What I dislike about most jRPGs is that they mostly serve as a passive storytelling outlet: There's always just a little you can do to influence the story in any meaningful manner, and even your limited decisions only do so much.

When it includes a choice between having sex with an single, awesome redhead girl every single night of your life... or having sex with a different girl (female monsters included) every night for the rest of your life.

According to Brian Fargo: cause and effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koxDvet-CjQ&feature=plcp

Well, some things are better in real life, like sex and romances, while killing is better to do in games.

Geralt of Rivia disagrees with you.

You ever played Septerra Core? It's a JRPG-style game I got here on GOG, never heard of it before but it's pretty awesome.

The characters you interact with are very important for me, who cant love Morte or Minsc, even Ignus and Vhailor have their moments, I would never consider a party that wouldnt allow Viconia, the banter between characters in DAO is fantastic and adds greatly to the atmosphere of the game.

Interesting NPC's with a story to tell...thats worth listening to. Take Inquisitor for example, you will ask alot of people the same questions, but you will get many variations on the answers.

Combat can be a mixed bag, if its not truely horrendus I can forgive it for story and atmosphere.

I guess bottom line, story and characters.

How is a JRPG defined? Is Chrono Trigger a JRPG? Is Vagrant Story? Is Okami? Is Fortune Summoners? Those are four RPGs from Japan that I like and that have completely different gameplay mechanics. So is "J" just used to describe a very specific subgenre of CRPGs defined by linearity and a certain type of turn-based combat, that is games more akin to Chrono Trigger than the other three?

If so I guess I'm not a great fan of the genre. I don't necessarily mind the linearity, I just don't like the common combination of grinding / random combat and the specific turn-based combat system in most of them, that I don't find attractive enough to put up with the overabundance of combats. But in the end it all depends on how it's done, specifically on the proportions of Interesting Story, Varied Gameplay & Opponents and Repetitive Random Combat. Like I said, I loved Chrono Trigger and I liked Space Funeral, but I abandoned e.g. Septerra Core, Cthulhu Saves the World and Lord of the Rings: The Third Age because the combats began to bore me, and I usually don't get very far in RPG Maker games either. I'll admit though that I haven't played any FF titles yet.

Yeah, exploration pretty much covers it - a large and open world filled with optional quests and secrets like Arcanum.

As well as much non-linearity and options as possible.

If the battle system isn't real-time action (arcade / gamepad driven) then it should feature original and sophisticated mechanics and stat balancing like what Square does with each iteration of Final Fantasy so that the menu-driven combat doesn't get burnt out from previous releases.

Multiple solutions to a problem, perhaps dependent on character abilities, perhaps dependent on player approach. Flexibility in the order in which (or whether) you deal with those problems is also a plus.

The Ultima Underworld games did a great job on both points. While they're an adventure/RPG hybrid, the Quest for Glory series did likewise with the first one.

Depends on what you see in an RPG.

For me it's the ability to control how your character behaves both on a morality level and an interaction level and that character's role in a story.

Role-play theory typically divides role-playing into three levels.

Superego: Morality. Good, evil, neutral, chaotic, lawful, etc.

Ego: Your role in a story.

Id: How your character plays. On a macro level you have classes like warrior, mage, and thief. On a micro level you have stuff like whether your warrior uses axes or swords, etc.

Geralt's opinion may have some value in Rivia, but here in real life it doesn't.
For that I read books.

Likeable and believeable characters to start with and a good story are the basic ingredients. Where the npc's matter and feel alive and not programmed to say some random information about the world. Furthermore the combat system needs to be fun, it does not have to be brilliant but entertaining enough.

A couple of games I like that have this are vandal hearts, final fantasy 4,6-10. Chrono Cross, Dark Cloud and persona.

Final Fantasy kept changing the way that you could stat balance and experiment with the menu driven combat scheme so that each release was something new and interesting to try.

The problem that I had with quite a few other JRPGs is the same complaint that I had about Baldur's / Icewind is that the other games copy-catted each other too much and didn't dare to be bold enough to introduce something strange and original for players to experiment with - it resulted in future releases never evolving into anything more sophisticated.

It's pretty much the problem with Diablo clones - there are so many of these for the PC but it wasn't until Torchlight and Avencast that programmers removed the overly simplistic point and click interface that everyone had grown so burnt out on .

The other issue with JRPGs and same with Baldur's / Icewind is more subjective than anything but those types of RPGs where heavily story-driven so the games held you firmer to the rails of one specific path - but that's more or less a personal complaint coming from someone who's familiar with the original Pen N Paper games - A lot of gamers from later generations tend to appreciate stories in games more than anything else.

The older generations you'll find are usually not so interested in the game's story simply because we began gaming during an era where there was no story.

i have already started too many threads today or i'd start another one about wasteland 2, someone should that looks AWSOME!

two of my dream games coming back: XCOM

and WASTELAND!