The most present day Fantasy?

[Wolf Kanno]

I remember reading somewhere that they figured Final Fantasy VIII took place sometime around the 60's with the way the cars looked, the constant presence of war, the fact that 20 years ago, Laguna was fighting in a larger scale war, etc.

I'm not sure how much gravity that theory holds, but it makes sense. Plus Raine's and Ellone's clothing strikes me as 50's.

I don't think the war laguna participated in has any significance. There are wars all the time, after all. I don't really think the cars looked a lot like a specific earth time period, personally.

I don't know, the war Laguna fought in is said to be a world war with Esthar against all the other nations. It's how Galbadia acquired some of the places like Timber. So it was close to being an equivalent world war. It's not like there were many nations in VIII to begin with.

I feel VIII is the closest to now, largely because places like Dollet and Deling City could have real world equivalents now. I mean what really makes them different from a a late 20th/early 21st century European cities like Berlin and Paris? Even the characters clothing is mostly modern when you look at civilian clothing and the military formal wear.

VII is kind of a bit of post WWII meets 80s Akira it's the next closest to our modern world though it's also the second most Japanese world as well with the game showing a lot of customs and elements you would only see in Tokyo like Lucky Neko statues in front of stores, female greeters for convience stores, and random English words scattered about like the Texas sign in Tifa's Bar/AVALNACHE Hideout.