The nice thing about Shadowrun, to my mind, was that you could take from it what you wanted and leave the rest. I always see it described as a fantasy-cyberpunk hybrid, and I suppose it is, but the games we ran way back when I was 13, and the online MUSHing I did in the system, always focused much more on the cyberpunk aspect rather than the fantasy stuff - of which there's not really all that much. Yeah, there's elves and orks and dwarves and trolls, and yeah, there's magic, but it's not exactly like it's medieval-era fantasy archetypes wandering around 2070s Seattle.
I really do wish someone else controlled the rights to that game, though. Always thought it's the most ideal system for an MMORPG ever created.
Fantasy doesn't mean medieval. Once you start breaching into elves and magic, you're well into fantasy. You got off the bus and set up shop in fantasy.
It's the difference between the cliche and the archetype. The medieval world that looks back to LoTR for inspiration is the cliche.