I liked the Spirits Within as a really good Sci-Fi movie, but I honestly dont think any aspect of that movie falls into the category of Fantasy. Even in video rental stores it is considered Sci-fi.
Hence the reason I didnt like it being called “Final FANTASY”. Maybe if it were just called “The Spirits Within” without the Final Fantasy part it wouldnt have bugged me so much. Oh well, lables sell, even if they arent correct.
Conan is in the sci-fi section of the video rental store here… it isnt exactly sci-fi. sci-fi and fantasy have kinda merged, kinda like Star Wars. Is Star Wars science fiction or fantasy ? It has space ships, it has magic, it has sword fights. final fantasy always has technological overtones. Hell, there are robots in the very first game, and you actually transport to space(beam me up, tiamat).
TSW is every bit as much FF as AC will be. It has all the “classic” FF elements in it, and there is no reason to say “it really isnt FF because they didnt swing giant swords to defeat giant bees”. Admittedly it wasnt exactly what i expected it would be, which is fine with me, i like that it made me wanna watch it to the end, and even the ending made me think a little.
This is just me, but I’m a sucker for tradition. I love the older FFs’ story lines, because theuy were more fantasy really. But yes, all of the games have technology in them. I mean the airship alone, not to mention trips to the moon (FFIV). I like VII and VIII, but in my opinion they don’t quite have the sme thing that the earlier games had, VIII especially feels like something completely different. Tyhat’s why I loved IX and VI. Thwy were epic games that contained what I feel is the eccsence of Final Fantasy: Theatrical, over-the-top but scary as hell villians (not that I don’t fear Sephiroth), a huge threat from a dominent empire (which II also had) and deep characters who were still strange and cartoonish. I think VI got the blend of fantasy and sci-fi just right.
I suppose for me it was a feeling of overwhelming SCI aspects. While yes, alot of Final Fantasy games had mechanical bits in them, they still had primarily fantasy aspects in some form. However, spirits within had no swordplay (oooh the deepeyes had knifes!), no “fantasy creatures” but instead had “Alien Ghosts”. For me its the difference of:
Magic/Creatures/SOME hint of traditional Fantasy (ala swords and sorcery)
vs
BFG (big fucking guns)/Aliens/spaceships
When I think “Fantasy” I associate it with medieval fantasy which has been the forerunner of nearly ALL fantasy related ANYTHING for a loooong long time. And when I think Spaceships and Aliens, I can’t even begin to see that as anything LESS than Sci-fi.
I guess its all a matter of how you interpret the genera of fantasy vs the genera of Sci-fi
Squall? Really? What a nerd! 
TSW doesn’t have that fantasy feel, true, but then FFVII and FFVIII were lacking in that department as well; as someone else has already pointed out. Maybe that’s why it having the title Final Fantasy didn’t bother me that much. I’d classify all three of those elements together: great on their own merits, but not so great as Final Fantasies. Which of course leads back to the question of what exactly defines a Final Fantasy game.
It’s a never ending loop! :moogle:
Fantasy is really what you make of it. If you look at FFX they had heavy Thai and Asian overtones with their costume designs and stuff. And some thought it was not “fantasy”.
But in a way it worked.
of course, in the sequel the main chick went from a dress to hotpants but that was okay.
It was GOOD.
Fantasy always doesn’t have to be magic and darkness and the like. If we stuck to one generic template for every game, we wouldn’t have such a great selection in games, in my opinion. It’s not a bad thing to dislike a couple FF’s and love the other, and because of that, I see no valid reason to exclude some of the newer FF’s because of that reason. The dark world over run by magic has been done, so yeah. We need some variety.
And this is from my favorite source on everything that concerns video game industry, Game Spy:
back in 1987 Square didn’t have much of a plan at all past releasing Final Fantasy and hoping that it sold. But sell it did, riding on the winds of the RPG phenomenon started by Enix’s Dragon Quest a year before. Square was saved, a sequel was begun, and Final Fantasy failed to live up to its name. This fantasy was just beginning.
How interesting, that 16 years later, the two archrivals - Square and Enix combined their forces.
So what do i like about FF? What is FF? I think this could answer both questions:
The name “Final Fantasy” conjures up different images for different people. For some, it might call to mind the Dark Knight Cecil, rebelling against the corrupt kingdom of Baron. For others, a quartet of pixelated adventurers chasing after the rat’s tail and hanging out in Corneria. Yet others will remember the blowing of the Mako Reactor in Midgar, or a grand Blitzball tournament in Zanarkand. Really, the [SIZE=2]Final Fantasy series is very much defined by just how different each subsequent entry is from the last[/SIZE]