14th November 2003, 2:25 PM
You seem to have a problem with differentiating between small, few similarities and ones that make two things very similar to each other. There's jumping and running in Mario Bros. yet it's very different from Pitfall. There's running and shooting in a first-person view in Deus Ex yet it's very different from Doom. Etc, etc.
Most games have menus so calling them "menu-based" RPGs is about as descriptive as calling the kart racing sub-genre "wheel-racers". All of the elements of the console style RPG (founded by Phantasy Star) come together to make a very unique kind of RPG, one which was created and flourished on consoles. D&D-style RPGs were created and flourished on PCs so that's why people call them "PC-style RPGs". Of course there are different sub-genres of these two sub-genres, but overall there are two main types of RPGs: console-style and PC-style.
Most games have menus so calling them "menu-based" RPGs is about as descriptive as calling the kart racing sub-genre "wheel-racers". All of the elements of the console style RPG (founded by Phantasy Star) come together to make a very unique kind of RPG, one which was created and flourished on consoles. D&D-style RPGs were created and flourished on PCs so that's why people call them "PC-style RPGs". Of course there are different sub-genres of these two sub-genres, but overall there are two main types of RPGs: console-style and PC-style.