I grew up with tabletop games and different languages of games, so it was never just about Japanese RPGs. I also used to play a few western FPS (Doom, Duke Nukem, Quake, Hexen, Jedi Knight, Half-Life).
yea, western RPGs are mostly about free-roam, stat-crunching, and making choices. It helps if you grew up with tabletop games, and half the "fun" is in trying new strategies and seeing what works or doesn't. If you're not into that, then chances are you won't like most of the games in the genre. But generally speaking, I find these games far superior in world/environment/language-building than Japanese ones.
Diablo (and Diablo: Hellfire): Had a great old-school feel to it. The Butcher was a memorable boss. I played over Battle.NET once or twice, but my 28.8 modem was hanging too much. And 4 years later, I'd play Neverland's Record of Lodoss War on Dreamcast as a fan of the series and recognize something way too similar. And then to a lesser extent, their Shining Force Neo later.
Diablo II: I couldn't get into this as much as I wanted to. I was really busy when it came out and I found the respawning elements annoying at the time. I only tried out the Necromancer and Paladin, and I think I remember you couldn't hoard as much as the first one
Champions series (Champions of Norrath, Champions: Returns to Arms): Snowblind made this series along with the console Baldur's Gates. I like it cause the feel is more immersive. Not much to say though, it
is a Diablo clone afterall. The skill trees are similar, and spells are quite nice. Last year they did Justice League Heroes and I enjoyed that as well (better done than X-Men Legends series).
Titan Quest: ok, so it's not exactly a real RPG, but if you like the Diablo series, you should definitely check this out. It is pure combat and quick paced (something you might enjoy, Leroy). The cool part about this game is the class combinations; there are 8 masteries to choose from and you choose 2 of them. I tried Earth and then later Warfare, and I became a Battlemage. My other character was a Ranger (Hunting+Nature). The game also gets rid of evil things like a stash (forcing you to return to camp), reviving corpses (losing equipment when you die), portal scrolls, and running out of arrows! It's a true pick-up-n-play.
I still play things like the X-men Legends series and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which are more action than RPG (except for the stat-crunching factor).
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