I first started playing Japanese role-playing games during the SNES era. Titles like Secret of Mana, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, and Final Fantasy VI (III as it was known where I lived) were some of my favorite games of the genre at the time. I did play some Japanese role-playing games earlier during the NES era, but I think I was too young too appreciate them, like Dragon Warrior (still have the cartridge, lol) or the first Final Fantasy.
Since then I've played various other franchises like Grandia, Suikoden, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Star Ocean, Arc the Lad, Skies of Arcadia, and so on (far too much to keep track of), so I consider myself a fan of the genre.
As for recent titles in the past generation, I've enjoyed Lost Odyssey, Valkyria Chronices, Xenoblade Chronicles, Demon's Souls/Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma, the Tales games, Resonance of Fate, Nier, Final Fantasy XIII, and I'm sure I'm forgetting several others, and have enjoyed them all to certain degrees. I personally don't see a huge decline in the genre, but I do feel that many of the developers in Japan have shifted to handheld development for a variety of reasons (install base, poor economy, etc.), and for console-only gamers, it may seem like there have been fewer RPGs, but for people with a PSP and DS, there have been a ton of games.
I also think that Western RPG developers are a bit more in-tune with western consumers, and as those developers moved from PC to consoles in the past couple of generations, we've probably seen a lot of RPG gamers gravitate towards that direction. I personally enjoy RPGs from different regions and developers, because hey, variety is the spice of life.
