Define "true RPG". Typically imagines something like Dungeons and Dragons or Final Fantasy to be a role-playing game. Adopted things like experience, parties, player choice, and quests into non-role-playing games. Muddied the water on what make a game a role-playing game over the years. Could call Donkey Kong a role-playing game, if you really want to stretch the meaning of the term. Plays the role of Mario, after all. (Would not call Donkey Kong a role-playing game, for the record.)
Has a lot of the standard hallmarks of a roleplaying game, though: assembling a party of fighters, experience, leveling up, and a fantasy world. Visits space a few times. Stops a world-ending threat here or there. What is it missing? Player choice? Finds basically none of that in games like Chrono Trigger. Remarks on a lot of Japanese role-playing games tending to be more linear.
Suspects the person thinking this to be thinking of western role-playing games as "true RPGs". Is just a guess, though.