characters look like zombies for some reason. trees , rivers and tim burton

^This. I put almost 200 hours into oblivion and never closed the first oblivion gate. this is how I feel about most wRPGs. I just go explore the "open world" and "do stuff" till I get bored and cast the disc aside.

I felt the same with Oblivion. Fun game, terrible main story by far.

I have yet to find a Western RPG with a story superior to a JRPG's.

Maybe after I finish Mass Effect I will.......but I doubt it.

I don't think anything mentioned here is really a cliché. The open nature of some wrpg's is an understandable thing to not like, but it's far from a cliché. Orcs is the closest suggestion, and I'm not sure about that, then anything from a fantasy mythos is cliché.

they might not feel like cliches to you simply because the number of JRPGs out there VASTLY outnumbers the number of WRPGs.

Yet many WRPGs have garbage storylines(or broken ones) due to openness.

Elder Scroll Series (yes, the WHOLE series)

Fallout 3

Fable series

etc.

Well one of the obvious cliche in WRPGs is the fact that they all have horrible stories.

Some are still entertaining, but I'd never play one of them for an interesting story...

i have one for you guys... KOTOR had an awesome story + great gameplay... but one does not make a cliche untrue :P

That's still not a cliche...

S'plain?

How many games need to repeat the same nuance before it is deemed a cliche?

Those games, particularly Oblivion and Fallout, focus on mythos rather than story, as all open world games tend to(games that try otherwise will run into issues). Personally I think they have much stronger mythos' than any jrpg I've played, but I wouldn't claim that the weak mythos' of jrpg's are a cliché.

Since I don't want to single out JRPG's though, I'll give better examples of Western clichés in other genres. The big silent motherfucker protaganist who doesn't say much, but who's mates curse an unbelievable amount, that's a cliché. Excellent production values in everything but writing, that's a cliché (which I suppose is common in WRPG's too).