I disagree. Characters in WRPG's engage one another in a more realistic way.  So how relationships develop and evolve is handled with more finesse. In JRPG's its all this melodrama between shallow archetypes. The writing is just better in a game like fallout 3 or ME2 in my opinion.

I would love to play Demon souls. As soon as I pick up a ps3 Demon Souls and Valkyria Chronicles will be purchased Immediately. I'm not a JRPG hater, I just think WRPG have been the better written games this generation.

So true

Just play Dragon Age Origins

Its plot is a mish mash of a thousand cheap fantasy novels.

I'm not talking about narrative specificity. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Fallout and Oblivion have pretty cliche story's. Its the individuals characters and their development that set WRPG's apart from JRPG's for me.

Dragon age is a great example. Look at the Arc of a character like Alistair and then compare it to a character like Hope from FFXIII. The depth of characters and the motivations for how they evolve are worlds apart. Alistair past is slowly developed and how the player chooses to engage Alistair and his struggles shape how he comes to terms with his past. His story has some depth and feels more grounded in reality. Hope listens to some bull shit corny speech and is all of a sudden he is magically changed.

Don't even get me started on Alistair, I couldn't care less if he died, I never got attached to his character or his story which wasn't done well at all. Speaking of speeches, Dragon Age tops there too

On the other hand each characters story in Mass Effect 2 was done excellently, I could get attached to them and understand them. I wonder what went wrong in Dragon Age with Bioware.

Onto Hope? I got attached to Hope and loved the way his story arc came out, and there was no corny speech that changed him in one instance, maybe you played a different game but there were many phases to Hope's development as a character. Key ones in Chapter 3, 5 and 7. Each phase was done very well and Snow's sacrifice to save him was the final jolt that made Hope change his mind.

Hopes primary motivation was crap in the first place. His anger was so obviously misplaced that the whole premise for his angst was a joke to start with. I was over stating things when I said it was one speech that was responsible for his turn around, but I disagree about the scene where Snow sacrifices him self to save Hope. I found it to be over dramatic and corny. Nothing he said was insightful, just emotional pandering.

This is just a matter of taste because clearly what we identify with in a character is so different.

@ bolded

Exactly. But still I'll tell you why I don't think Hope's motivation was "crap".

I didn't find Hope's anger to be misplaced at all.

When we are put in mentally challenging situations we tend to misplace our anger in the worst ways possible. When I saw Hope I kept in mind he was 14, and he witnessed his mothers death after seeing Snow let go of her hand. Then he gets turned into basically a terrorist and needs to accept all his friends and his homeland hate him because of a mark on his palm. In such situations I wouldn't be too shocked if his anger gets misplaced, we tend to find something to blame on someone when we are in situations like this. I've seen people do this in hardly too stressful situations in day to day life.

And the scene where Snow saves Hope is no more dramatic or corny than Alistair's past.

But like you said it all depends on what we identify as a character and if we see their motivations as realistic and practical. 

@ bolded

Exactly. But still I'll tell you why I don't think Hope's motivation was "crap".

I didn't find Hope's anger to be misplaced at all.

When we are put in mentally challenging situations we tend to misplace our anger in the worst ways possible. When I saw Hope I kept in mind he was 14, and he witnessed his mothers death after seeing Snow let go of her hand. Then he gets turned into basically a terrorist and needs to accept all his friends and his homeland hate him because of a mark on his palm. In such situations I wouldn't be too shocked if his anger gets misplaced, we tend to find something to blame on someone when we are in situations like this. I've seen people do this in hardly too stressful situations in day to day life.

And the scene where Snow saves Hope is no more dramatic or corny than Alistair's past.

But like you said it all depends on what we identify as a character and if we see their motivations as realistic and practical. 

Fair enough. I'll let you have the last say if you want it, but I just want to point one last thing out. Your description for why Hope feels the way he does makes some sense. The problem is it isn't developed that way in FFXIII. Those introspection's never take place for Hope in any meaningful way. In retrospect it makes sense, but as a author if it isn't incorporated into the story then you haven't done a good job explaining the motivations of your character.

What's funny is... WRPG's have just as many cliche's as JRPG's.

And to counter what you said, I'm gonna advise you to play Demon's Souls