Mass Effect isn`t any less of a RPG just because it has Gears of War-esque combat (apparently Valkyria Chronicles also has Gears of War-like combat. Mixed in with the SRPG template). Mass Effect has a great emphasis on role-playing (dialogue trees, choosing to act in good faith, choosing to be a evil dick, choosing to be diplomatic and adhering to the status quo, choosing to be a renegade, etc.) for a CRPG. Final Fantasy 4 on up pretty much has zero role-playing. Just because jrpgs are considered rpgs doesn`t mean that they contain much in the way of role-playing (well SOME do. ie. Shin Megami Tensei but the vast majority don`t). They are called rpgs because their origin lies with Wizardry and other early western dungeon crawlers. These games were considered rpgs because they borrowed table-top rpg mechanics (levels, experience, turn-based combat, die rolls, character classes and character sheets, hit points and other statistics, etc). They had little in the way of roleplaying though.

It`s not necessarily bad if a game doesn`t have roleplaying though. Diablo, Torchlight and other similar games have minimal roleplaying (moreso than most jrpgs because your avatar is basically you. You`re not there basically watching a cutscene with your avatar doing all the talking for theirself) All the roleplaying in Mass Effect isn`t going to do much for the fact that I don`t like the combat in that game. If Mass Effect was like Planescape Torment, where you could theoretically only fight a few times the entire game apparently, that wouldn`t bother me. But nope, you can`t do that.

I`d go as far as saying there is more roleplaying in sports games like UFC 2009 Undisputed and NHL 10 than jrpgs like Final Fantasy IV to XIII (minus XI since that had a bit of roleplaying). You create an avatar in career mode or Be a Pro and basically assume their role, leveling up their stats to boot. You don`t see your avatar in these games going to a cutscene whining up a big emo monologue about how they are afraid to get hurt so they push everyone away. Obviously you don`t have dialogue trees like, `fuck the ring girl yes or no` but theres certaintly more roleplaying in than than a standard jrpg like FF7 because you are that character just like you are Commander Sheppard or the Nameless One. But you aren`t Cloud or Lightning. They are completely divorced from the end-user. Sure you get to control them in combat and exploration but the same can be said for Bayonetta, Nathan Drake, Master Chief, etc. And obviously Bayonetta, Uncharted and Halo aren`t role-playing games.

I really liked The Last Remnant for the side quests, the battle system, the characters, and the overall sheer amount of things to do. It is a very hard game. But really fun.

Huh, I made the point a while back saying FF13 wasn't an RPG because the game was going to be so linear.
Then when I played ME2, even though it is definetely non-linear, I decided it was a TPS because it didn't have the arbitrary leveling up and skill trees most RPG's have.

But in actually, ME is more of an RPG than most RPG's, due to the player decision making.
In This day and age though, I think the RPG genre is dead. There are only Role Playing Elements in games now.

Most JRPG's are story driven turn based strategy games with RPG elements in their inventory systems. People need to face the facts: the only RPG part of these games is the inventory system, where you get to customize your people that way.

In WRPG's, like the bioware or Bethesda games, you actually are involved in the story. Not lightning, or sora or whatever from JRPG fame. You play pre-set characters whose path is already decided in their games.

Not all so called JRPG's are like that though. But in my experience, most are. It's a fundamental difference. Between the definition of "RPG". With one having the more correct interpretation than the other.

@ Silicon: Demon's Souls is more a wrpg by aesthetics only, it has more in common with Zelda (battle mechanics, being an action rpg, dungeon crawling) than anything that can purely be patented as a western influence. There is a type of morality system with white/black world/character tendency, but unlike the Bethesda/Bioware games I've played, DS' system is actually dynamic and has dramatic effects on it's worlds.