You should try other J-RPGs than FF =)

I haven't played much WRPGS, so my vote goes to JRPGS, which are my favorite type of games.

Wether you like them or not is just your taste, but saying Gust NIS or SMT tries to over-westernized their games is far from legit IMO

I actually have a hard time thinking of any company producing westernized J-RPGs other than square.

It baffles me. How are Final Fantasy games westernized? Their stories are almost generically Japanese anime-like, their character-models are certain so, and their game-play is very linear. Now FFXV looks to be somewhat westernized, but in all the ways that would make the game better.

The fact that most classic JRPGs suffer from horrible, fucking despicable random/forced battles and require a ungodly amount of grinding, makes WRPGs win easily.






But ARPGs are still better. lol *Runs away*

If only you had taken this sites demographic into account ...

You didn't like Xenoblade Chronicles then?

WRPG fans would likely be on a more PC-gamer dominated site, so yeah JRPG fans being the majority here is no surprise.

You talk about 1997 like its a bad thing. There was way more variety back then, there is nothing to be glad about. Todays WRPG's are all reality based. They lack in creativity. Look at the elder scrolls, the witcher and dragon age. They all look alike.

Had to comment on that. And now onwards to my post.

I actually thought about this recently as i played Dragon age inquisition. I like WRPGs for the most part but the worlds look so generic and out of the real world with a minir twist like magic. 

When i play something like Xenoblade now and many other JRPG's in the past i see sights that i couldnt see in this world. That really brings fulfillment to me. The areas like the one on top of the bionis with that big city, the snowy area that glows at night, the areas at the end of the game wich i wont mention. Everything so original and out of the box.

So, i find myself getting more excited to play Xenoblade X and Persona 5 more than i have been to play dragon or the witcher. Yeah they are good games, but JRPGs just have the balls to try something new and completely different while WRPGs tend to always do the same. Personally, im starting to grow tired of the same thing over and over again. At least we still got Fallout.

So, to answer:

Setting > JRPGs for reasons mentioned

Music > JRPG's in the 90's. Today theres alot more ambience and less music. Both persona 5 and Skyrim are good examples these days, so i give it a tie. Historically, more JRP though.

Gameplay design > Varies too much from game to game. Both linears and open ended can work on both. Tie. Modern RPG's, especially WRPGs tend to lose the satisfying strategy aspect of combat that came with turned based. The good old grandia merged them perfectly.

Combat design. JRPG. Grandia. Also, it gave birth to SRPGs like FFT and Disgaea. WRPGs tend to always play real time hack and slash. WRPG's tend to be more mindless spam the buttons.

Story > Hands down JRPG. I often see people refering to more complex plotlines as convoluted. Whenever i hear someone say that word, i immediatly know i am going to enjoy the plot. By contrast WRPG's ted to have enjoyable but simplistic and predictable plots and try to focus more on the world.

Unsurpringly JRPG wins for me, but i enjoy WRPG aswell. As others have asaid, quality is more consistant in WRPGs than JRPGs these days. Hopefully FFXV, Xeno X and persona 5 can trigger a resurgence of the genre. Icould mention Tales, but Graces and Xillia were uninspired. Hearts R goes back to form though. I was just in an area where water flows backwards and waterfalls go up in the sky. Amazing, the way only JRPGs can be.

I would have to go with jrpg's. They are generally more challenging and less likely to hold a gamer's hand through the game.