What do you mean grindy? Like a need to play lots of games and kill lots of enemies just to level up?
I would go so far as to say that I think ALL RPGs should contain RPG elements. They are THAT important.
Grinding is having to do lots of things which don't directly influence the game, just increase your characters strength. If you need to spend an hour just killing ladybugs in order to finally be strong enough to kill the tarantula, there is a balance issue. It also envelops being able to kill 1000 ladybugs in the same or just slightly longer time as the tarantula, and get the same score as the person who is advancing through the game. Standing still and eliminating weak enemies is not fun, and if the reward is the same as killing the stronger enemies, why would someone want to progress. So - to summarize - Include RPG elements in a game that is well balanced and can't be unbalanced by spending lots of time in one area and become uberpowerful making the rest of the game too easy. Include a scoring system with automatic upgrades after killing a boss (or a choice of upgrades) in all other cases.
