Tech: RPG cliches

I'm currently playing Final Fantasy XII. It's a good game, sort of a cross between Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and FF Tactics. That said, it contains a LOT of the standard Japanese console RPG cliches:

1. The protagonist and many of the main characters are orphans.
2. There is an evil empire (it's actually named "The Archadian Empire") and you are resisting it.
3. You get captured/outsmarted by the villains a lot (I've played about 12 hours and the party has already been captured three or four times).
4. There are invariably McGuffins of great power that said evil empire is trying to possess.
5. People get kidnapped a lot.

and so on. I suppose it's nice to have a traditional framework to hang a story on, but another part of me just sees it as laziness.