Guns in high fantasy

[Don]

This is one of those pet peeves that really annoying. I don't mind if you've a society that clearly has advanced to the gunpowder stage and then somehow figured out how to make melee weapons better than guns, whether it's a lightsaber or Ninja's sword in Metal Gear, or maybe because punching each other to death is just cooler. But there are a lot of games that clearly take place in your medieval level of technology who somehow has access to guns and mechs, and it really makes no sense whatsoever since the mechs won't even be stronger than say a generic Ogre. It's almost like whoever designed it figure they got to hedge their game for the FPS crowd to include guns no matter how little sense it actually makes.

[Julius Seeker]

I think a lot of it has to do with Japanese culture that has permeated the fantasy genre over the last 50 years.

Japan, before the Shogunate, was the largest producer of firearms in the world. After the unification war, firearms were banned, and the society was effectively iron aged; but guns would occasionally leak in. Japan also LOVES the fantasy that a technologically advanced society existed earlier than the memory of the current society - you can see this in most Final Fantasy games, Xenogears, and Final Fantasy Tactics.

[Don]

The Square games are more like civilization that has advanced past gunpowder that for some reason decide to go back to inferior technology. For example in FF6, Magic in general is far superior to technology, so you could have guys using guns that are still nothing compared to a guy that can cast Fire. It's simliar to say Star Wars where there's always some overriding all powerful mysterious force that trumps technology.

But look at something like say, World of Warcraft. There's no especially potent magic in its world setting. Using a bow should be strictly using a gun but the two are considered equal and most of the famous people that use a ranged weapon uses a bow instead of a gun.