Notice, I'm only classing in this category games that work similarly to Tales/Star Ocean, nothing like Zelda please, that's more of an action adventure with some rpg-like benefits.
Treading on some rather grey ground there.
If you want to get down and dirty with semantics, you're going to have to lay your cards on the table and define what an RPG is.
To me, I define an RPG as the pen and paper live full interactive model of DnD and similar games. Live as in, there's a person acting as the DM who takes everyone's contributions and weaves a story which the participants all contribute towards. That is role playing as each participant is a full living, breathing character within that story and every action they can take is unbounded and is truly unlimited in scope and open end-ness. No one dictated to you what your character is, or their background. It is all your own and your freedom to do as you will, to act as the role you wish. The world HAS to conform to your role and actions regardless of the actual impact or scope, and depending on the skill and abilities of the controlling DM, you will have a story that no one has ever had before, and ever will again.
Every electronic game cannot claim that degree of role play as their own. No game, even Bioware's rhetoric and grandstanding can claim that they have that level of role play because quite simply, an electronic game has to be scripted. No matter your actions or inactions, the results have already been determined and there is nothing you can do to change that fundamental fact. You are not role-playing in the truest sense, you're merely following a fancy version of a 'choose your own adventure' book and you have to follow pretty rails that lead you to a predetermined outcome.
Could I choose to join Aribeth and usher in an epoch of darkness in Neverwinter Nights? No, I couldn't. Is that role playing? In my definition, it isn't because I was denied a choice I wanted to make. In the end, you fight back an old evil, Aribeth is executed as a traitor, who you chose as a henchmen has virtually zero impact or indeed any mention at all in the major story line. The end. Every single Bioware game in existence has a predefined 'correct' ending with multiple subtle variations. Mass Effect, you fight back the threat of the old evil. For now. Of course you may choose to bump off the council who have been total pricks and self-serving SoBs, or you may not. You may have shacked up with a party member, or you may not have done so. The fundamental end is the same. In Dragon Age: Origins, you fight back the threat of an old evil. For now. You may have shacked up with a party member, or you may not have done so. Regardless there is an unborn child who will become a beacon for the potential resurrection of the evil. Who the father is, is a minor variation. Oh wait, that structure sounds awfully similar... I don't see any possibility that you may become the incarnate of terror and destruction or the harbinger of a great cataclysm. Pity.
Apart from getting sidetracked into exploring the hypocrisy of Bioware declaring jRPGs are not RPGs because they've done the exact same thing only with a different coating of ****...
DM led sessions are my definition of an RPG. Is it about stats, HP and all that fluff? Not at all. Those are merely gameplay mechanics to help create a cause and effect/cost feedback to the PnP games. Those are associated with RPGs as the broader term defines it merely because they are the simplest and most obvious manner to represent to the player and the broader masses the concept of character development. It's a bit of a trap to consider some games to be RPGs while others are not. In the most basic sense, every game you play you are playing a role. A simple 2D platformer, you are playing the role of the avatar you are controlling. Is there a story? Probably only in the most vague sense, but you are indeed acting out a role.
That is the thing about games, you are acting out as an avatar. Whether or not you had a hand in crafting the looks, personality or backdrop to it or not, or if it's been given to you on a platter with all the interesting details missing for you to piece together through the game, does not matter if you revert to the most basic definition of Role Playing. You are still playing the role of a character in a scenario.
So tell me, what is your definition of an RPG let alone action RPG? The entire .hack series as an action RPG while FFXII is not? Have you even played the first .hack series? You went menu crunching for most of the latter battles. There's more active action in FFXII than in .hack for certain. Not as much as the GU series, but far more than the original series. That's not to mention the pace of FFXIII where you have to be constantly shifting between party configurations and setting up chains. So what if it's menu driven, it's still ridiculously real-time based and that's more of a UI design decision than anything else.
What would you consider Ar tonelico II? Yes, it's rounds based but the active component has as much of an impact as any Tales game, possibly even more because the AI in Tales is actually competent for the most part and you could afford to be terri-bad. Hell, it took me a good dozen hours before I got anywhere near competent in ToDr's AR-LMBS and the CPU can still pull off beautiful combos I cannot due to the limited skills mapping. Does something have to be completely real time? No menus necessary before it can be considered as 'action'?
The Mana/Seiken Densetsu series passes without any noise while the Zelda series does not? Pray tell what is the ground breaking paradigm difference between the two? The major difference I can see from a completely top-down objective view is that the Zelda series has a far simplified stat system and focuses more on dungeon crawling. Hell, you even give the avatar a name of your own choosing even though everyone acknowledges the avatar's proper name is 'Link'.
Would you consider Demon Souls to be an RPG? If so, why? Is it because it's in a fantasy medieval setting where you can wield swords and use magic? Is it because you have a statistic system where you can develop the capabilities of your character? If it is because of the latter, explain why then the game specifically mentions to the player that HP does not matter too much as the greater determinant on whether or not you live is based on your skill in not getting hit in the first place.
Is Steel Battalions an RPG? If you do not eject when your mech is toast, your character is D.E.A.D. Dead, totally dead, pushing up the daisies or scattered in pieces so fine you won't find enough to fill a sandwich bag, cannot use it ever again because the save data is auto-deleted for that pilot. You're clearly playing a role, and if you don't eject, you will die in that setting with irreversible consequences.
I'm terribly sorry if I come across as being incredibly abrasive and I deeply apologise in advance if I ignite a flame war, but you sir, are nit picking. You have restricted yourself to "games that work similarly to Tales/Star Ocean" without defining the classification guidelines on an RPG and I'm sorry but that is plain and simple, a ridiculous limitation of scope and will not garner any real 'grand list of action based RPGs' because you have restricted yourself to a subset.
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