RPG vs JRPG? Which one is better?

That's like asking what's better: Chicago or NY-style pizza?

There's no wrong answer. They're different and great in their own ways.

JPEG is better than JPG 🤷

My main issue with games as a whole currently is that they often don't respect my time. J-RPGs are probably the worst genre for that with the expectation of grinding being baked in. Take persona 5, I loved the style and the characters were engaging but the gameplay was very repetitive and grindy. I didn't feel like I was making progress. After I beat the first dungeon I felt like I'd seen everything the game had to offer and turned it off.

I enjoy western RPGs more because they often (not always) respect my time better. I replayed Dragon age Inquisition recently and that game was right on the borderline of not respecting my time. I played it way closer to release and burned out by spending 40 hours in the starting area doing fetch quests. On this play through I focused on the story and only did side quests I found interesting. It was much better but still right on the limit of wasting my time for a decent chunk of it's runtime.

Quite a bit of what we think is a JRPG started as the RPG series Ultima, specifically Ultima III, and Ultima IV.

I think rating genres is generally not a useful thing. I feel as though pidgeonholing games, music, videos or other things into categories and judging them based on that could lead to narrow-mindedness. Each genre has great games and each genre has bad games.

Some genres are more interesting to some people, but I'd say that's because hobbies are sort of random and not because some are better than others. If by chance you happen to get a deeper knowledge about a certain genre or topic you will become more interested in it naturally. That doesn't mean other things are more boring by nature.

I don't like most western RPGs because all the enemies are sponges. You can't sell weapon upgrades if the weapons are already balanced.

Western RPGs often have interesting systems like speech and other noncombat abilities. This is what keeps me coming back to RPGs despite everything. But upgrades are done with the same currency, so investing in speech means underinvestment in the manditory combat making it even more unpleasant.

I would much rather play a game about combat, movement, or speech than a game that awkwardly tries to make all three sit comfortabky next to each other. JRPGs are often more focused, so I do prefer them, a bit.

What the hell is LeBron's legacy?

I like retro JRPGs. It feels like an actual genre. RPGs as a genre are just way too broad. Compare JRPGs to TTRPGs, ARPGs or CRPGs, and then you can start to get somewhere.

These days, it doesn't even make much difference. A lot of new JRPGs are structured like western RPGs. Ditching turn-based, menu command style combat for something more active or just loading your menu up with tons of options that give the potential for every battle to be different instead of simply spamming the accept button to speed through.

They still however tend to make the characters you play as static except for the power growth. No control over what stats get upgraded, no control over the job/class, shit sometimes you can't even rename them. The old classics like Final Fantasy feel more like reading a book than a playing a game; which was fine when I actually thought the stories were good but as I grow older they have started to become cringey.

I don't care where it came from, I just want more variety in what I can do with my characters and in combat. Western RPGs tend to give that much more than a JRPG. Though I am currently playing Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Starting to get bored with the combat, but there's so much more to do than fight and the story is like a really good anime that combines all the genres of anime I like. It's also super long. It took me 5 hours just to get to the main location the game takes place in.

I hate both of them, but JRPGs are worse. I am sure this is exactly the kind of answer you were looking for.