I generally dislike lumping all Japanese role-playing games under the blanket term "JRPG" pseudo-genre, because it ignores the tremendous amount of diversity between each developer (the same could be said for western developers). The truth is that each developer puts their own spin on RPGs. From Atlus's SMT: Persona, to From Software's Dark Souls, to Monolith Soft's Xenoblade Chronicles, they each pull the RPG genre in different directions.
Capcom's Dragon's Dogma is probably the primary example of what you seem to want (day/night cycles, open, interactive world, etc.), which I enjoyed greatly, although I found it a bit lacking on the narrative side. Regardless, not every game needs those sorts of elements, nor does every gamer want them.
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