Who on earth said rpg ?

FF XIII was build as an rpg / action hybrid with advent children's visual approach in mind.

FF XIII was never build as a straightforward rpg.

the developers have said it; anyone who played the damn thing can see it from space and some people still yap on about how it lacked rpg elements

Well comments like this really don't help matters:

Square Enix: FFXIII influenced by Call of Duty

“We don’t look much at Western RPGs,” said Kitase. “But, for instance, we really look at Call Of Duty and other Western FPSs in terms of how to immerse the player in the moment of the action and how to portray the right movements for the supporting characters in battles – those sorts of games do this really well, and it’s something we considered with FFXIII.”

http://www.x360magazine.com/general/square-enix-ffxiii-influenced-by-call-of-duty/

That quote says nothing about the gameplay. If anything it is refering to how characters interact during battle. Does not change the fact that FF XIII is extremely Japanese and more so Japanese in style than FF XII.

I don't expect them to make a "comeback" so to speak next gen, but certainly an improvement over this gen. If porting games from the PS4/NextBox to Vita is a simple process, then I can see the JRPG genre re-gaining some ground, with the combines profits from the platforms.

Don't want to derail this too much, but you are very wrong. FF13 was made for the western audience in mind. That's been SE's mantra for this generation and it's failed them. You really don't play many JRPGs if you think it's very Japanese. Whether the game is linear or not is the most overblown thing since this game has gone out. It's a tiny aspect of every game and now every demands non-linearity because.

You are stubornly insisting on something I already explained.

 FF XIII was developed more than any FF game with the western gamer in mind since it was build around the concept of a cinematic action game.

Your point is that it is more of a jrpg than FF XII which is semi open world (and thusly more wrpg oriented) whereas XIII is linear. But you are deliberately ingoring the fact that FF XIII was not build exclusively as an rpg.

It's an action / rpg hybrid with tactical elements.

Did it ? I don't want to defend SE but as a megaten fan with no games whatsoever on the PS3 this generation, i have to admit SE is the only japanese rpg developer that stayed afloat.

I couldn't care less about them right now. The last one I bought on console was FFX. I will definitely buy FFX on Vita when it comes out, and I plan to get Ni No Kuni soon. The majority I've seen are just not interesting, and I'm not fan of the battle systems some of them have. Hopefully next gen JRPGs make a come back. I loved them on PS2 last gen.

While there may not have been as many Japanese RPGs released this past console generation relative to the previous one (to be honest, I don't really know the numbers), it did have some great games, like Demon's Souls (my personal favorite), Dark Souls, Valkyria Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles, Yakuza 3 and 4 (yes, I personally consider them RPGs), Tales of Vesperia, Ni No Kuni, Dragon Quest IX, Lost Odyssey, Persona 3 and 4, Jeanne D'Arc, and from what I've been hearing, Dragon's Dogma (I haven't played it yet). I also enjoyed Final Fantasy XIII, particularly for its battle system and Lightning as a character.

I'd say that both Soul games, as well as Dragon's Dogma, could hardly be called JRPGs - yes, they are made in Japan, but they are more of Japanese take on WRPG - even Miyazaki stated when asked about ambitions on making Demon's Soul:

"It was to express all the cool and interesting things from classic CRPG titles through the latest consoles and technologies, and to add inspiring elements achieved by the use of network technology."

(anyone who knows RPG history knows what classic CRPGs are and where are their origins)

Hopefully, more of Japanese devs will take this path and make games that are more suitable for mainstream western RPG audience, while retaining distinctive Japanese spice in them - and if those Dark Souls 2 and Deep Down trailers are any indicator, I'd say we'll be seeing a lot of that in the future.

While I agree that Souls games were partly inspired by classic CRPG titles (seeing as the Souls games are somewhat spiritual successors to King's Field, which is an old title (1994) that was never officially released outside of Japan, not including the sequels), artistically they also have a great deal of Japanese minimalism (similar to titles like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus), whereas many Western RPGs go for a more elaborate design (e.g., codices, in-game books, tons of dialogue, etc.).