Silent_Buddha
Legend
Final Fantasy is both Sci-Fi and Fantasy, arbitrarily calling it fantasy is erroneous. We should be talking about 3 relatively broad genres if we want to do this. Fantasy, Science Fantasy and Science Fiction. In that sense modern Star Trek (older Star Trek is closer to Science Fiction with a stronger basis on Science and theoretical hypothesized future science with a reasonable basis in scientific principles), Fallout, Warhammer 40k, Star Control II, Starcraft, The Last of Us and Final Fantasy would be Science Fantasy. Science Fiction would be something like Star Field, Star Citizen, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Horizon games this with a harder basis in actual science and hypothetical future science based on scientific principles.
That said, an argument could be made that Fallout and TLOU could be Sci-Fi rather than Science Fantasy as they do have some theoritical basis in scientific pricinciples ... IE - the Zombies in Fallout aren't actually zombies but mutated humans which are now zombie-like while zombies in TLOU are based off of the zombified ants that have had their brains invaded by a fungal infection.
In literature, there isn't generally a Science Fantasy category although some book stores have them. Mostly it's either Fantasy or Science Fiction. Which one a book is categorized into is almost purely based on it's setting and not on the races or how closely one sticks to scientific principles. In that case Warhammer 40k is usually categorized as Sci-Fi because it has a Sci-Fi setting. Of course things get more complicated than that with book store categories as stores like to keep an authors books together. So authors that write both Fantasy and Sci-Fi (like Piers Anthony or David Drake) will often have all of their books regardless of setting put into either Fantasy or Sci-Fi. I always hated that both when shopping for books and when working at a book store when I was a teenager.
I mean you might as well throw in Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy, West World, Robocop, etc.
Regards,
SB
That said, an argument could be made that Fallout and TLOU could be Sci-Fi rather than Science Fantasy as they do have some theoritical basis in scientific pricinciples ... IE - the Zombies in Fallout aren't actually zombies but mutated humans which are now zombie-like while zombies in TLOU are based off of the zombified ants that have had their brains invaded by a fungal infection.
In literature, there isn't generally a Science Fantasy category although some book stores have them. Mostly it's either Fantasy or Science Fiction. Which one a book is categorized into is almost purely based on it's setting and not on the races or how closely one sticks to scientific principles. In that case Warhammer 40k is usually categorized as Sci-Fi because it has a Sci-Fi setting. Of course things get more complicated than that with book store categories as stores like to keep an authors books together. So authors that write both Fantasy and Sci-Fi (like Piers Anthony or David Drake) will often have all of their books regardless of setting put into either Fantasy or Sci-Fi. I always hated that both when shopping for books and when working at a book store when I was a teenager.
Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Witcher? For sure Fantasy is more popular overall.
In gaming:
Final Fantasy, Zelda, Elder Scrolls, Dragon Quest .... all of which are ahead of the biggest selling SF franchise of all time - Halo at 81 million sold. It's not even close really.
I mean you might as well throw in Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy, West World, Robocop, etc.
Regards,
SB
Last edited: