I just finished Final Fantasy XIII (not featured in this video), and it's a very long, excessively linear game with strange combat rules, exaggerated, stereotypical characters and a completely nonsensical plot.
In other words, it's a typical JRPG.
While there are still many good Japanese RPGs being released every year, in terms of its impact on and importance for gamers outside Asia I think it's still fair to say that the subgenre is currently in a state of stagnation and decline. Lumbering corporate giants such as Square-Enix are trying very hard to remain relevant to a wider non-Japanese audience (even going so far as to compare their latest games with popular shooters), but American developers like Bethesda, Bioware and Blizzard are dominating the worldwide RPG market with their commercially successful attempts to bring the genre into the new century.
When Final Fantasy VII was released a decade ago it seemed like the Japanese console RPG was the only kind of roleplaying game young gamers were even remotely interested in. Nowadays, for a lot of new gamers the byzantine gameplay mechanics and bizarre plots of JRPGs are Scarier Than Black Metal...
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