It really depends. There are some exceptions.

Which had games with the better setting?

Toss-up. This is likely the only thing Bethesda actually does well, but everyone does this one. Even the love-to-hate FF XIII had a solid setting if you ignore how it was presented in the story. An excellent setting is a bare-bones requirement of a good RPG.Everyone does this one well.

Which had games with the better music?

JRPGs. WRPGs are more inclined to treat music as wallpaper hangers. Not saying this is a hard and fast rule, but by and large JRPGs will skimp a bit on graphics and put the difference in music, while WRPGs will do the reverse.

Which had games with better game design (How the game works)?

JRPGs. With a few exceptions, WRPGs tend to cram things in like choice. Things on the cutting edge of game design which they aren't really ready for. The result is that WRPGs tend to be somewhat clunkier than JRPGs.

Which had games with the better combat gameplay?

WRPGs. Really, the problem with the JRPG is that very few of them have gotten past the random encounter. Combat and regular gameplay should be as seamless as possible. WRPGs tend to get this much better than JRPGs.

Which had games with the better story?

JRPGs. Again, with a few exceptions JRPGs are ABOUT telling a story, while WRPGs tend to be much more mechanical sandbox in nature...which doesn't lend itself well to traditional pacing or three-act structures.

JRPGs.. I really don't like WPRGs for the most part.

Ka-pi96 said: daredevil.shark said: Which had games with the better setting? WRPG. WRPG makers have imagination. But JRPG makers are stuck in a certain point in 1997. If only that were true. Unfortunately it isn't In 1997 JPRGs were actually good, now in their attempts to 'westernise' them devs have made them all crap.

Sad, but true. Only the Souls games have hit that sweet-spot middle-ground. Other than that, there's terrible game design on both sides...it's just Bethesda's been bad game design since day 1, Bioware is too enamored with companions and romancing to think about much else, and Square Enix has turned left and jumped off a cliff.

Never said: I'll opt for jrpgs. I used to be more about western ones but I'm getting a bit jaded by them. A lot of grinding and repetitive combat... Something I used to accuse JRPGs of. Many like elder scrolls seem to opt for quantity over quality and that no longer impresses me like it used to. Obviously both are big genres and there are many games but typically I expect JRPG's have better stories, gameplay and game design. Both are frequently contaminated with too much grinding and boring gameplay. If I had to give favourite RPG right now (ignoring nostalgia goggles) I might actually opt for fire emblem: awakened. I'm feeling a little jaded by both western and Japanese rpg's right now, to be honest.

@bolded: it depends on devs, if they're lazy, all that grinding will look extraneous to the game, if they put some more efforts into main and subplots, they can make it look as a necessary character growth to front a very powerful evil, or, in free roaming games, naturally blend it in the exploration of a vast world, or even both things, if they tie some of the subquests to the main one. But it needs work by authors and devs, so more resources. I find that, for example, Morrowind partially succeeds at this, some subquests are well tied to the plot, others, despite not connected at all with the main plot, blend well in the exploration, but many smaller ones are just like you say, they're simply thrown in: Morrowind has quite a vast world for a game, but' it's still a small island, maybe between ~10 and ~20km² (it's difficult to exactly calculate how vast it is, the best way I could devise is to try and roughly determine the size of Vivec City buildings and use them as a scale on the map, far from accurate), it looks quite unnatural to find an infested cave or ruin almost each time you turn around a corner and it makes a lot of them look just added for quantity. Anyway it's not a strict rule that ties world size and the number of quests it can contain, even games with more crammed worlds, like Gothic I and II, can look like all those quests, or almost, are better integrated in the game than Morrowind.

WRPG all the way.

JRPGs, I don't like WRPGs at all.

JRPG has more potential

Its evolution of WRPG afterall

Which had games with the better setting?
JRPGs. Or at least from what I've seen, have more variety. You have medieval, steampunk, space themed, high school based, modern, semi-modern with futuristic/past elements, post-apocalyptic, apocalyptic, and a lot more that I can't recall off the top of my head.

Which had games with the better music?
JRPGs. You have people like Nobuo Uematsu and Koichi Sugiyama backing JRPGs which makes the choice clear XD plus I've noticed JRPGs aren't afraid to use different genres of music whereas WRPGs play it safe.

Which had games with better game design (How the game works)?
JRPGs. JRPGs are one of the most influential parts of modern gaming including things such as parties (FF1) to marriage (Dragon Quest V). Many have engineered what exists as the norm today in RPGs in general.

Which had games with the better combat gameplay?
It's a tie. They both have very very varied types of gameplay. You can stereotype JRPG as just turn based/random encounter or WRPG as action/seeing encounters; however they're both a bit consistently different enough to make it clear who has a "superior" system. However I prefer turn based.

Which had games with the better story?
JRPGs. You have games like FF6, FF7, DQ6/8, Persona 3/4, Xenosblade, Tales of, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Valkyria Chronicles, Star Ocean, Pokemon (jk XD), Kingdom Hearts, Growlanser: WoT, Xenosaga, and many more with a lot of the mentioned games argued to be the best games of all time more than once -time and again. And they're only the tip of the iceberg.

Which had games with the better setting?
Usually JRPGs, they have more imagination and combine more elements than just having a medieval foresty setting, pure sci-fi setting, realistic setting or post apocalyptic setting. They have combined all of those settings together sometimes with an additional modern flavor as well.

Which had games with the better music?
JRPGS by FAR. Music is so much in their favor that the distance is intimidating.

Which had games with better game design (How the game works)?
About half-half. Depends on if you prefer consistency or surprises. Also looting vs usefulness of items. WRPGS love their looting, but likewise maybe fewer choices of items is up your ally because they have much more value in decision making. It's exciting to get more items, but too much of anything can be tiring after a while. Some people don't get tired of this and some do. 50/50

Which had games with the better combat gameplay?
About 50/50 again. Turn based gameplay or purely selection based decision gameplay is as RPG as you can get. WRPGs combine both action and RPG mechanics for the most part, but many of them can be beaten easily with action mechanics. JRPGs usually rely on turn-based mechanics. JRPGs are simpler so they fall in line with more correlated RPG gameplay. Although even action JRPGs have some simpler mechanics as well. WRPGs excel more at action RPGs, but JRPGs excel more at traditionally pure RPGs.

Which had games with the better story?
Personally, with the exception of maybe DE:HR, JRPGs by far. WRPGs have more logical and consistent dialogue, but "Dialogue alone a good story cannot make". JRPG narrative is so much more compelling. JRPGs have so much more interesting places and events. Not only that, JRPGs take bigger risks in story design making them far more memorable and specific. The first time through, WRPG stories may seem better, but after you know everything that happens in any story, the atmospheric qualities become story essentials for replays. That's the reason I said DE:HR is an exception.

Setting: JRPG

 

Music: JRPG

 

Design: Well I have only played JRPGS, but from what I can tell WRPGs are more gameplay focused.

 

Combat: Same as design, I am in the middle

 

Story: JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG JRPG