I'm pretty much in the same opinion with Profcrab. Coming from a 20year background in RPG(Pen and Paper) there is a distinct difference.
I tend not to classify JRPGS and RPGs at all. As listed above for whatever reasons. What I do like about JRPGs is that they are sit back relax and enjoy the story. I've managed to assoictate with some of the major chatacters. I find that some WRPGS like Fallout to be better RPGs and closer to an actualy RPG than others, but I don't always enjoy them enough to finish. I don't assosiate with many WRPG characters. Though love Fallout I really don't care about Vault 13 or the Vault Dweller. I did associate with some of the KoToR characters though.
To me JRPGs are like candy. Game play is typicly shallow, but not always. WRPGs good ones provide me more depth and enjoyment. Though I love WEWY and put that as one of my top CRPG games, though still linear. So a good game is good regardless, just valyue different merits. Neither is better.
As a slightly branch of the topic. D&D came from a war game and the original D&D played much like a wargame, had stats associated like wargaming. The approach of played only differed in that multiple players only played 1 character each and generally played with miniatures. This does not nesicaryly make D&D a roleplaying game. What made D&D a roleplaying game were the people who decided to add charactersization and social interaction. Purpose outside of the combat and dungeons. If you were unfortunate to have a shitty GM that didn't bother with social interaction then I'm sorry for your misfortune, but you didn't play and RPG. You played a tactical game.
Squilliam: On Vgcharts its a commonly accepted practice to twist the bounds of plausibility in order to support your argument or agenda so I think its pretty cool that this gives me the precedent to say whatever I damn well please.
