[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?
[/quote]

To answer your question with another question, what makes Western Rpgs roleplaying games? Most limit your choices, wheres in a "real" rpg, like DnD, you literally have unlimited choices you can make, not ones they just program in for you. You might have a DM like that, but it's much less restricted generally and the plot can literally leave his control if you're clever enough.

Roleplaying just means you "play a role". Acting is a form of roleplaying, even though you don't make any choices. 

The main appeal of JRPGS are the stories and the simplistic gameplay, namely. Before we had the technology to make the sprawling expanses we have today, tech was a lot more limited. You did have some titles like Fire Emblem which combined tactics with a leveling system, but these were few and far between and much harder to make.

I honestly don't like console rpgs though, I think the only time rpgs were ever good was Planescape, Fallout 1 and 2, and Baldurs gate era + the recent release of new CRPG games like Torment: Tides of Numenera, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and Wasteland 2. Dark Souls feels much more like a Metroidvania game and The Witcher series has always felt more action rpg than "typical" rpg.

Also what [@Fabricant451] said.