Perhaps it's not really any form of bias... but the reviewers are generally more attracted to WRPGS

I proposed earlier in another thread to just call JRPGs with scores that are 85+ as 90+ AAA games. You could probably give WRPGs a little bump as well considering how they also don't review well next to say the FPS games.

Reviewers are biased towards Western games in general. It's always the FPSs and WRPGs getting 90%+

Reviews suck, can't see why anyone would still follow them

I think reviewers far too often review a game based on what they want and expect from it...

The JRPG genre has been for a couple years in the process of redefining itself to compete with other WRPGs and retain their uniqueness. Reviewers assess JRPGs as if they are trying to be a WRPG and not as a evolution of JRPG.

I have enjoyed this generations JRPGs. Most of the time the review scores are not matching the richness, longevity, and story telling the JRPGs offer.

Being a longtime RPG fan, both Western and Eastern since the NES days I have to say over the last several years I've become more and more disappointed with JRPGs. JRPGs used to have interesting storylines and fun combat systems but over the last half decade the stories have gotten worse and worse to the point where they don't make any sense. All the villains have become cookie cutter copies simply because every game now demands an evil world destroying mastermind whose sole purpose seems to be doing evil things simply to prove how damn evil they are. The heroes are even worse, constantly spouting pointless catchphrases and spend most of the story trying to be as daft and idiomatic as possible.

Granted there have been some gems, Nocturne, Lost Odyssey, Radiata Stories. But those games either pride themselves on being extremely difficult or makeup for following the current trend by adding something slightly unique.

For me JRPGs peaked during the PS1 era followed by a quick decent as they seemed to target an ever decreasing age group, or maybe it was simply that DVDs allowed developers to add in all that extra useless crap they'd been meaning to put in from the begining.

Anyhow this isn't exactly anything new, go back and look at SNES/PS1 RPGs, most of them didn't receive stellar reviews either.

I think the real problem with the stories is that they might make sense to a Japanese gamer, but due to poor localization, it wouldn't make sense to a Western gamer.  Also, Western gamers seem to be tired of the good vs evil stories and instead want gray area characters and villians

It's more the WRPG's rated too highly than the JRPG's too lowly, in my opinion. Shooters are generally rated too highly as well.

Take out the review by the Edge (notorious 360 fanboys) of 70% for VC, and its it closer to 88%.

VC absolutely deserves a 90% plus. I think it is being marked down because it has no hype and there have been no payoffs to the review sites.

No, they are not idiots because they think western games are better. It is just a fact. ;)