[quote=@DepressedSoviet]
Okay speaking of RPGs: Someone explain the appeal of JRPGs, please. I do not understand them at all. An 'RPG' where the most level of character customization possible is that I get to name characters that already have names. At most they're story-based action games with class-and-leveling elements, and if those are all it takes to be an RPG, then CoD is a goddamn RPG. Seriously, explain what makes people like JRPGs?
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I assume you're talking JRPGs of the Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy variety rather than, say, the Dark Souls or the tactics side of things. RPGs are defined as a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (and/or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world. Customization is not a core aspect in a JRPG and unless one subscribes to the school of games like Wizardry or DnD games then I'm not sure why character customization is such a thing. Given that classic CRPGs had very little in the way of customization outside of a portrait and stats I'm not sure where customization became such a thing, but I suspect it has something to do with a certain popular franchise. 

Early JRPGs offered party customization, Dragon Quest 3 let you pick a male or female and you recruited party members at a bar and got to choose their class and name and such - a concept they refined and made better in Dragon Quest 9 years later. Resonance of Fate doesn't let you pick your party members but it does have quite the extensive clothing and fashion system for aesthetics. The very first Final Fantasy let you pick your team of four from different classes that are RPG staples. Final Fantasy 3, before the remake anyway, also let you pick your characters professions. 

Maybe it's not as robust as choosing from different races or being able to adjust their face, but JRPGs were built on the backs of concepts core to pen and paper RPGs. Even some of the more popular CRPGs succumb to being 'story based action games'. Look at, say, Knights of the Old Republic where your character's entire backstory is predetermined but you get to pick their name and stats - how is that so different from, say, Final Fantasy 7 where you get to pick your party's name and determine their stats based on equipment and materia? 

JRPGs are a diverse genre that has seen games remain true to its roots (Dragon Quest, Atelier series) and experiment with the times (Final Fantasy) and pretty much everything inbetween. I can't explain what makes people like JRPGs because like the genre itself everyone likes different stuff. I know people that really love the Tales of series while I think they are trash tier JRPG games. But the best ones, the classics, offer things like fun mechanics (Chrono Trigger) or delve into themes and topics that many games don't (the Megaten franchise loves this) to varying degrees of success. 

But on the subject, is The Witcher 3 less of an RPG because you can't customize Geralt? Is Mass Effect more of one because it has binary options of fake choice? Is the Elder Scrolls franchise better than JRPGs because it's a power fantasy with threadbare plots compared to the more grandiose and narrative driven Japanese counterparts? JRPGs often get a bad rep because of various reasons, ranging from its character design (because if there's one thing weebs love it's trying to pretend they aren't weebs) or their often overly melodramatic and bad story telling, but that's true of almost any genre. There's good, great, and bad in any media and just because, say, Hyperdimension Neptunia is a garbage franchise for garbage people doesn't mean that, say, Persona is made worse by being under the JRPG umbrella. 

JRPGs are not for everyone and they are still very much a niche market outside of Japan. The best JRPGs offer exactly why RPGs have been offering since its inception: a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (and/or several party members) immersed in some well-defined world. 

Maybe you don't like JRPGs, and that's fine. But there's more to an RPG than character customization.