Americans or Japanese?

I wouldn't really call what Mass Effect provides a Role Playing experience. It's at best a failed attempt at one. Every action that your character takes, and the way he is, is determined far more by the predetermined elements of the game than your own personal input. I fail to see how pushing a character through a limited number of paths creates a real sense of actually having a significant amount of control over him, but then again I'm not so easily pleased by interactive storyline gimmicks that are really all Bioware have to offer.

FFXIII will be the far superior game simply because it relies on storyline immersion, a practise that actually works, in delivering a role playing experience (as well as the far more talented developers working on the game).

Have you played the suicide mission? No other game has managed to deliver the sense of responsibility, care and danger in me like ME2. The way it was delivered made if much more epic. It really felt like everything was on the line and it was all up to the player to see his party through or get them killed. The whole buildup/development towards this moment helps a lot. It is something you have to go through to understand just how well done it is. In every single JRPG I have ever played you simply keep going forward, grind levels like a madman and then head to the final battle and watch how the story plays itself. I prefer the Bioware style. Makes the experience much more personal. By the way the suicide mission takes the "storyline immersion" to a whole new level IMHO.

In the end Role Play means assuming a role. Not just controlling a pre-determined character with little to no interaction other than who your party members are and what abilities they get.

Well there is such a thing as passively assuming a role by escaping into the role that the character takes, which is an approach on the role playing formula that at the very least doesn't suffer from the limitations of video gaming, like the choice based approach does (video games being nowhere near advanced enough to allow you a real sense of control over your character to the point where you feel as if you're fully in control of him (which would require an innumerable amount of variations in the design)).

Personally I find this fanatisicm for the integration of predetermined storytelling and choice making almost a little childish; it's like you're choosing to escape into somebody else's imagination, and yet you still wish to input your own influence into it, when it only detracts from the story behind the imagination that you've chosen to partake in.

Storytelling where the vision and and creativity of the storyteller isn't being filtered through multiple different potential scenarios is where storytelling is in its most effective form, and a role playing approach that doesn't expose the limitations of the medium in which they operate in is where the role playing experience is.

I prefer the ME approach even if its a "little childish." What is wrong with desiring a little bit of interaction in a fictional world? If I just wanted to escape reality with no control what so ever I'd watch movies and not give a damn about VGs. I am not saying that ME2 is perfect, but it is a step forward in the direction I wish Role Playing games took.

I like FF and have been a fan for a very long time, but I just can't shrug off the feeling that franchise has grown stale and doesn't really try to expand itself besides changing how the level system works and the fighting takes place. I just feel like I've outgrown FF, but still want to play it because its ...well...FF.

Fanaticism? I think this banana is calling someone yellow. Quickly now, go make another sock account.

I can only hope that Square Enix will learn a thing or two from BioWare(Mass Effect in particular), but that's a bit too much to hope. It's like that 90-something old lady crossing the street. Everyone left her in the dust ages ago while she's still in the middle of the street, even the cars have used the sidewalk just to get away by now.

I wonder when the Japanese themselves will get fed up with being served the same shit year after year, nay, decade after decade. I guess they are renowned for their patience for a reason.