I'm working on a few hours of sleep, recoiling from dealing with family for a few days with little alcohol to make it an easier experience, and working retail during Black Friday Weekend. If I ramble and seem incoherent, I apologize to the three people on this forum who actually read my posts.

Generally the main difference between JRPG and WRPG is that WRPG are basically PnP style where you create an avatar and go through a series of choices and 90% of the content is choice. You could go avenge your father's death or you could join the thieves guild and plunder the castle of Lord Vermonin East Ordor.

JRPGs are more about story and characters, the content of the game is much more linear cause the goal of the game is to be a narrative not an open world. You are playing the role of Joe Fonsenburger from Illiard whose home was destroyed by the evil Widget Knight and now he's joined with his childhood friend and romantic love entrance to travel the globe to collect the Seven Mystical Rocks so he can become the new Darth Knight and avenge his hometown.

The difference here is that Joe can't choose to ignore his quest, its all he's got. In a WRPG you can choose to ignore it but it makes the story parts less meaningful cause often than not you do a few adventures with some NPCs and never see them again afterwards.

I don't believe either style is bad, it comes down to preference. The W and J are only added cause the specific styles are pretty much associated with a specific genre. People have already pointed out a few JRPG "narrative style games" done by western developers but frankly, there are not that many "choice based" WRPG games made by Japanese development teams. Metal Saga is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that fits the true stereotypes of a WRPG whereas most other efforts are more like weird half breeds or fall more into traditional JRPG design with better flexibility.

Also, Valkyrie Chronicles and Disgaea are not JRPGs, they are SRPGs because their battle systems are strategic battles utilizing "military" units on a map. They get a new name thanks to their battle systems.

Now that this irrelevant issue of gaming psuedo-taxonomy is over, I would address that I feel the problem with the JRPG formula or "Japanese development style" comes from a few issues of developers not understanding how franchises are suppose to work, not understanding their audience, placing too much emphasis and prioritizing only parts of the game over others, listening to their fans (yes this is a problem and its not as counter-productive to this argument as you would think) and like Vyk pointed out, just some bad writing as of late.

For SE, part of the issue with many of their games is that a) their marketed poorly and b) quality is a mix bag. I agreed with what Bolivar mentioned in another thread about SE, which was that ten years ago, the developer was led by several artists, but nowadays it feels more corporate. While corporate means we get more games I feel the polish and quality are lacking.

I also feel that one of SE's biggest strengths is becoming a bit of their weakness, and that is innovation. It just feels like SE is trying too hard to "remake the wheel" with each game when tweaking the title would work. V-VIII were all applauded for their innovations in gameplay and battle systems but frankly, outside of differences of developing your character, the battle systems are still the same old ATB system of IV with minor tweaks to it to make it better. Hell, even the development systems of VI-VIII are nothing more than different ways of emulating V's Job Class system.

A lot of FF's innovations in the past was bringing more emphasis to story, graphics, and adding more gameplay tweaks and expanding the genre by showing its versatility while still remaining in the same framework of the genre. As long as you do it well, you can still hold onto a few things you did before. Most people I know would be ecstatic if FFXV was announced to have a job class system.

My point here is, there is nothing wrong with ATB and I don't see how turning FF into an Action RPG series is really better than sticking to a more traditional Turn Base system. The most amusing thing I remember seeing is how XII, and now XIII, are being trashed by FF fans for feeling different yet both are praised by critics for being innovative and different. Yet, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey were torn apart by critics for using that "damn old clunky turn base system" and feeling too "old school" yet both games are highly praised by RPG fans and FF fans. Not to mention there must be at least a dozen people on this forum who said Lost Odyssey should have been FFXII. Its just amusing that the game that feels like it came from the late 90's is getting more praise and adoration by RPG fans than the titles that both developers and critics are hailing as "the future of the genre". Change is not bad but its not always good either.

I've noticed that FF has been losing more fans as it tries to break away from the standards of the older titles. Radically new battle systems removing the strengths of ATB, going back and forth on giving games mini-games or stripping them all away, experimenting with very linear and story driven map design, experimenting with adopting a more huge open world with less emphasis on trapping the player onto invisible rails. I feel the process has not only been alienating older fans, but even worse, thanks to the games long development times and hyper PR, I feel its starting to splinter the fan base. SE can't really listen to any of its fans anymore cause they all come from different gaming eras and what works for them may not appeal to other fans. I would love the franchise to go back to having long dungeons, heavier exploration with less hand holding in the story, as well as being moderately difficult that would require me to actually put some effort into grinding a few levels. Yet how would that factor into appeasing a new fan brought into the series by XIII, who is use to having the story unfold like a movie with better scenery in exchange for longer dungeons, and difficulty going in hand with more generous and less detrimental penalties for not living up to the games expectations. We can bitch and whine about how SE should just listen to its fans but I would ask which ones? It's a 20 year old franchise with enough variation in its history that it's fan bases are more correlated to the era of gaming they grew up in over which FF happened to be their fave. The fanbase is splintered and the most we can agree on is we like FF.

As for the topic question... No, I actually wouldn't want a Western developer to work on FF. Not because I feel they would ruin it, I wouldn't be surprised if it was well received and actually a fairly good game. I just feel like it wouldn't have the same magic as the older entries. Yet, on the other hand, I haven't felt that magic from the series since 2000 so it's not like handing the reins over to someone else would be any different from what's been going on for the last ten years or so. So really, it doesn't make much difference to me.