I have to agree with the jRPGs being different. We have the generic castles and dungeons because it something that people know and like. Plus its easier using races and monsters. Just take look at fallout and how much effort creating setting took. Copy paste dragons and dungeons seems like easier way. With jRPGs they also follow tropes but are influenced by different things.

World War 2 Mickey mouse wasn't the kind of fantasy I had in mind, I'll take it though.

Even though Zelda is Dungeons and Dragons influenced at least it potrayed radically different like Wind Waker and Skyward Sword.

Originality, Creativity and Imagination doesn't sell unless it has a massive advertising campaign. Even a fantasy setting doesn't have to be elves & dwarves, but even though this may sound "elitist" most of the players are just plain stupid and xenophobic. In other words anything without elves & dwarves has very little chance of succeeding and sales unless it's a brand name like star wars or has a massive advertising campaign like Mass Effect. Fallout is also a brand name these days because the franchise started in the old days when creativity had a chance of success.
Most notably Jade Empire wasn't selling much even though it was a very good game from bioware and it was pretty much similar to other bioware games except they were either tolkienish elves&dwarves fantasy or they were star wars.
Then there was Alpha Protocol which was a very unique game and probably THE best when it came to player's choices and consequences and relationships with other characters throughout the game. And again it was a failure even though it's setting was one of a kind and the game was good neverminding what critics expecting another splinter cell said.
Anachronox - great game / great commercial fail
Troika games - a factory for unique and imaginative rpg games got bankrupt
and so on
it's not just an rpg genre problem. There were great unique and imaginative games all over and most of them just failed like Beyond good and evil, Psychonauts, Secret world in mmorpg etc.

Basically it's pretty much you either make a very stereotypical and dull copycat game and make money or you spend a lot of money to present the game as the greatest ever which will usually end up in big sales but not meeting the hyped up expectations that may or may not cause greater harm to the company and the game and if you don't make the stereotypical game and you don't have the money for the big advertising then you just fail and that's that.

I've played a ton of JRPGs. Some are unique (kind of like some wRPGs are,) but if I'll see yet another pretty much generic fantasy setting with an industrial twist, I'll kick someone. Soo let's not give them too much credit, they're really only original to someone who has never played a jRPG before in his life.

I actually think there's a great shortage of good medieval RPGs.

Think about it for a moment - how many are there that aren't bogged down by a load of fantasy crap? Darklands is one of the few pure (or almost pure) medieval RPGs I can think of, and that's over 20 years old!

List me 20 RPGs from 1990 to present that are either purely medieval or close to being purely medieval (very subtle fantasy elements) and i'll not only agree that the setting is overused, but also thank you... as I can't get enough of them to play.

I'm inclined to agree with you there - but also I think there aren't enough scifi ones either.
Essentially the problem for me is the mass of (as mentioned already) Tolkien / fantasy set RPGs. Right now any RPG with a different setting looks pretty interesting to me.

I do enjoy fantasy RPGs as well - just a little tired of the options.
I really regret not picking up Warband during the sales.

I think what he meant to say was that to make an rpg game doesn't mean you have to have armored knights and swords and other medieval stuff in it.
Also to make a fantasy setting doesn't mean you have to be a tolkien copycat. Elves & dwarves are not what makes it fantasy.

For me high fantasy is king. I love Fallout (I'm currently playing New Vegas), Deus Ex, Half Life and Planescape : Torment and all the sci-fi and post-apocalyptic stuff, but if I had to choose just one game to play for the rest of my life it would be Baldur's Gate. I don't understand why fantasy is considered by so many people to be old hat and a cliche. We barely understand ancient mythology so why are we so keen to dismiss it ? My guess is that it's because we live in a scientific age and fewer people take things like mythology seriously. in my own point of view, I find science and its process of discovery fascinating, but not for one moment do I take it as seriously as I take philosophy, religion or art.

There is one thing I always find extremely funny in "medieval" RPGs like Morrowind. When you play different games, they tell you "this happens a 1000 years after the prequel" , but... there is no technological advancement whatsoever.

Sometimes they have better armor, but yeah, it still looks exactly the same :D Are people in RPGs so retarded that they can't push their civilizations anywhere forward?

Of topic but similar...
Ever notice that all the ships in SW Episodes 1-3 are way sleaker and more modern looking than the ones in Episodes 4-6?

That's because for many people fantasy equals tolkienish dull elves&dwars stuff. Religion and Mythology is no doubt very interesting so why the hell 90% of all fantasy production is tolkienish copycat?
Well people in rpgs are just plain weird. They build their towns on top of hellish dungeons, they're too lazy to do anything by themselves therefore they ask the player to do the smallest of things and everytime somewhere out there is a person who's cellar is infested with giants rats. Another thing is they usually let the player loot their house and rob them blind and they just don't care. The only people who don't care even more are the town guards who just stand wherever they're supposed to stand and don't do shit about the player being attacked, the houses being looted and don't care if you talk to them covered in blood and gore (a dragon age trademark, you stomp on a bug and everything in ten square meters is covered in blood)

I have played bout 100 or more jRPGs and I can say they are way more original than the stuff done in the west.

During the actual middle age in Europe, there was very little advancement in about a thousand years. Add races that live centuries, and it isn't that strange. Not that I disagree in that adding some advancement would be interesting.