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All the way back to the first Final Fantasy game, we've had Sci-Fi elements in the series. Now whether the series has handled these elements well is debatable from game to game, but I guess my question is whether you're the type of fan who loves this aspect of the series, doesn't care, or really wish the series would go back to more heavy handed high fantasy settings?
I like the sci fi elements. I don’t think FF can ever truly be a science fiction story, but I’ve always enjoyed how pretty much every single game is science fantasy to some degree. DQ is pure fantasy and Western RPGs stick to more pure fantasy or pure sci fi settings, so I’ve always thought FF’s take was refreshing. Whether or not these elements are that well thought out or not doesn’t really as matter so much to me since FF was never really about world building - plus I feel you can get very liberal with this in science fantasy stories.
I definitely like it especially since my favorites of the series seem to tend to lean into those elements a bit more.Scifi elements were always a pretty significant part of every FF since at least the SNES days and arguably from the start. Honestly, for people who complain about scifi elements in FF, it really seems to come down to something as silly and superficial as whether or not there are castles. My evidence for this assertion is that people who complain about the scifi elements in FF7 and FF8 seem perfectly fine with FF6. However, between Magitek armor, the factory like setting in Vector, FF6 seems almost as scifi as those games. Meanwhile FF7 and FF8 still have swords and magic, so the complaint can't be for lack of those. When it comes down to it the most stark difference pointing to one being in a more "medieval setting" than the others is that FF6 has castles (well technically FF8 even has one of those but we'll ignore that because it's not a town type setting). Objectively, FF6 is in an industrial type setting, not a medieval setting, but that doesn't stop people from lumping FF6 with medieval setting and placing the dividong line between FF6 and FF7. It's gotta be the castles. Okay, for FF7, maybe it's also the suits.
You take a spaceship to the moon as early as FF4, so yeah, sci-fi has definitely been part of Final Fantasy for a long time.
Personally I don't mind that at all, if anything I think RPGs as a whole still stick to the whole "Swords and sorcery with a medieval aesthetic" thing too much. Of course, FF doesn't have to go as far away from that as they did in, say, FF13 (although its age aesthetic was the least of its problems), but keep elements, definitely. Be that FF4's lunar whale, FF8's esthar and space stuff, etc.