oriented games. As a result, the term, as it is commonly used, is meaningless.

I prefer the older notion, as that at least gives the term some real concrete meaning.

To me, those features are not genre-defining characteristics. It is the basic gameplay, not the various systems that influence the gameplay, that defines genres.

About the term CRPG - to me, those are very indicitive of the BioWare RPG's - namely games from the Infinity Engine CRPG's and also Aurora Engine.

So - games like BG1, BG2, PST, Icewind Dale 1, Icewind Dale 2, NWN1, and NWN2 fall right on this CRPG tag.

Also, even the original Dragon Age Origins would fall on this list.
DA2 or DAI - eh, it gets kinda dicey with those two; not entirely sure.