I recall being surprised back when i did a post analyzing my game collection when it hit 100 games a few years ago to find out that RPG was the second-biggest genre in my collection, but composed entirely of RPGs of Japanese origin (Phantasy Star Online, Pokemon, Xenoblade, The Last Story, a Final Fantasy or two). Until this year, only one Western-developed RPG in my entire repertoire: Sonic Chronicles, developed by BioWare.

Now, the broken promises of Sonic Chronicles are readily apparent, first in their horrible efforts to remake classic Sonic music, and second for the fact that half the story had jack-all to do with Sonic (the part where they left for outer space. It seemed like the C-team placed on Sonic Chronicles was jealous that they couldn't do Mass Effect, so they decided to do Mass Effect anyway, making it seem very nonsensical).

(who is the guy in the bottom pic and what is he doing in my Sonic game?)

So it was at some point in the past that, in a VGChartz thread about BioWare, i ended up dissing them for Sonic Chronicles, drawing the attention of one Khuutra, who, years later, resolved to make me get a Steam account and foist a gift copy of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on me, to see something of why BioWare is as respected as they are.

Pictured: Khuutra. Horns may not be to scale.

This leads into my story, which relates to how out-of-sorts i felt in the environment of a WRPG

1) Different terminology. I had no idea what the hell "fortitude" or "will" meant, and so a lot of the perks of different moves, armors, and sundry enhancements had no bearing on me, leading to me often bearing poorly-optimized equipment

DC 10? WTF is that?!?

2) Much higher expectations on me to take more initiative

It has long been said that the appeal of KOTOR was in its strong characterizations, similar to the strength of later BioWare work Mass Effect, and the best way to enjoy the game was by talking to other characters, similar to Fire Emblem's "support" system, or Xenoblade's "Heart to Hearts," both of which i often went well out of my way to pursue. In KOTOR, you figure it would be even easier. The characters are there, right? Just talk to them. Well, the question is "when can i talk to them?" Here, in an effort to make myself look less stupid, i would blame KOTOR for not telling me when new conversations were availbale, and further condemn BioWare for deceiving me about it by deliberately prompting me to talk to characters the first time a conversation was available. But that's not really an excuse, is it?

I never even knew they were in love...

3) I thought the game was smart enough to take care of my character for me.

This one came around when i started to have wicked severe difficulties on Korriban, trying to kill stuff. I sat down with Khuutra and discussed my progress, to which he naturally asked what build i had been going with for my character. When i described that i had been going "Recommended" every single time i leveled up, letting the game pick what (I assumed) was the best move for my character to get in my situation, he exploded.

disclaimer: Khuutra may not actually be Twilight Sparkle

Claiming that the game was giving me very poor choices for my chosen class the whole time, so i had to mod my save file to salvage the poor-decision making that the game I made. Again, not really something i had to deal with before in an RPG, where the games usually give you moves appropriate to your class on demand.

4) Mechanics? What Mechanics? (also glitches)

I found that the gameplay of KOTOR was sub-par, even as the game itself was enjoyable due to strong characterization (which would have been stronger had i known what the hell i was doing) and solid world-building, with combat being very clunky, such as targeting being very wonky when faced with large numbers of enemies, or the game having poor direction for automatic movement. Or the ill-advised decision of having your entire combat queue get cleared if you so much as move.

Or, hell, just look here for more. Problem after problem. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/archive/index.php/f-707-p-2.html

Some recommended reading for the team that made KOTOR

In all, the experience has finally shown me what they mean when they talk about how different the WRPG and JRPG genres are. WRPGs expect the user to take a much bigger hand in how they approach the game, moreso than even some more customization-heavy series (Monster Hunter and Pokemon were some of my favorites, for instance). The mechanics of D&D-styled RPG gameplay are also heavily different than the JRPG standard, and the game really doesn't seem to sweat the small stuff when it comes to making sure combat is a smooth or seamless experience.

So now i know. And knowing is... something...

KOTOR has not aged well TBH, and was always mechanically sub par.

Now go to www.spiderwebsoftware.com play a real WRPG, they have good demos. *and report back so I can read another post like the OP, but with a game that really lets you screw up*

The thing is that in the D&D tradition of RPGs, each class has enormous specialization potential, and enough options that it's impossible to have a generalized "ultimate build".

For the sake of comparison, I'll talk about Dragon Age for a second. My character is a Warrior. Warriors in Dragon Age are, by nature, physical combatants. That is pretty much all they do. However, each warrior can have very different specializations. Broadly considered, a Warrior can fight with a sword and shield, with two weapons, or with one big-ass weapon.

My warrior uses single weapons meant to be used with both hands. Within this you can spec for mass damage, for crowd control, or for debuffing/damage absorption. And more, besides.

You also get specialization classes; right now my character is specialized as a Berserker, which gives you big bonuses to damage and health regeneration, and later I'll probably take Reaver to make me more self-sustaining, but I could also take the anti-magic Templar or something else I forget.

It would be impossible for the game to intelligently give me a well-optimized build to match my playstyle, because predicting that would be based on nothing.

Consulars in KotOR are much the same; will you be a buffer? A debuffer? Healer? Crowd control? Damage dealer? It would not be reasonable to think the game could pick that for you; you only have so many force power slots and dozens of power levels you can choose.

I am very sorry I didn't tell you to go and talk to your party members all the time, you missed out on what was maybe the best part of the game

for shame man for shaaame 

Kotor is a borderline bad game, if you don't don't talk to your party members all the time XD, etc.
It's mechanically inferior to baulder's gate, neverwinter nights, and Dragon Age. Or almost any wrpg that plays similarly.

But, being star wars makes it awesome! for me particularly the 2nd one.

But, the WRPG genre seems a bit wider, so the comparison isn't completely valid, for instance, Deus Ex, Elder Scrolls, The WItcher are all way different mechanically.

For some reason most people wouldn't consider Demon Soul's or Valkryia Chronicles a JRPG... Despite being no more different from eachother than Deus Ex, Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, and the Kotor Style being considered a WRPG.

Tagged

Only reasn why I don't care much for most "WRPG" is because they have very poor gameplay mechanics. Like talking to people, customization, exploration are all good, but combat systems normally suffer from lack of strategy and enjoyment, but that's the core of the game...

WRPG's are generally more buggy, but make up for it with open-endness.

JRPG's are very tight on bugs but also tend to throw you in very linear paths you cant derive from. From a testing point of view, the JRPG is alot easier to optimise.

Early in the game, they would say something like "You still don't know a lot about Zalbaar, you should talk to him." So i would, and get through the conversation. Now, talking to him immediately after that would simply generate the same conversation, so i assumed the game would tell me when the next conversation was available, similar to how support convos of Fire Emblem or Heart to Hearts of Xenoblade worked, where there was a very clear system telling you how far you had advanced your conversations and whether or not a new convo was available.

It was about Korriban or so that i figured out the game was never going to tell me...

Oh, so these folks put their lives on hold and risk everything to help you, some no-name not-even-a-Jedi-yet stranger, and you don't even bother to swap notes with them after they've infiltrated a Sith training academy on your behalf, or discovered the ancient secret of the Wookie homeworld.

Nice.