Historically, people have been reticent for some reason to call it an Action/RPG, preferring to call it Action/Adventure instead, and IIRC the crux of the argument was usually "Link does not gain experience points or level-up, ergo it's not a full RPG."

It's a silly argument, IMO, but at the time "RPG" in everyone's minds meant either JRPG (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest) or PC RPG (Baldur's Gate, etc).