i like the healthy mixture of both, where you get to travel to futuristic places like the shinRa building and the mako generators in ff7, but there were also the basic oldstyle places like the slums and the ancient city ..
or in ff8 where thers the esthar city was unbearably futurisic, but then there was the winhill village which reminded me a hell of a lot of modern day in a quiet village much like where i live. i like that place so much, i really wish there had been more done with it!