Really? what innovations/progress have been made? Fallout, Planescape: Torment and Baldur's gate are still unbeaten.
EDIT: okay i have to admit that Troika (vampire:bloodlines) hadsome nice innovations but they're dead now, and i'm not really too fond of JRPGs either but it's not like western rpgs are by default better.

Unbeaten in what way exactly? But yeah western rpg's are not better by default you are right. But I would argue that there is more in the way of experimentation and at least trying to progress the genre in western rpg games than jrpg's. Even if they dont always get it exactly right. I'd rather play something flawed but a bit different than basically the same old jrpg grind.
Why they would want to I dont understand but these games (final fantasy games, dark cloud 1&2, Eternal Sonata being some of the ones i can think of off the top of my head) regularly get favorible reviews in the west and get not inconsiderable sales as far as i can see over in the west too. Is there anyone here who likes JRPG's who could maybe try explaining the appeal to me because i cant stand what i see as mindless grind myself. Or the impression that im not actually taking part in the story just steering a character between cut scenes that i get alot from JRPG's.

Unbeaten in story, quality and gameplay imo; but actually ignore my point i think i rushed my opinion a bit, now i recall that in the last years some good RPGs came out, they just stood in the shadow of the FPS/RPG hybrids.
Also i did enjoy FF7, not loved it but well the story just sucked me in so i could ignore the a bit flawed gameplay, so i decided to give FF10 a try too since i expected some improvements instead i got the same game only a lot... gayer; i would actually vote it for gayest game ever. since then i never touched a JRPG again.

In fact, I like jRPGs. I hate random encounters, but jRPGs tend to have nice stories, some fantasy included in their creation, and my favourite gaming moments - 'wow' moments :D Oh, and cool antigonists

So are they Squeeidox now?

What about the progonists? ... Yeah, that's about the same thing I think of JRPGs, though Final Fantasy games don't impress me that much.

I don't know... The only protagonist I like is actually Vincent from Final Fantasy VII... But rest seems good, bot not really lovable to me.
One protagonist I'll never stop loving is Dante from Devil May Cry 3 and 4 (didn't play others). That's how cool character is made!

No but of course! Who ever could accuse a JRPG or the characters of thereof of being generic and run of the mill!

I could !!!! XD

Fenixp:
That wasn't a real question. I was making fun of your misspelling of the word "antagonist" by spelling "protagonist" incorrectly. But since you brought it up, I liked the protagonists of Xenosaga. All the other JRPGs I've played had either fairly generic Shonen style spunky/whiney protagonists, or silent protagonists though. Actually I liked the prince in Suikoden 5 ok even though he was silent. He still managed to emote quite well with whichever choices you made. The game also didn't have any of those stupid 'No you can't choose that response, pick the other one.' fake choices as far as I can remember. If you made a bad choice their were consequences. From hurting your little sister's feelings, to the permanent death of a character which resulted in getting the bad ending.
I could. The key word in that post is "same"

Bad news I guess. More trouble getting the Legacy of Kain series to GOG.

it certainly does make me wonder if we'll start seeing square games on pc

Well having had a look through their catalogue, eidos made some pretty good games, plenty of complete shit too but it may well be a really good time for GOG to get in touch with them and suggest selling the eidos back catalogue to get some more working capital for whatever bland jprg crap they're shovelling out next. Maybe drop that last part after working capital...
I can't speak for anyone else but from that wikipedia list I'd be buying:
Hitman 1-3 (got blood money on 360 and yes contracts is a remake but assuming the $6 price tag, it'd be worth getting)
Commandos 1-5
Daikatana (maybe, as a joke)
the 5 games in the Legacy Of Kain / Soul Reaver series
Thief 1 & 2 (got 3 with a video card)
Tomb Raider 1-6 (got 7+ on 360)
So even with a $6 price tag, that'd be $132 (or $200 in real money) which is the entirety of my disposable income for a fortnight...

Eidos is a bit of a mixed bag of products, but would be a good low-mid level entry for SquareEnix to push more into the western markets.
Unfortunately, I've not been interested in much of Eidos stuff lately, and SquareEnix is mainly console systems. Bring me some new stuff to the PC, or some old stuff that was not there before and I'll look into it.