No, the reason many older JRPGs are better than the ones we see today is due to the two most ACTUAL important characteristics of JRPGs: Gameplay and Characters.
When it comes to gameplay, many of the older JRPGs are just amazing. Instead of introducing weird new gimmicks and trying out wonky battle systems, they modified their existing systems and innovated slightly. I'm sure many JRPG fans remember the fun of playing the Final Fantasy games on the Playstation 1. Things were a lot simpler then. Now, developers always try to add weird new battle systems and components that JUST DON'T WORK. Or they go the other route and dumb it down way too much. I won't mention any examples, since someone will get pissed off at me.
But another aspects where modern JRPGs have totally failed is the characters. In past JRPGs, each character was unique in the way they fought. Just look at Final Fantasy 9. Every character had their own uses (Vivi was the black magic type, Steiner was the melee type, Zidane was a thief, etc.), and they were all really useful. None of the characters were terrible or had bad stats or were outright useless. And even in the games where there were characters like this, they made up for them with characters that we actually cared about. How many great JRPG characters can we think about from this generation? There are more great characters in Final Fantasy 6 alone than in all of the JRPGs this generation combined. Most gamers you ask could tell you all about Cloud, Sephiroth, and Squall. How many gamers could tell you about Kaim, Shu, or whoever the hell is in Star Ocean 4? You could mention Yuri, but so few people have played Tales of Vesperia that he's completely insignificant (and even then, he's one diamond in a mound of dirt).
As I mentioned before, the two things that set JRPGs apart are the gameplay mechanics (mainly the battle system) and the characters. Developers have consistently tried to change RPG battle systems when they didn't need any change. Why does Square-Enix continue to try to make the series more western when it was most popular with a turn based battle system? And characters are an important aspect too. Many people play JRPGs because they want deep, interesting characters they can connect too. When you play a WRPG, you have nothing of the sort. Maybe you can customize your characters (I tried to make my character look like Fonzie in Oblivion, and Mass Effect, and Fable 2...), but they pretty much do whatever you want them to do and have no personality. The great JRPGs have always been known for their great characters. This hasn't changed.
And for those who read all of this, let me know your thoughts.
