Ugh, this one bothers me a lot:

The Video Game definition of an RPG is not the same as the pen and paper definition. Why? Because they are freaking video games.

Now, it's fine if you want to say WRPGs are related to them and JRPGS are not. That's true enough, but the fact is that the JRPG genre is established, and I'm tired of hearing people bitch about the fact that it uses the word "RPG." Deal with it.

The fact that it's not all that closely related to the 34 year old Pen & Paper RPG genre does not make it automatically less original though.  Yes, it's a linear style.  So are most game genres.  That doesn't make them inherintly unoriginal.

Have you read my posts? I'm not talking about visual style. I'm talking about gameplay elements. And I chose Baldur's Gate/Mass Effect because they both came from the same developer. If BioWare had made a new BG this millenia, I would be more than happy to include it.

I'm not talking about visual style either.  I've seen a friend playing Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment.  The gameplay looks basically the same.  Isometric party based pausable (I think) combat based on D&D rulesets. 

It's the actual phrase that bothers me. Media shouldn't matter. In any case, I'm resigned to JRPGs being called that. Not a big deal, it just doesn't accurately represent the actual definition of the genre.

I don't think that linear games are any less "original" than open world games. It's just that one genre has evolved constantly since its inception while the other really hasn't. I'm not saying that JRPGs need to be open, but something should be changing as time passes. I play Blue Dragon and it's hard for me to really see the difference in gameplay from FFVII, other than superficial power-ups/leveling/etc. I'm not bashing Blue Dragon, for I thought it was quite good (better than LO IMO), it just felt... comfortable. Like I've done it a million times before. While that's cool to have in gaming, I would also like to see some of the mainstream Japanese RPG developers put out a top-shelf game that breaks the mold a bit. Change things up, see how it works.

...

Honestly, now that I think more about it, I might have more of a beef with Square-Enix than I do with the actual JRPG genre. Some of the smaller JRPGs do mix things up a bit. They just don't sell well or don't get imported here at all.

You do realize that you're basing your opinions on games that came out before FFIX while ignoring KOTOR, Oblivion, Mass Effect, and everything else current, right?

All major WRPGs are now fully 3D and some have party systems while others do not. 

rocketpig, didn't the icewind dale games and baldurs gate (PC) games also have the dialog things? I only played them for a little bit at a friends but I remember that kind of openness type of thing in them, I think.

Okay, well before I get into this let me say that linearity is a property of the JRPG in the same way that guns are a property of First Person Shooters . The linearity is necessary for JRPGs to have a tight coherent plot (as opposed to the vapid plot you get in a game like Oblivion). It's simply a property of the genre, and if that bothers you, you'll want a different genre.

As far as gameplay goes, here are just a few games in the last decade that have had completely unique styles of gameplay from the standard FF menu click and attack buttons.

-The World Ends With You. That game uses an action combat system in which the bottom screen attacks are done with the stylus and the top screen with the D-Pad. And it is in fact from Square Enix (the Kingdom Hearts team), the people you complain about.
-Kingdom Hearts of course has its own gameplay as well.
-Dark Cloud 2 had an interesting take on an action combat system.
-Baten Kaitos has a unique card battle system. I would link you but in GT's only video they had no idea what they were doing and kept using a high number card, preventing them from using card combos. Just trust me that it's nothing like any other game.
-Eternal Sonata's turn based action.
-Star Ocean 3 did menu based action combat long before FFXII and did it much better.
-Odin Sphere of course.
-King's Story
-Valkyria Chronicles is looking very interesting.
-Fragile. There's no combat in that but the music and environments are awesome and I look for any excuse to link to it hehe.

Those are what came to mind when you mentioned gameplay variety, but I'm sure others could do a better job.

While I dug Eternal Sonata and Kingdom Hearts, I only thought Eternal Sonata brought something new to the table. It reminded me of an updated Parasite Eve (WTF Square, where is this game) and I thought it was cool, though absurdly linear. It wasn't even the story... There was literally only one way through that game.

I put Kingdom Hearts in more of the Zelda realm with a bit of RPG twist... If we start including games like that in this discussion, I may as well throw Ratchet & Clank in there, too. Explore/upgrade/wander/fight/repeat ad nauseum. Not bad games by any means, but other than a story and weapon/level upgrades, not a lot of "RPG" going on there, even by the Japanese definition of the genre.

Again, now that I think about it, I think most of my resentment comes from companies like Square and Mistwalker, not the genre in general. None of the big budget JRPGs are really exploring new possibilities while mid-ranged ones like Folklore (though "meh" IMO) and Eternal Sonata are mixing things around a little more and some of the off-the-wall stuff is considerably different than FF/DQ/BD/LO.

I have big hopes for some of Square's new IP but I won't hold my breath in anticipation. 

Okay but you are still ignoring the completely unique things like Valkyria Chronicles, Baten Kaitos, The World Ends With You, King's Story, and Odin Sphere.  Kingdom Hearts certainly is not like Zelda or Ratchet.  For a few examples it has a leveling system, menu combat, and a party system that neither of those games do.  Trust me, I'm not even touching on the outskirts of the JRPG genre.  That just gets ridiciulously large.  You have to start including games like Harvest Moon and Pikmin and Okami... 

There is no argument for more gameplay diversity in WRPGs, and your argument seems to have boiled down to nothing but complaints on linearity, which is just a property of the genre.  If you don't like linearity, don't play JRPGs, but that doesn't give you the right to criticize them all as unoriginal.  They are far more diverse in almost every way (plot, characters, gameplay, setting) than WRPGs are. 

I think the gameplay diversity comes more from the bulk of what is considered "JRPG" while WRPG is a pretty narrowly targeted genre. If you include games with elements of role-playing in them, the list balloons.

In your opinion, what defines "JRPG"? Because some of the games you're listing are so completely different from one another that I'm not seeing anything that links them other than the genre they're lumped into. Is it story? If so, why aren't we including other story-heavy games like BioShock or Dues Ex that include some role-playing? While you're including card-based games, why aren't we talking about Puzzle Quest? If we're including action games, what about quasi-platformers with exploration like Ratchet & Clank or San Andreas (which actually had quite a few RPG elements in it)? There are loads of RTS & sim games with RPG elements, too. It just seems that in the west, "RPG" is more uniformly defined and many games are just thrown into another genre because they cross over quite a bit.

I think this argument is really boiling down to semantics over a term. The term JRPG seems to include many other games that simply don't qualify as RPG in the western world.