I think BioWare has evolved the story telling aspect of the rpg genre more then anything else. The quality of the writing and the voice acting in ME is amazing. Providing voice acting for every dialogue options was huge, and having you choose a emotional response rather then a scripted response was a nice touch. On top of that the presentation was solid, every interaction was shot from a number of angles as opposed to a game like Oblivion where you stare in to some npcs vacant face during every conversation. I think BioWare handles chooses well, but when every you put the decision making in the players hands you lose something in the narrative although you gain some immersive quality's.
I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with jrpgs linear style of story telling. My big problem with jrpgs this generation has simply been a lack of interesting story's, Lost Odyssey being a notable exception. Western rpgs have just done a better job telling compelling story's this generation. A great narrative, characters, and environments are what draw me to these type of games more then the game play. I think western rpgs have done a better job with game play by mixing action and turn based elements, but if the story is good enough in a rpg I have no problem playing a simple turn based system. Lost Odyssey is great example of this. If Jrpgs could create more interesting adventures that are a little more adult, Lost Odyssey I'm looking at you again, I believe they could recapture a large portion of gamers who have moved on to wrpgs since the last generation.
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