> A Link to the Past and Chrono Trigger do not belong in the same category. In the first, you have action fights that require quick hand-eye coordination and skilled reflexes. In the 2nd you just choose actions from menus, no hand-eye coordination nor reflexes required.

Why is this very specific thing something that should create a distinction between genres? Don't they appeal to the same players and have much the same, well, vibe (which is what genre distinctions ultimately boil down to)?

We do distinguish between e.g. real-time and turn-based strategy games, but we recognise that that's a relatively fine distinction within a broader genre.

> Flight Sim is an RPG. You play the role of an airplane pilot.

No you don't. There is no pilot in the game; you might as well be an autonomous aeroplane. The game is about flying, which is not a role; flying is something that may happen in stories, but stories are not about flying, even novels where the central character is a pilot will be all about stuff that isn't in a flight sim.

> Mario Tennis, would also be an RPG. you play the role of a cartoon tennis players.

But again, that isn't a role; there are no stories about cartoon tennis players, and if there were then they'd be about things that aren't in the game.

> GTA5 is an RPG. You play the role of a member of a street gang.

I haven't played that one yet, but I hear it's getting that way; narrative and character progression are becoming a bigger part of the game than driving cars or whatever the earlier entries in the series were about.

> IMO, Zelda games (nearly all action games) are not comparable to Final Fantasy or other J-RPG games (nearly all select from a menu games).

But why should that matter, and even if it does why would you draw the line there? Zelda etc. hardly demand a high skill level in terms of twitch FPS-like mechanics; whether you will win a given fight is determined far more by your character's progression (both equipment and "stats", even if you only have one stat in Zelda) than by the player's skill level. Nier;Automata's combat is real-time and quite difficult (more so than Zelda I would say), but if you wanted to draw a line between "Zelda-like" and "Final Fantasy-like" it would clearly belong on the "Final Fantasy" side of it. I was trying to think back to whether The Last Remnant is real-time or menu-based battle to use as an example and I honestly can't remember, because it simply doesn't matter for a game like this.

(I can see an argument for splitting off Soulsbourne style games, where there is a much higher skill ceiling and very little in-game narrative, into a separate genre. But Zelda would not go with them)

> Their similarity is at most, they are set in a middle-earth tolken-esk setting where you fight monsters with swords.

It's not just that. They put a relatively high amount of effort (effectively or otherwise) into worldbuilding and character. They have character progression as a central part of the gameplay. They try to let you be a character in a story (those stories are often ten-a-penny Tolkien knockoffs, but not always). That's a coherent shared philosophy of game design, and whether you use real-time or menu-driven combat is just a tiny implementation decision within that.