I think it depends, if you call JRPG a genre or not.
If JRPG is a genre, then No it is not.
If JRPG is not a genre then yes, but then, the meaning is lost, beyond being Japanese made, it becomes irrelevant to even point out.
If JRPG is a subgenre of Roleplaying games then: Elden Ring is more a wrpg, because the design philosophy of the game is rather closer to the western ones.
The design philosophy:
1- Western: Create your own character or control a predefined one which you can alter in personality and progression, shape your own story with your choices, the main focus behind the game is the worldbuilding and YOU the player, focus on immersion and side content. As you level you put skill points in your stat and create your own build which can change and dictate how you play your game, your actions on the side quests and the world can change the game, more freedom for the player to become what they want and more options to solve encounters, main stories are usually just there among many other things. Can be party system based as well but the same rules apply.
2- Japanese: You control a main character with option of controlling party members, the characters are set in stone and you just live through THEIR stories, you can sometimes decide their fate in a very straightforward simplistic choice, the focus is on the main story adventure and on the characters surrounding it, usually but not always has anime aesthetics, limited freedom the main things you focus on is the main campaign and grinding through combat encounters to finish side content.
As you can see there are holes in these definitions, because as time evolved the genres extended further and made things harder to define like that, there is overlap here and there, not just between these 2 styles but also between them and other genres.
So in this case i would lean toward Elden Ring being more western than japanese, although its not really any of them, but its closer to the western style which probably based on what i heard King's Field took inspiration from, which also draws back to Ultima Underworld?
So, if we are talking genres and you call Elden Ring JRPG then you are probably wrong.
If JRPG is not a genre then it becomes simple.
RPG and Action RPG
The distinction is simple, action rpg allows the player to play in real time combat and the player skill and reactions play a big deal in overcoming encounters. In RPG the stat check plays a big deal instead.
You can even detail it further, you can call it Turn based RPG, Tactical RPG, Action RPG, Open World RPG.
In this case Chain Echoes becomes a WRPG, because it was made in the western part of the world, (i feel dumb calling things western and eastern but it is what it is lol) and yes Elden Ring becomes a JRPG.
And then you have one final option and its to call them all, RPG, role playing games. Period.
To conclude, it depends on how we are looking at it, i personally use Action RPG and RPG terms, but even that is a bit foggy because games like New Vegas made such a perfect transition from CRPGs to Open World 3D RPGs that its hard to call it ARPG, in this case probably its just a RPG although it plays in action, lol.
This shit needs a college degree fr fr
Anyway, there is only but one truth.
Elden Ring is a Role Playing game, and its one of the games of all time.
