I find WRPGs and to be boring realism and vegetation simulators with no direction.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Borderlands and Fallout 3 and stuff like that, but I don't listen to their soundtracks and spend hours replaying cut scenes on Youtube a year later like I do with games like Xenoblade Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, etc. The music and emotion in these games is like Shakespeare by comparison while WRPGs feel like cookie cutter hack and slash FPS games with swords and inventory tacked on because apparently all western developers can make anymore are FPS games.
To me story and presentation of that story is king. I want an engaging suspenseful and tragic story full of soul shaking revelations and plot twists that make me hold my breath, skip a heart beat, and music that will still give me goosebumps years later. If I get teary at least once, it's on my A list.
WRPGs just dont have that.
And I'm more into the Neverending Story and Final Fantasy/Tales/Breath of Fire/Lunar/Secret of Mana type magical fantasy with air ships and colorful creatures and glowing plants and just... vibrant enchanting worlds. I'm not into the hyper realistic olive drab and brown middle ages, witchcraft, dragon slaying and Gladiator and D&D type stuff that WRPGS seem focused on. I think WRPG and I just think wearing chain mail and fighting nothing but dragons and skeletons in catacombs and no real edge of your seat story and dry or no character development. I want to ride around on fluffy white Flamie dragons, discover moogles, and adventure through hidden sacred realms and floating magical fortresses and wear adamantie armor and wield crystal swords.
Not hack my way through 1000 skeletons and slay dragons with a rusty battle axe and chain mail in a photo "realistic" medieval setting.
I WANT my linear 100+ hour story, but do NOT confuse a linear novel like story with linear gameplay, they are NOT the same thing. Linear story narrative does not mean you have to have a linear world and game play built out of hallways and using one button spam. Old school JRPGs were always linear story and open world. You'd leave town free to go mostly anywhere on the overworld map before continuing to your destination to advance the story, minus the cliche "the bridge is broken right now" type funneling. But to create that edge of your seat JRPG addiction you necessarily MUST have a story being told and play as a main character who participates in the story emotionally. Compare Shulk in Xenoblade or Oliver in Ni no Kuni vs your character which is so non existant I don't even know if he/she had a name.
And on that note, generally a game will have a good story if the character names and characters themselves are fixed, as they are in any good movie or novel while a game that opens up with a character creation screen is going to be pretty bland. Everyone likes to praise open world this and make your character as you see fit and do whatever you want gameplay, but how many of those people enjoy reading 1000 page novels with blank pages?
I define role playing as playing a role, eg taking over from the point of view of someone who is already well defined and established. I don't want to create and play as myself or some blank template avatar that I can customize and who never talks in the game, I want to escape into a fantasy world where I play through the eyes of a main character who has his/her own life, story, problems, etc.
I want to be Shulk, or Cecil, or Oliver, or Stocke and be dumped into the middle of THEIR world. Not some nameless voiceless "wanderer" or nameless avatar that's supposed to be "me".
JRPGs all the way. Give me Final Fantasy 4 and 6, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Xenoblade Chronicles, Ni no Kuni, Tales of*, Breath of Fire, Illusion of Gaia, Secret of Mana, Lunar, Kingdom Hearts, Wild Arms, Star Ocean, Skies of Arcadia, Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky, etc any day over fawking Oblivion or Fable.
