Dhruin
SasqWatch
A silly article at GameDaily compares western and Japanese RPGs across a handful of categories to determine a winner. Here's a dodgy history lesson to start:
More information.Before people started rolling the dice in Dungeons and Dragons, role-playing games got their start in the early 80s on the Atari 2600. Adventure and Dragonstomper laid the foundation for RPGs to come, despite their simplicity. When the Nintendo Entertainment System arrived three years later, Japanese developers took over and began incorporating storylines, characters and battle systems. Some players were overwhelmed by the complexity, but top-notch efforts such as Dragon Warrior, The Legend of Zelda (it's more of an action RPG, but it counts) and the original Final Fantasy attracted players by the thousands. Outside of specific developments around the U.S. (including Origin's Ultima games), Japan dominated the genre.