Tangled Tales/Gameplay

Genre
and are somewhat similar. Both genres can be defined by three characteristics, and all apply to Tangled Tales.
 * 1) Text rich
 * 2) Freedom of exploration and backtracking
 * 3) The third characteristic is different:
 * 4) * Adventure games have a focus on inventory puzzles.
 * 5) * Role-playing games have a focus on permanent upgrades of the characters. Tangled Tales is weak in this last mechanic.

Similar games
The closest game to Tangled Tales is obviously its predecessor, Realms of Darkness. That game has both stronger role-playing and stronger text adventure credentials: the player creates and controls a party of characters belonging to 8 different professions (classes), and interaction with puzzles is done through a text parser.

Two other adventure games tied to and to the  series are The Quest and its sequel Ring Quest.

Another adventure game where the main character is a young wizard who learns spells during his quest is Magician, a NES game developed in the United Kingdom.