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Truth stranger than fiction[04.02.01] » Genso Suikoden Card Stories is a real game. April Fools'? According to reports from Nick Rox, yesterday was April Fools' Day. This, of course, meant it was time for the GIA to do what the GIA likes doing best. Besides talking about Gilgamesh. As many readers correctly surmised, the Final Fantasy X minigame "Funky Fantasy" and the accompanying interview and music samples were indeed an April Fools' joke. Reports of its obviously false nature began circulating almost as soon as it was posted. Our favorite "reason" was the theory that Video-Senki was a "clearly faked" site put together simply to support our April Fool's Day joke. Video-Senki is actually the best site on the web for accurately translated interviews and the business details of Japanese gaming companies. (For details on the making of Funky Fantasy, including extra artwork, skip to the end of this story.) Despite appearances to the contrary, all other stories reported on April 1st are 100% factual. Genso Suikoden Card Stories is a real game, as are Xenosaga, Super Galdelic Hour, and Datel's Game Studio. Despite the different publisher, Xenosaga really is Episode 1 in the Xenogears universe. Even the Xenogears text speed code is real -- praise the Wondrous Mambo God! By the end of the day, even the GIA staff had trouble keeping track of what was real and what was fiction. The GIA itself was not immune from the confusion. Reports of a promotional music CD being given out at Square's TGS booth turned out to be an "April" Fools' joke which a very "special" reader cleverly chose to publish on March 30th. Tricky! The GIA hopes this poor, deranged reader can someday learn the difference between "April Fool's Day joke" and "outright lie on March 30th." As long as you're in the spirit of the holiday, take a trip down memory lane with GIA's 2000 and 1999 April Fool's Day jokes. And despite this year's tell-all-exposé, the GIA will carry the secrets of Final Fantasy Gaiden to our graves. The GIA could find no official press release confirming Nick Rox's existence. The Making of Funky Fantasy"Funky Fantasy" is a crazy name, as many of you noticed -- but an RPG was actually released for the Sega Saturn with that title! The joke was originally conceived as a stand-alone rhythm action game, but Fritz Fraundorf suggested moving it to a Final Fantasy X minigame for added believability. Once the GIA came up with the idea, Nick Rox was responsible for creating the screenshot. Though the art style is crazy, it's actually an imitation of Nomura's self-named "hena-e" (worthless style). Nomura has used the style before in sketches for Final Fantasy VII and VIII. The Engrish "Let's Dancin'!!" and "NEUTORON BOMB MIX" were added for flavor. A music-themed joke needs convincing music, and two 30-second mixes were posted as corraborating evidence. The "Eyes on Me" remix is from an official Japanese "Dancemania" album, and the "Melodies of Life" remix was created from scratch by GIA friend Charles Vestal. Nick Rox then created a "Famitsu" interview to explain the minigame's strange name and appearance. Yes, Famitsu interviews are really this inane. Friend of the GIA, Video-Senki, posted the interview first. Video-Senki's webmaster Kevin Gifford also created a Japanese website for DJ Majestic. This site is the "original" home of the two music samples and a paragon of poor Japanese web design. It is also absolutely hilarious, even if you can't read Japanese. "Frankie Knuckles" is all you need to know. After Fritz got the project started, Andrew Vestal oversaw the different parts of the joke's creation. Andrew also wrote the final news stories -- with some help from the rest of the GIA crew, of course. Our reputation for ridiculous April Fools' Day jokes grows each year, and our audience is becoming harder and harder to fool. If we made you blink twice, though -- either with Funky Fantasy or another, "true," story -- then we've succeeded. We had a blast putting the joke together, and we hope you enjoyed reading it!
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