The RPG Codex loves to denigrate even the best JRPGs, yet votes
Planescape: Torment its #1 CRPG of all time, while embracing Biowarean decline.
n.b. I think highly enough of
Planescape: Torment that I place it in my list of top 20 RPGs, but it was heavily influenced by a game in the Final Fantasy series that wasn't anywhere near as good as the one mentioned above, and it also suffers from Bioware's execrable Infinity Engine.
Considering PS:T was in development before FFVII was even released, what heavy influence did Planescape: Torment take from it? Cutscene-like spell animations that freeze the game (why would anyone praise this?) and a similar emphasis on story...with a completely different structure, tone, presentation and method of storytelling from JRPG's.
So not particularly similar. Basically every RPG with mandatory party members is more similar to a JRPG than Planescape: Torment (e.g. every post-NWN Bioware game).
Planescape: Torment is a game that deliberately plays with cRPG tropes (e.g. instead of beginning the game by creating and naming your own character, you get a pre-defined character whose name and identity you only uncover at the very end of the game). By contrast, it doesn't have anything to say about the Japanese RPG genre.
The RPG Codex loves to denigrate even the best JRPGs
I recently played Final Fantasy VI for the first time to finally see what all the buzz is about and I'm at a loss on what's supposed to be so mind-blowing about it. It's completely on rails, which would be tolerable if the locations weren't an endless succession of boring caves, empty fields and generic towns. Combat is a joke. Random encounters are annoyingly frequent. Dialogue and 'characterization' is laughably bad. Pretty much everything else I've played on the SNES was more entertaining than this. Maybe it gets better past the first few hours I played, but I doubt it considering I've always seen the beginning described in positive terms.
It isn't a good game, much less a good steampunk game (from what I played, the steampunk element was barely noticeable as anything more than window dressing).
Sure, if what's you're calling innovation is features taking the genre down the abyss then yes maybe japanese devs innovate slower than western ones (although they do too), enjoy your quest markers ; you can't seriously consider RPGs evolved for the best over the 20 last years. 90% of the good RPGs form that period are those who actually stay close to old good ones (Knights of the chalice, Sword and sorcery underworld, Elminage Gothic ...).
So removal of character creation and customization, lack of permadeath and other long-term consequences, reducing the average party size from 6 to 3 characters, highly linear structure and general lack of exploration, greatly simplified gameplay systems (including a complete lack of non-combat gameplay) and adding in hours of unskippable cutscenes is your idea of elevating the RPG genre? Japanese RPG's did far more to streamline and homogenize the genre, and they've been doing it since the 80's (though to be fair, former cRPG developers like Bioware did much the same when they made the leap to console).