Science Fantasy

by Paul Terrinova 

There is no doubt to it: Final Fantasy VII is easily the greatest game in my mind! Nothing has ever come close! But, I do have one problem, not with just Final Fantasy VII, but with the all of the recent Role Playing Games that are coming out.

What happened to the good old days of RPGs when the hero(es)wore armor, visited castles, and most of all, used swords, magic, axes, bows & arrows, and not guns or other technology? Final Fantasy VII’s story was incredible; it couldn’t have been done without the use of modern technology such as guns, motorcycles, cars, etc. That doesn’t mean, though, that just because one game had a semi sci-fi theme, Square (or any other company for that matter) should totally get rid of the medieval theme that classic games have. With what I have seen, Xenogears IS a Science-Fiction story instead of the usual fantasy based story. In fact, every RPG preview I have seen (with the exceptions of Breath of Fire III, and Lunar: The Silver Star Story) has had technology in it. From muskets in Final Fantasy Tactics, to space travel in Xenogears, the whole medieval fantasy stories that built RPGs are slowly falling away. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it really doesn’t feel the same, does it?

You must admit it, "The Sacred Assault Rifle of Light" doesn’t sound as good as "The Sacred Sword of Light". Expanding your boundaries is good, but ditching a theme isn’t. With the rate we are going with RPGs, we might as well change Final Fantasy to Super Sci-Fi!