Lol, yeah this is such a bizarre take. Like, no one calls Elden Ring a JRPG even though it's made in Japan. JRPG is a genre, full stop.

The WRPG is also a thing. There is a very clear difference in how developers in the West versus the East approached the adaptation of the TRPG to the video game format, which is what all RPG's are rooted in. Square/Enix/Falcom and others used prebuilt parties and turn based combat, with a heavy emphasis on story, while western developers put way more control into players hands with character creation and role play (and often real time rolls/gameplay), with less developed stories and side characters. No approach is the "correct" one.

What would be really interesting to hear reported on is whether this was rooted in player preference. Like, did Japanese TRPG players gravitate more toward prebuilt campaigns and characters? Did Western players indulge in more varied self expression and try to break the game while disregarding the story the DM was trying to tell? Tbf, the former sounds much nicer to DM.

"they deserve to be othered as a country of developers because of square enix"?