easy, Valkyria chronicles easiely a 90+ game.

Becoming?

I'd argue they've been for a while.

It's getting like SRPGs or any other niche genre.

Your choice for a reviewer is either a fanboy of the genre, or someone not interested in the genre that much.

So it's lose lose.

Most people who do the JRPG reviews now are people who like JRPGS... except for everything tkat makes them JRPGs.

I don't know how many times people have knocked turn based battle systems.

Well, no. The real problem is that these wrpgs and fps sell better. There is a larger crowd, so the reviewers are going to review them better on average. Why? Because the reviewers are taken from the general population of western game nerds, and thus most would have this similar view. They are not objective about the games they review, this much is very obvious. People complained during the presidential election about the media beiing in the tank for obama, and looking at the coverage they have a point to some extent. But, if you look at the reviews, they are significantly more skewed towords these western games with good graphics, even if it is the same shooter :P So, in reality, the reviwers are showing their own bias and not keeping an objective look on things like a member of the media should. They are less objective than the huffington post or drudge report! And thats saying something.

For RPGs, I have seen some REALLY good ones this generation. How can you call The World Ends With You as anything but innovative and different from the norm? It is not a simple good vs evil, it is not a normal combat or game system, the characters are built well.  The FFIV remake is awesome; they took a great snes game and improved it by a large margin. I cannot say about the HD games since I don't own the system, but VC looks very good and ToV does as well. But, The WRPGS are fun too such as oblivion. The reality is the jrpgs are scoring a little lower than they should, and the wrpgs higher than they should. Oblivion should score about the same as VC. TWEWY should score a bit higher than both. Mass Effect, for technical issues, below those stated.

@Aiemond

Maybe it is not just the reviewers. I have tried some jrpg:s and they are just annoying. Blue dragon, eternal sonata and enchanted arms. They are just crappy games. Lost odyssey on the other hand was pretty nice.

valkyria does easily. One of the best games i have played these last couple of years. Honestly to me this year (and early january) is one of the best years for gaming imo. Killzone 2 beta knocks the crap out of COD: WAW.   MGS4 was amazing, Gear 2 was slightly better then average, Little Big Planet is awesome and their is just a whole list more.....anyway now im going off topic.

Valkyria = 95 in my books

Tales of Vesperia, Lost Odyssey, and Valkyria Chronicles all deserve imo.

Well, those games are not the best of this generation. Try TWEWY, VC, FFIV DS, ToV before you make a decision. Rememeber though, just because you do not perfer that genera does not mean it should score lower than one you like. The game reviews try to portray themselves as objective; objectivity requires you to set this aside.

Outside of the DS RPGs, which get marked off simply for being handheld games, I personally think the WRPG developers have been pushing their genre further than JRPG developers have thus far this gen, especially on consoles. There isn't anything necessarily wrong with them, the same with games like Tomb Raider Underworld and Devil Mary Cry 4 in the action genre. They just aren't pushing the genre forward with fresh ideas is all. What really seperates games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey from RPGs on the PS2 or PSOne?

Yes western reviewers are definetly biased against Jrpgs. Reading reviews for blue dragon was tiresome. Half of the reviews basically read like: Why isn't this oblivion? Why is this turn based?

It's funny because wrpgs are still tending to completly ignore story. The only good one I can think of recently is Mass effect. Fallout, oblivion the story may as well not exist.

I mean if you take a comparison of blue dragon and oblivion. Blue dragon is FAR FAR more polished, I don't remember a single glitch in the 65 hours I put into it. Oblivion is glitch heaven, far more loading times etc. Blue dragon has polished graphics, you may not like them but that is just the style. Oblivion has good graphics in screenshots, but when things start moving urg the animation is awful, still pretty good though. Story and characters? While BD may not be amazing it is definetly better than oblivion.

Gameplay I guess it's choice. I would argue BD's gameplay is far better in objective terms. As far as turn based games go it is incredibly well done. Being able to make different monsters fight by using the encounter circle, charging attacks to make the timing/power of them maximum etc. Oblivion has real time combat but it's very poorly executed. Compared to something like Dark messiah of might and magic, oblivions combat is awful. Even fallout the gunplay is awful compared to games like Gears or CoD.

So why the difference in score? Western reviewers simply prefer big open worlds and real time combat, I guess they prefer the atmosphere of it. Games like LO and BD are character/story driven, games like Fallout/oblivion are driven by stat growth and exploring the world.

I also think a big part of it is to do with graphics. In the PS1/PS2 days rpgs often showed what the system could do. FF7/8/9 were all incredible for the time they were released. Likewise FF10/12 looked incredible. They were like the graphical showcases for a system, great in game graphics combined with amazing fmvs. This generation shooters have tended to have the best graphics coupled with more games using in game cutscenes rather than fmv.

Personally I don't really understand how games like Fallout score highly. They aren't polished, graphics are good but not great due to poor animation, gameplay doesn't even come close to other shooters, story is poor, character development is poor. The only thing I can think that drives people is the whole increase XP and fight a bigger monster mentality, nevermind the gameplay will still be poor when im fighting that monster.

Mass effect deserved it's scores though, great game (although once again more polish would have been nice)

Are any of those available on 360 in EU?