Back in the dim and distant bronze age of the Internet, when 1UP was a thing Mario collected and IGN was a coalition of loosely-related platform-specific individual sites, I used to contribute to a site called The Gaming Intelligence Agency. The GIA was too good for this gentle world (literally, as the cost of running such a popular site in the days before anyone really understood how to run a self-sustaining business online ended up leading to its shutdown). People loved the site for its focus on niche content, its smart and up-to-the-minute content, and perhaps most of all its eerily convincing April Fool’s jokes. I don’t know that the GIA ever topped its stunningly well-crafted Final Fantasy VIII Gaiden hoax, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.
One of my favorites GIA pranks was always Funky Fantasy, a Final Fantasy-based rhythm game. The idea seemed so ridiculous in those faraway times: Final Fantasy characters boogying DDR-style to trip-hop remixes of Nobuo Uematsu’s music. And yet here we are, mere months away from the arrival of Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, which manages to one-up Funky Fantasy both in terms of its preposterous design and its silly name.
