Barely IS a bit of a stretch, but when you spend something like 75% of the playtime in generic fantasy areas, yeah, it's kind of screwing up there.
Amusingly the twist probably DOES make it one of the more sci-fi entries anyway.
Naw man. Naw.
Hate to say this but SO games have about as much SyFy tech in them as a Tales Of game. Just replace time travel with the occasional space ship and ancient cities with moon bases and you're done. Hell SO games are basically Tales Of games but with crappier magic systems and more nonsensical plots.
You start half of them within a futuristic-Earth setting. o__o
SO1 is the only one you can really argue that for since most of it takes place in "the past", while visiting "future" elements is like going to your friend's house to pick something up.
SO2: the second half (Nede) looks like a modern-day earth setting. Hell, even elements of Expel had technological prowess. The game starts with your being transported Star-Trek-style across the universe.
SO3: You start on a futuristic resort, visit a new-advance-dimension of super-advanced people, and technically end the game where the "universe was created". NOT sci-fi??? NOT?
SO4: You've lost your mind if you don't think this one is sci-fi. One dungeon is dedicated to lizards in space and you visit Area 51 itself in some retarded plot twist. Half the peeps on your team are made from crust of sci-fi stereotypes. Unless a giant robot on your team
isn't sci-fi.
Can we agree to disagree or compromise your error in NOT calling it sci-fi by calling it a hybrid sci-fi/fantasy genre? Clearly being solely one or the other is neither here nor there, and I am almost dumbfounded that I had to explain the above.
Skyward Sword - Finished up the Lanyru Mining Facility. The boss there was surprisingly easy. Once again, though, I found the dungeon to be extremely well design and fun. This game is really impressing me on the design front.
Now I've got a harp to play with.
As for the small genre discussion going on: In this day and age to only be playing jrpgs just seems silly to me. There are so many great games out there in almost every genre. The only genres I'm not willing to try are sports and music games. Otherwise if it gets good reviews or good worth of mouth I'm willing to try it.
Lanayru was an incredibly clever dungeon. The boss was easy, and I think they make a point of that later on (you'll see).
And yeah, agree on the JRPG bit. I blame their inability to deliver as of late as a reason most should also look to greener pastures.