I've never once played a "Western RPG" that I could get into.

The whole reason I play RPGs is for the story-driven aspect of it, so I guess that explains it. "Western RPGs" skimp on the story in favor of letting you run around and do arbitrary quests and so you can have a character you customized with no personality and virtually no backstory. Or from what I've played it's this way. This is coming from someone who can't stand anime for the most part too; I'd much rather play a Final Fantasy game than, say, an Elder Scrolls game.

Of course, with only a couple of exceptions, I really don't like any JRPGs besides the FF games either, because they're so much like anime. I really can't stand the ones that make everything look like anime (big eyed cell shaded crap like Eternal Sonata, for example).

I just think it's because the FF games are well done. The soundtracks are wonderful, the visuals are pleasing, the battle systems rarely grow stale, and I'm always intrigued as to what's going to happen next in the story (on the first playthrough at least). All this "you can't possibly care about a story in a Japanese game" crap really doesn't make sense to me.

To each their own; I love the FF franchise.