We study the restricted solid-on-solid (RSOS) model with finite hopping distance l(0), using both analytical and numerical methods. Analytically, we use the hard-core bosonic field theory developed by the authors [Phys. Rev. E 62, 7642 (2000)] and derive the Villain-Lai-Das Sarma (VLD) equation for the l(0)=infinity case, which corresponds to the conserved RSOS (CRSOS) model and the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation for all finite values of l(0). Consequently, we find that the CRSOS model belongs to the VLD universality class and that the RSOS models with any finite hopping distance belong to the KPZ universality class. There is no phase transition at a certain finite hopping distance contrary to the previous result. We confirm the analytic results using the Monte Carlo simulations for several values of the finite hopping distance.