It might be better to specify the setting before trying to make a conclusion, too. Magic varies too much as others have said, so pick a setting and figure out who wins.

I'll go with trying FF7, kind of a tough one. Guns definitely don't win. Vincent or Barret or any of the Shinra folk can't trump the swordsmen of the realm, even if some of Barret's limit breaks are pretty umm...awesome.

High end vs. high end, I say Magic wins in FF7. It comes down to Cloud's Omnislash (max 12-13 x 9999, right?) versus the best magic I can think of...Quadra Magic cast Knights of the Round with max Magic ability (12 x 9999 x 4?). Magic wins. Swords second, guns last. Next setting! :p

At the end of as many settings as possible we could tally it all up and see which seems to be better overall. Woohoo!

As far as FF settings go, swords beat guns because generally speaking the wielder is so fuck-stupidly powerful that they can just physically exert more force than any chemical reaction could ever transfer to any small lump of metal. I mean, guns? Fuck, Cloud could do more damage by throwing the goddamn bullets with his bare hands. I mean it's like saying, okay, guns vs. Superman. Hey, look at that, Superman wins! Hey I wonder how that happened, oh wait that's right, it's cause he's Superman!

Really you know why you don't see guns win in fantasy settings, is because come down to it is the whole point of fantasy settings is you don't see guns win in fantasy settings. I mean the genre largely comprises a response to industrialized modernity by carving out a fictitious space in which individual human strength and aptitude retains primacy. Going to all that bother and then letting guns win, well, shit, you might as well just stay here in reality, where the gun/magic question has been pretty definitively answered for about a hundred and twenty years now.

can we all just agree that Mustadio proves that everybody here is wrong and right at the same time?

Yeah, movie-remembreing time! He deflects so many bullets that it isn't funny...

Also, not just being specific about magic. I mean, we could say that a 50. cal barret is going to kill a magician from a concealed location, but that's obvious. So, seeing as Cloud is like a god, we need to tone down the settings a bit to a more even scale.

Anywho, a trained sniper with a Barret would easily kill Cloud. Camo + Super-gun + Unknown presence = dead FF characters.

Edit: So, all in all, the answer is circumstantial? Anyone agree?

Except he couldn't, because not even swords impaling Cloud kill Cloud. He's a dummy! Wait, maybe I should spoiler that...

And Mustadio was pretty good yeah, depending on how you deploy him in fact, he could beat any of the best heroes with Don't Move and Don't Act. Like any Versus thread is depends on the starting conditions. But on a standard Orlandu/Ramza vs. Mustadio with each in range with one move, it comes down to Mustadio landing the first Don't Move, and then shooting them to death over and over.

So perhaps in FFT, guns win. Or with those magic guns, magic and guns win! Or if Orlandu gets in range and isn't hit by Don't Move, swords and magic win!

This has been said before a number of times throughout this thread, but this is a world were magic exists. And so magic is used for destructive as well asconstructive purposes. It would seem that a magician of sorts could easily empower a human with enhanced natural talents (though this could go either way).

Ok, so people are kinda slow, but again - magic could help out. Like I said just now, enhancing natural abilities with magic, or even more so, the weaponry.

Also, if this is a marksmen vs trained swordsmen, the marksmen would be precise enough to be able to hit vital points again and again. But wouldn't the swordsmen know where these vital points are as well? What's to say that they would not cover their vital points with the sword, instead of trying to judge were the bullet is going?

But then again, the marksmen might know this as well, and aim for less vital point to throw the swordsmen off.

And may I emphasise once again - magic (and all it's uses) exists in the world as well.

Sorry to have to go back a few pages, but I have to have a chance to at least defend myself.

The odds that the bullet would hit the sword are very slim. The person wouldn't even know where the marksman is going to shoot. The human body is littered with vital points and 1 inch wide is about average for a sword.

The Buster sword might be somewhat more useful in that situation, anyone with a rapier is screwed though. Unless they can stab bullets mid-air with a thrust.....

That would be cool they should have someone do that.

if you really want to compare guns and fireaqrms, you need to do so in a setting were both exist... like Xenogears or Wild Arms... hell... even Granado Espada!

Anywho, in a fantasy setting a fancer with a rapier could probably stop bullets in mid-flight with a piercing thrust that would deslocate enough air to do so... and that would be cool

Lets reiterate the point of it being generalized (well, that was what I originally planned anyway); because as someone already mentioned, when you throw in the godly powerful god-like entities, magic/swords win cause the swordsmen can never die. To end the discussion lets take a look at some classic examples of guns vs swords/magic.

Spike vs Viscious: Basically ends in a tie. No points awarded.
Train vs Creed: Guns win.
The Samurai vs the Gatlingers in The Last Samurai: Guns win, by alot.
An Alpha Level Psyker vs Some Impirial Guardsmen: Magic(ish) wins.
Deathmaster Snikch vs anything: Swords win.

Conclusion: Because Snikch can kill anything (with the possible exception of Vash, Train, Kenshin, and Chuck Norris), including Superman (cause warpstone is green and glowy, and therefore counts as kryptonite), swords win, stupid man-things.