Quote Originally Posted by Bolivar View Post

Accordingly, the strength of the JRPG is its ability to create the set piece. It's that moment when you're in a specific area, with a specific objective in mind, a song is playing that was especially crafted for that sequence, there's tons of crazy things going on around you, and this moment has paramount consequences to the story. In the newer WRPGs I've played everything seems kind of stiff and static to me. I can choose to go off and explore a dungeon, but that dungeon will always be waiting for me. It will always look the same, sound the same, it will generally have the same placement of traps and layout of enemies, even if the types of monsters changes as I increase in level. However, that JRPG moment will never exist again in the story, it's a one time thing, and it's completely different from anything else you'll see in the story.
I don't know man, I kind of feel any game with cinematic sequences can do this. I mean what makes Solid Snake sneaking into Shadow Moses island any different from what you described. I get how it separates JRPGs from WRPGs but how is that trait really unique to JRPGs?