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RPG Elements (view source)

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These have been around almost as long as console and computer RPGs have, and became more common durring the mid 90's which time a HUGE number of developers seemed to want the added more complexity to their games(and they hoped increased sales thanks to the prestige that came from having "RPG Elements" printed on the back of the box), even if the elements in question weren't anything more than [[Hit Points]]. Generally ignored is the fact that these "RPG Elements" are not even universal to actual RPGs.
 
Seems to occur most often in [[First-Person Shooter|FPSes]], [[Turn -Based Strategy|strategy]] [[Real Time Strategy|games]] (usually [[Veteran Unit]]), [[Sports Game|sports sims]], and the occasional [[Fighting Game]], especially those that allow you to build your own character from the ground up.
{{examples}}
 
== [[Action Adventure]] ==
* One of the earliest examples is ''[[Zelda II: theThe Adventure of Link (Video Game)|Zelda II the Adventure of Link]]'', which swapped out a lot of the [[Adventure Game]] elements for a blend of [[Platformer|platforming]], supplemented by [[RPG Elements]] like [[Level Grinding]] and a magic system.
* Even earlier than ''Zelda II'' was an [[Infocom]] [[Interactive Fiction|text adventure]], ''Beyond Zork''. Your character had various stats, could use potions and herbs, and even attack monsters, yet it had all of the trademarks of the previous [[Zork (Video Game)|Zork]] games (including the mindbending puzzles). Surprisingly, it worked.
* ''[[Castlevania]]'' has firmly entrenched RPG Elements into its gameplay ever since ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night|Symphony of the Night]]'' came out, about the same time it adapted the [[Metroidvania|free-roaming environs]] popularized by the ''[[Metroid]]'' series.
** It tried free-roaming gameplay with RPG elements before in ''[[Castlevania II: SimonsSimon's Quest|Simon's Quest]]'', but the results were broken and nigh-unplayable.
* Arguably, the ''[[Ys (Video Game)|Ys]]'' series, though some would declare them straight [[Action RPG|Action RPGs]]. The gameplay, mostly in the style of ''Zelda II'', is too far afield to accept as a true RPG for many, though.
* In ''[[Okami]]'', when you do a good deed (from making trees blossom to [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|helping cook the ultimate dish]]) you are rewarded with so-called "praise spheres" which more or less function as experience points, allowing you to increase your [[Mana Meter|ink]], your [[Life Meter|solar energy]] or your [[It Makes Sense in Context|number of stomachs]]. The health is also partly increased with hidden [[Heart Container|solar fragments]].
* ''[[Swim Ikachan]]'' has experience points earned by either killing enemies or eating a limited supply of fishes that increase player's maximum hit-points when enough is collected.
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== [[Action Game]] ==
* Strangely, Square's ''[[World of Mana]]'' series started out as a straight action-RPG, but every game since the Japanese-only ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' has had {{smallcaps| fewer}} RPG elements than the previous title. ''Dawn Of Mana'' manages to be a straight-out third-person action game with fewer RPG elements than ''[[Ratchet and Clank]].''
* ''[[Scurge: Hive]]'' is an isometric [[Action Game]]-slash-[[Platformer]] with experience points, character levels, and [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]. Oh, and [[Expy|Expys]] of the ''[[Metroid]] Fusion'' cast.
* In ''[[Evolva]]'', you must absorb the DNA from your enemies to mutate again and improve your weapons, making DNA something like [[Experience Points]]. Besides, you're allowed to customize your characters and choose which attacks and skills you want to improve.
 
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== [[Card Battle Game]] ==
* Unusually, the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]!'' video game franchise has RPG Elements in them, to some degree, possibly as a way to gauge the player's growing skill at the game. Unfortunately, some games take this concept too far, and actually prevent you from using cards above your current level, placing [[Fake Difficulty|unneeded]] -- and unwanted -- restrictions on one of the most appealing parts to the card game: building and customizing your deck(s).
 
== [[Driving Game]] ==
* ''[[Midnight Club]]: Los Angeles'' is a racing game that uses levels, albeit three different leveling scales. One is raised by driving certain types of cars, which unlocks parts; the second is for using special abilities, which unlocks more storage for special abilities, and the third and most important one is for racing in general, which unlocks more missions.
* ''[[Blur (Videovideo Gamegame)|Blur]]'' has you earn fans for finishing in a given place, pulling off stunts, wrecking other cars, etc. Get enough fans, your Fan Level increases, unlocking new cars and, in multiplayer, new car mods.
 
== [[First-Person Shooter]] ==
* ''[[Borderlands (Video Game)|Borderlands]]'' is a [[First-Person Shooter]] with separate classes with a specific action ability and passive skill trees, as well as [[Character Level|CharacterLevels]] - unlike other examples of [[An Adventurer Is You]], weapons are not by any means restricted by class though, specific classes just have ways to make certain weapons better.
* ''[[Daikatana (Video Game)|Daikatana]]'' was ([[Vaporware|infamously]]) supposed to be an innovative blend of RPG Elements and the ''[[Quake]]'' FPS system. Delays, developer infighting, and just plain bad design resulted in the final release being... schizophrenic, to say the least.
* A pair of games known as the ''[[Crime Crackers]]'' duology were released by Media Vision as Japan Only titles for the Playstation [one of them in fact being one of the first ten games ever released for it]. These games used anime-style art for the characters and environments made by [[Kokomai]] of "Akaijutsu Club" and used an engine that was more of a middle ground between [[Wolfenstein 3D (Video Game)|Wolfenstein 3D]]/[[Blake Stone]] and [[Doom]]'s engines, but also allowed things like transporting elevators to give the illusion of multiple floors in the same map (like [[Duke Nukem|Duke Nukem 3D]] which included elevators that teleported you as one of it's mapping effects), a specialized guarding system for blocking attacks from enemies, the ability to level up via Experience Points [for the second game only], and probably one of the least used RPG elements in First Person Shooters, a multiple-characters-in-the-same-party set up [3 in the first game, 4 in the second game with the option to switch characters at the start of most levels]. Some environments could even damage all of your characters simultaneously, and of course if all of them died, it was game over. The targetting system is also a bit out of place compared to other first person shooters, stopping you in place while you aim a crosshair at anything on screen and your shots will shoot towards the crosshair instead of straight ahead]. It was probably not the biggest thing since sliced bread, but it's existance was the inspiration for another FPS [[Duke Nukem: (Video Game)/Naferias Reign Invasion of the Dark Mistress|modification for Duke Nukem 3D]] with far more build up on the RPG Elements (among other things) so far.
* Warren Spector's 1st-person games (''[[Ultima Underworld]]'', ''[[System Shock]]'', ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'') had so many RPG Elements, it's hard to tell whether they were [[FPS|FPSs]] with an RPG's level system, or an RPG in the style of a shooter.
** ''[[Ultima Underworld]]'' is as far from being an FPS is you can get. The ''only'' element it shares with FPS games is the first person point of view. There was no such thing as an FPS when it was released anyway.
** It's a similar situation to [[Magic Versus Science]]. [[Word of God]] ([[All There in the Manual|or at least the advertising material]]) is that they're RPGs with first-person shooter interfaces.
** ''[[Bio ShockBioshock]]'', 2K's spiritual successor to ''[[System Shock]] 2'', however, had its RPG mechanics scaled back somewhat to simplify gameplay (although the actual world itself contains a touch more complexity (in terms of systems that players and NPCs can interact with) than System Shock 2): Players were invited to enhance themselves by using [[Powered Byby a Forsaken Child|ADAM]] to buy genetic upgrades, divided into plasmids (active superhuman attacks that let you fling items around and [[Bee-Bee Gun|shoot bees out of your hand]] among other things) and gene tonics (passive upgrades that enforce the player's ability to deal with enemies, the environment and machinery), which were all swappable at will.
** The [[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]] series is arguably an actual RPG. The repercussions of a lot of your actions in the first game are extremely subtle changes down the line. Many characters do react differently to you depending on how you handle yourself during missions. They aren't open world games, but they also aren't far off from how many table top RPGs conduct themselves (you can't really wander away or completely ignore the overall mission, but how you handle yourself and act does impact the mission further down).
* Hello, ''[[Call of Duty (Video Game)|Call of Duty]] 4''. See [http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/9/ this comic]. For clarification: as with an RPG, every kill you make rewards you with experience. Gain enough, you rank up and get access to more equipment. As it's ''Call of Duty'', [[Follow the Leader|this has become very popular in multiplayer shooters since then]].
* An [[Older Than the NES]] example: ''Dungeons of Daggorath'' for the Tandy Color Computer 2- ostensibly an early first-person dungeon-crawler, but deeper. Killing creatures increased your strength, and therefore both your health and damage; your strength was also the factor in "revealing" magical items that were more powerful than mundane ones once revealed. You were free to roam through the first three levels of the Dungeon at will, but as the second level's creatures would splatter you in one hit, and the ''third'' level had magical creatures that you couldn't even ''see'' without a magical torch, you were far better off hunting down every last creature before moving on.
* Done surprisingly well in ''[[Hexen]] 2'', which had a fair number of stats and leveling up did have an impact on the game. Leveling up was properly paced so that if you went with the standard combat tactics (kill anything that moves and some things that don't), you would never have to grind, making the RPG elements almost invisible.
* The ''Battlecry'' series embodies this trope, as a large part of the game consists of leveling up your "hero" unit.
* Parodied in ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' - some weapons level up on the loadout screen as you play, but it has no effect at all on gameplay.
** More specifically, some items are asigned static "levels" on acquisition, (e.g., Sandvich is a level 10 lunchbox) leading to some players collecting multiple levels of the same item to no additional benefit. Then you have the "strange" items that have killcounts that persist throughout your career and bestow different prefixes to the name (like "Mildly Threatening Flaregun"). This also has no effect on gameplay outside of showing off how many kills you've racked up with a given weapon.
* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Star Wars: Dark Forces Saga (Video Game)|Dark Forces II]]'' and later. The player gets to pick force powers as the game progresses and can drift towards an evil / good character.
 
== [[Four X4X]] ==
* In ''[[Civilization]] IV'', a "Unit Promotions" game mechanic was introduced, allowing you to use experience gained by your units in battle to buy them special traits that improved their combat values or added new abilities.
** While picking specific bonuses as you level up is new, units getting better with experience has been part of the series since the original game. It started with a simple binary distinction (veteran vs normal) in ''Civ I'' and ''Civ II'' and slowly became more elaborate.
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* ''[[Sonic and The Secret Rings]]'' and ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'' implemented a level-up system and experience points that enhances their overall gameplay.
** ''[[Sonic Battle]]'' did this first, to an extent. The skill points system is even discussed in-game.
* Platform-shooter ''[[Iji (Video Game)|Iji]]'' uses RPG Elements to level up various skills like hacking or strength (for kicking). They're necessary and change how the player proceeds - concentrating on hacking enemies or destroy them with the most powerful guns? There's a huge amount of choices. It works in-game because the character, Iji, is part-cyborg.
 
== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==
* Similar to both the above, ''[[Battle TechBattleTech|MechCommander]]'' features pilots that gain experience as you progress through the game. Additionally, said pilots can be injured during missions and, although they do recuperate over the course of multiple missions, they can receive sufficient injury to kill them.
* ''[[Dawn of War]]: Dark Crusade's'' campaign mode allows the player to equip their chosen faction's commander with various pieces of Wargear, which offer various stat boosts, as well as other bonuses, while also looking cool to boot. This carried over into the next expansion, ''Soulstorm''. This carries over to DOW 2, with the "standard" campaign troops gaining experience and wargear choices.
* ''[[War CraftWarcraft]] III'' has Hero units (not a very uncommon concept in RTS) that act like a RPG character. They level, learn spells, have 3 different attributes and can carry up to six different items. They can also be revived for a fee unlike the replaceable masses of other units. The expansion allowed certain normal units to carry some items as well, but only as a carrier for the hero. The maps also had neutral monsters ("Creeps") to fight for items and experience, and doing so is an integral part of the game. Put together with the bundled map editor, has [[Captain Obvious|obviously]] led to many custom maps focusing on the RPG aspects - so much so that the ''official'' Orc campaign for the expansion was RPG-style.
** Also note that early press releases for ''Warcraft III'' had an even stronger RPG element, to the extent that the game was referred to as "Role Playing Strategy" and the whole process of base-building was intended to be scaled down and redesigned. Fortunately for RTS fans, this was watered down to the eventual release.
*** And then a custom map came out that removed base building and redshirt unit micro anyway and let you focus entirely on controlling your hero unit in a team-based multiplayer environment. It was [[Defense of the Ancients|quite popular]]. Meanwhile the ''official'' ladder wasn't very successful online for a Blizzard RTS because its RPG elements included a heavy luck factor and lack of macro-level strategy. Blizzard learned from this mistake and decided to play it ''extremely'' safe with ''[[Starcraft]] 2''.
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* ''[[Quest 64]]'' is often accused of this, instead of being considered a true RPG.
* ''[[Spellforce]]'' walks the fine line between being an RTS with RPG elements and being an RPG with RTS elements, depending on whether one is playing Free-Roam or Story mode. (Story mode focuses mainly on the RPG angle; in the "Breath of Winter" expansion, this leads to a massive difficulty spike when the encounters suddenly become ten levels too high for your hero to effectively deal with).
* In ''[[Age of Empires III (Video Game)|Age of Empires III]]'', your CITY gains experience. And can buy lots of cool upgrades.
* In ''Wiggles'' (also known as ''Diggles''), the eponymous dwarfs learn [[Character Points|abilities]] similar to RPG characters, but for a change by ''actually doing stuff related to the ability'', e.g. gaining one point in "wood" by building something.
* In ''[[Warhammer Dark Omen]]'' the regiments improve via [[Veteran Unit|veterancy]], upgradable armor and equipable magical swords / shields / banners, and are carried over from one mission to the next.
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== [[Shoot'Em Up]] ==
* In ''[[Mars Matrix (Video Game)|Mars Matrix]]'', collecting golden cubes will give you [[Experience Points]] and levels. Leveling up increases the power of your main shot.
* Like the above example, in the flash game [[Epic Battle Fantasy]] 3.3: Bullet Heaven, you can collect coins from killed enemies and buy upgrades like more lives, stronger and faster shots, etc. Of course, these stats cap at a certain point; it seems to be more of a way to let newcomers to the [[Bullet Hell]] genre start out slow and work their way up. Any non-hardcore player will need max upgrades to survive the later levels and bonus levels.
* The Playstation port of ''Point Blank'' is a collection of minigames in which you use a gun controller (like Duck Hunt). It has a one-player RPG mode that replaces regular RPG battles with the minigames. The stats don't affect the actual minigames, but determine which ones you play, how many losses you can take before [[Game Over]], etc.
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** ''NBA Street'' from EA Sports Big made it so getting 5/5 in stat made a silver crown appear for that stat, but then you could upgrade to gold crown (essentially 6/5). The catch is only ''one'' stat can get a gold crown; through lots of play, you can get 6/5 on one stat and 5/5 on all others.
* The [[Game Boy Color]] version of ''[[Mario Golf]]''. You'll gain [[Experience Points]] from completing events and winning tournaments in-game, which you can use to [[Character Level|level up]] your character and increase stats like distance and straightness of your shot.
** In fact, any portable version of a Mario Sports game made by [[Shining Force|Came]][[Golden Sun (Video Game)|lot]] (''Mario Golf'' and ''Mario Tennis'' series) so far has had RPG Elements and a [[Story Mode]] in them where your goal is to become the greatest player ever by defeating [[Series Mascot|Mar]][[Super Mario Bros.|io]]. It remains to see if the 3DS ''Mario Tennis'' game will follow in their footsteps.
*** [[Subverted Trope|Sadly]], [http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/04/camelot_justifies_no_rpg_mode_in_mario_tennis_open it won't.]
 
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* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]: Portable Ops'' allowed you to collect new 'party members', gave them all unique stats and abilities, and even let you 'level up' their health and stamina with enough play. It felt less ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' and more ''[[Pokémon]]'', though, since there was an element of collecting for the sake of collecting, only one party member was on the field at a time and most of them ended up filling up your Spy Unit (essentially a dump unit).
 
== [[Turn -Based Strategy]] ==
* Likewise, the ''Dark Wizard'' game for Sega CD used units that leveled up, could be equipped with exchangable gear (if they weren't monster types), and even evolved or got class changes, despite being fundamentally a strategy game.
* Many small-scope strategy games like ''[[Close Combat]]'' and ''[[Battle for Wesnoth]]'' allow you to equip, promote, and transfer troops throughout a campaign.
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* Many fans of ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' were surprised by the number and variety of RPG Elements in the ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas|San Andreas]]'' entry, specifically the idea that using an ability allowed one to improve it. In fact, one could say that the main character CJ in ''GTA: SA'' had a more realistic advancement than many true RPG heroes, as CJ doesn't improve in discrete levels, but almost continuously over time. Most of the titles in the series have some kind of character advancement, but usually in the form of bonuses for completing special missions.
** To get into specifics, some of CJ's stats include strength, stamina, muscle build, fat build, driving skills, cycling skills, flying skills, and yes, even sex appeal. The skill stats for various vehicles improve your handling of them as the skill set builds up, so if CJ rides a bike for the first time, he will pretty much suck at it and fall a lot from even gentle bumps!
* In ''[[The Godfather (Videovideo Gamegame)|The Godfather]]: The Game'', you can put points from Respect levels into five categories: Fighting, Shooting, Health, Speed and Street Smarts. With 50 Respect levels and 10 levels for each category, you'll max them all by the time you're done; no specialising here.
* ''[[Dead Rising]]'' and its sequels have "prestige points" that level the character up eventually, increasing your walking speed, your inventory space, making you learn new attack moves, giving you more health, and in ''Dead Rising 2'' onward, unlocking new Combo Cards for [[Item Crafting]]. Note that going on a zombie killing spree is actually the ''least efficient'' way to earn Prestige Points; you gain much more for helping survivors back to the safe room.
* ''[[Minecraft]]'' has this in the form of experience points, potions, and enchantments. Experience points are used to enchant tools and armor pieces for various effects, such as a sword multiplying the number of drops from a mob or a pair of boots that reduces fall damage. Brewing potions can get you various results, depending on what is used, and they can be made into a "splash" form that act like hand grenades. The fanbase is [[Broken Base|divided]] as to whether this constitutes [[Growing the Beard]] or [[Jumping the Shark]].
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=== Non-video game examples: ===
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Baka to Test Toto Shoukanjuu]]'', where IQ means [[Ranked Byby IQ|rank]], examination means [[Serious Business]] and academic performance means [[Experience Points]].
 
== [[Web Original]] ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Adventure Time (Animation)|Adventure Time]]''
{{quote| '''Ice King:''' [[Large Ham|Cast]] ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Detect Secret Door]]''! (door appears) '''[[Large Ham|SUCCESS!]]'''}}
 
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