But the main character being a doofus is made up for by other, better characters. It's not a typical "save the world" type thing but it sort of leans that way. The world itself is interesting and not standard fantasy fare, kind of steampunkish lite.

Let's see. I don't want to sell you on a game you won't enjoy BUT I love The Last Remnant, which is high praise because I too really haven't enjoyed a JRPG in years.

The gameplay strays from typical 4 person parties, you end up having 16 or so people in your party and fight more large scale battles. You don't tell everyone individually to attack, but you give them commands and they act accordingly. You've got mages, fights, hybrids.. all sorts of interesting characters to recruit. Some are more story focused than others, but every character has at least a mini story of their own. It reminds me of Suikoden if you've ever played those. Anyway, the battles are fun, especially boss battles.

The environments/side-quests: there's lots of them and they are quite varied. easy to lose track of time and the main quest.

The story, overall, is decent enough to keep you interested. The voice acting is not top notch and the main character is kind of a doofus.

:D