Yet another day in life on the Internet.
The one thing that sort of irritated me in that article was how one doofus associated "Fallout fanatics" with Oblivion.

I tend to check it for current gaming news, which they are one of the better sites for reporting things as soon as possible.
If anything interests me, I would usually find another sites opinion. For PC related stuff, I always check Rock Paper Shotgun, who are easily the best site I've seen for a PC and UK spin on the news.
Used to visit Gamespot, but places like that (and IGN and whatever) really don't appeal to me any more. I can only just about tolerate visiting the escapist, which is quite good at times.
[edit] just read IGN's list about JRPGs, and it does look very flame-bait-y...

When most of the people who read your blog are mindless "leet speak" and meme posters, it's not hard to believe that that kind of article would be published.
People don't like the "details" or "facts" anymore, all they want is the excitement of two groups bashing each other.

Did a take a wrong turn on the internet or is this MySpace?

Weird thing, I read an interesting, thoughtful and reasonably well written article on there a week or so ago. Needless to say I had to double check the URL to make sure it was the proper site.
Suppose its got to happen sometime no matter how unlikely

I like Joystiq/Big Download/Gamesradar/Giant Bomb for the Quick Looks. I haven't read a magazine from PC Gamer (it's on my desk but I haven't gotten around to it) in two months or so. Kotaku is just the place I go if someone links to some article there.
Even IGN has standards these days, believe it or not.

I totally don't get the 2ch thing. It's a bunch of powerless, friendless people who use their internet anonymity as a way to bully people. But it's amazing how much of japan is scared of getting on their bad side.
I used to read joystiq all the time, never really read kotaku.... but since GOG linked to RPS I tend to find that I read that a lot more than anything else.

Just like 4chan!

Except without the whole Driving people to suicide and Releasing people's home addresses on the internet and encouraging people to go and attack them

I would say it's surprising that jRPGs have become fire over the last few years (more so than before) but I'd be lying. The truth is that that genre is incredibly stagnated and hasn't evolved at all over the past 20 years. Some try to stand out but 9 out of 10 games are so generic to the point of all these games blurring together, making it hard to remember to which jRPG certain parts belonged.
I used to love jRPGs in style and look back when I was just getting access to them on my GBA. Around the same time, I played Chrono Trigger on my PC (emulated of course), followed by Grandia II followed by Final Fantasy VII. By then, I was already thinking "what the hell! This combat is getting tediously similar!" but when I then started playing Golden Sun, it was too much for me. These game borrow elements to the extreme:
- same style of graphics
- similar stories
- similar enemies
- almost identical combat interface
- identical font used
- a lot of recurring characters (archetypes)
- dragging out the story for the sake of creating a longer game without actually making it more "epic"
Now, when you take a look at Western RPGs, most games have some of the problems above but not nearly all at once! Combat interfaces widely differ between games and few WRPGs play the same way. Compare Fallout with Baldur's Gate with Morrowind with Ultima IX with Ultima VII with Eye of the Beholder with Little Big Adventure with ... well you get the point.
The problem with jRPGs is that they're simply too similar to eachother. Our FPS genre may be similar too but that's mainly because of the restrictions of the genre: you got a gun and aim it at stuff. Whoop. RPGs have a LOT more creative freedom and jRPGs simply CHOOSE to emulate eachother instead of trying to be something different. This is not an attack but an observation from someone who once loved the genre and wish it wasn't just all "more of the same".
Oh, and ironically, Western takes on jRPGs tend to be quite good. Look up "Silver" (which I hope will come to GOG sometimes soon).

I never understood why people liked it so much. Pretty game indeed, but extremely boring.

I bought both games for my GBA but it felt so generic it was impossible for me to enjoy :(. This is a case of really trying, mind you. The combat, look, style, UI, etc. were just too generic, too unoriginal for me to be able to enjoy the game. It's a case of "been there, done that". A story dragged out to such an extent can't save a game.
To be honest, if they made more games like Chrono Trigger, I might still play them because of the unique approach but games like Final Fantasy I->IV are just too standard for me to get a kick out of.

Actually, I found those 2ch or whatever comments hilarious. They gave a grand feeling of "Die, roundeye, die!"
Still, I haven't really enjoyed a jRPG since Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden and that was made by a bunch of people that wanted to insult the genre and the fans of it. (Read the dialogue that comes up when you try to save in that game.) Before that, it was Phantasy Star IV which was the last jRPG I could tolerate.

Meh, I find fun games in both Western and Japanese RPGs, and uninspired garbage in both. Possibly more so in Japanese, than Western, but still. IGN's arguments in this case was absolutely fucking retarded to the point of hilarity, and 2ch's responses in the same kind. It's like watching a couple of brain-damaged 12 year olds fight. Quite simply retarded.
The user comments on the Kotaku article is also some of the most inbred shit I've ever read. It's so stupid that it almost hurts.