Define "RPG elements". 
  
I'm pretty sure "role-playing" could be an essential part of the experience, and when you're role-playing as a hero out on adventures with people s-/he potentially grows close with... Yeah. 
  
And, really, visual novels--in my limited experience--tend to be fairly stripped-down RPGs, mechanically, so it's not like those mechanics have no place in an RPG. 
 
  
Thank you, captain obvious.