Adventure Games Aren't Really Adventure Games

I don't really like adventure games for two reasons. One, they're mostly boring B+ (at best) grade stories with no real gameplay, which doesn't make for a great game. Two, they stole the genre, adventure, from the type of games that I love, games like the Legend of Zelda games.

The games I love the most, games like Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, Hyper Light Drifter, Dragon's Dogma, games that really present you with a grand adventure, don't have a clear term to describe their genre while point-and-click games are parading around under the guise that there's any sort of "adventure" happening in them (there isn't).

I'm definitely making an issue of something from nothing here because we get on fine calling Telltale games and Myst clones adventure games while anything with a sword in it that is difficult is called the "Dark Souls of [sub-category/series of games]" but I'm pissed. I think that we're actually really suffering from the English language's lack of a descriptive word for this genre of games from which I'm saying adventure games stole the term "adventure."

What I'm saying is: with this lack of a good word for the genre of games that Zelda games fall into, we're like a person who isn't color blind, but knows no words to describe color. We can perceive how these games are different from other games, but we can't easily talk about it or even easily group them all in the same category because... well what is that category? What's its name?

Obviously, action-adventure immediately is the reasonable answer, but that category is bullshit. Action-adventure describes probably way more than half of all games ever released. And just action has its own problems. Why is it that when we say a game is an action game we mean it's a clone of Devil May Cry or God of War? Because English is a language for crazy people that has no rules.

Once again I've got not real answers here, just thoughts. I think that the unnamed genre of games I've been talking about should reclaim the term "adventure" from point-and-click games and all the crap that shows up when you search Steam for games with the tag, adventure. Whatever though, I'm gonna stop writing about these games and go ahead and actually play them. Have you ever played Dragon's Dogma? You should, it's good. Here's a trailer for it: