I've noticed that I'm more picky with RPGs than I used to be. I think for me it's not so much a matter of being older. I think back to the days when i was playing Vay, Lunar, Chrono...I could pretty much get into anything that was an RPG. But over time, while the other genres made massive strides in gameplay, RPGs, especially JRPGs, did not. A lot of the RPGs that come out these days have gameplay every bit as simplistic as it was in the early 90s (lost odyssey, for example). When you have games like Gears of War and MGS coming out, it's just hard for that kind of out-moded gameplay to hold my interest. I think non-RPGs have also caught up in the storytelling department, so modern RPGs can't fall back on that either. So it's not so much me getting old, but the gameplay getting old.
But, you know, sometimes the game is just bad. I wouldn't use this generation of games to gauge where your feelings are at with RPGs. They just haven't been that good, overall. Even Mass Effect didn't really do it for me the way earlier Bioware games like BG2 did. On the other hand, I love Tales of Vesparia and I'm looking forward to Dragonage, Star Ocean and White Knight Chronicles(Level 5 really impressed me with Rogue Galaxy).
I'd say play Persona 4 when it comes out next week, and if you can't get into that, maybe it is you and not the games afterall. Persona's gameplay is still a little bit traditional (i.e., dated), but its non-traditional themes, simplistic yet rewarding strategy, and character management elements like fusion and social link really make the overall experience highly rewarding.
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