I have to say, the main reason for the "bias" is that these JRPGs don't exist in a vacuum.
When FFVIII had stilted characters, bad dialog, a cheesy story line and a horrid main character ("I'm a lone wolf I can't let anyone in..."...give me a break) it was OK because what was the alternative? Pools of Radiance?
I mean there were a few western RPG gems but they were almost all on the PC and REALLY required a commitment to understanding the very complex rules of systems like 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons. There just were no good mainline Western RPG games on the scale of Final Fantasy.
That is no longer the case. After games like Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout and Oblivion showed what could be done with a game, the old good enough rules don't apply.
Once you have truly human characters like Alister or Morigan from Dragon age in games weird annoying characters like the kid in Star Ocean 4 just don't cut it. Once you have evidence of how much choice adds to a game just linearly going from objective to objective with stilted dialog and no real connection to your main character doesn't cut it.
Look at the review, battles are super easy or frustratingly hard, sounds like most JRPGs (either easy and boring normal enemy fights and crazy annoying boss fights, a staple).
Next we have horrid voice acting and really stupid dialog again (why can't they just hire a western writer just once so we can get something that makes at least a little sense, and maybe no characters that haven't gone through puberty for once).
Finally a "new innovative battle system" that works on gimmics and doesn't really translate well across easy vs hard fights. How hard is it to make games that play well in all situations like Mass Effect or Dragon age or Jade Empire?
One thing JRPGs REALLY need to learn is scaling fights to the player so that it is always interesting. If you power level in Mass Effect or Oblivion suddenly when you go to a dungeon instead of running into a few weak enemies (as you would at low level) its suddenly you vs a horde or a big ass super tough enemy to make sure you remain challenged.
In short I used to love JRPGs. I beat Dragon Warrior when I was 6 back in 1989 and have been playing JRPGs ever since. I bought a PS1 just for FFVII and have played more or less every JRPG not on the Saturn (never bought one) including the weird ones like ephemeral Phantasia and Magna Carta.
More and more I realize I just liked JRPGs because there weren't many good competing choices, its not just a slight difference between Final Fantasy 13 and Mass Effect 2, its night and day. Besides the graphics the dialog, gameplay, story and characters are just so much better in Bioware games then Square games its kind of ridiculous.
It's not that JRPGs are worse, its that the scale has shifted from something like Dragon Warrior being the baseline to really good Bioware being the baseline by which RPGs are judged. Compared to games like Dragon Age games like Star Ocean just seem dated and lame. I still play JRPGs, but only when I've finished all the major WRPGs first these days.
I would bet RoF deserved what it got, just like FFXIII totally deserved 7s and 8s after I've played through most of it. If you want a 9-9.5 RPG try Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2 or Fallout 3.
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