Fantasy

Nah no way. The OT was brilliant definitely is classic and belongs in the realm of high fantasy. It pales in the face of LoTR and the fantasy world that was set forth there by JRR Tolkien. Star Wars borrows many elements from Joseph campbell which is based on mythological stories and that does give it a Fantasy basis. It incorporates religous philosophies and mingles it with the plot while taking the westerns and movies like(The Hidden Fortress) mythos and style which give a strong sense of identity. At the same time though the world is a hodge podge of ideas with very little solid basis for it outside fo the movies. Pretty much all canon and rules are just added on through filler like the books and the Prequels(midochlorians anyone?). Where LoTR was the life work of JRR Tolkien since World War 1 and many things were excluded from the books that are added later through appendages from his notes. Middle Earth is also very strongly influenced by Nordic Culture and Mylthology and Der Das Ring and stories like Beowulf(the first Danish King BTW)

I like the more science fictiony ones. FF VIII has my favourite setting, without a doubt. It just stikes me as more origional, perhaps because almost all fantasy stories have a Medieval vibe to them.

The melding of fantasy elements with near-future technology is really nice, IMO.

@redspear

I dunno.....LOTR Fantasy never got to me....seemed more medievel wars than magic n all of tat

Chronicles Of Narnia are much more fantasy like

dude, have you actually read what I said.. or are you drunk?.. 

I happen to like them all...though Narnia much less I prefer His Dark Materials despite the horrible movie. That said the sheer size and scope and depth of the tolkien stories that leech even outside of the realm of his books but yet feed his stories is pretty much unmatched in modern fantasy. It started the whole DandD craze. Narnia was a bit heavy on the christian allegories for me but its biggest drawback was the alternate world thing still good but not the best you never get the sensation you are in a world all of its own until you get a few books into the series.

As I said the type of magic that is in LoTR is more similiar to that of Norse tales and stuff like Beowulf. Magic weapons and rings, giant balrog, cursed armies of the dead, Talking trees, Golden Dragons, and Cave Trolls. Really the books are almost like reading the death of Magic where magic itself is Bad. There is a ton of magic in LoTR and even illustrated with unrestrained glee with Tom Babidil( I always misspell it LOL) but tolkien disliked full unrestrained magic(Tom can't leave the forest) he felt it ruins the narrative of the story so it isn't the front and foremost thing that is there in his books. If you want Magic you should read the Similarion it is full of it too bad he died before it was finished. Also good reads The Once and Future King and also Conan both fro the 30's and classic.

I never played a FF, but in general I prefer fantasy. That being said, FF's techy sure is some of the coolest I've seen, so it may be the series to change me.

I will be getting FFXIII whenever it comes around.

 Play FFVI,FFV,FFIV,FFVII,FFIX,and FFX. Then play everything else. If you want to get used to the real time gameplay that FFXIII will have then play FFXII. Square Enix needs to make a new turnbased rpg to replace final fantasy. 

Well I loved FFVIII and FFIX so it's hard to say. I both like them a lot. But I think I would have to go with Techy. I love VIII, and I've played some of VII and enjoyed it's style too. But I wouldn't mind what they went with, as long as the game is enjoyable.

Fantasy as used as a genre of books, movies, etc. is used when things in the world are explained by magic. Sci-fi is used when things can be explained by science.

Where it gets confusing is that fantasy usually includes creatures and themes that comes from when the genre was created (Homer's Odyssey, Excalibur, etc.). That's why we find more "medieval" and "ancient Greek" themes in fantasy.

Sci-fi is quite recent so we see a lot of machinery, guns and other stuff.

Final Fantasy plays with both but often we have machines that run with magic crystals . That's why it can get confusing.