FF5 Revisited!

[Citizen Bleys]

* Faris is Jewish: This was meant to be an innocuous thing, where Faris admits to something different from what the player expects (that she's a women), but is still a minority and equally harmless. Later I played with having Faris "admit" to more and more outlandish things, which might have retroactively made the initial joke look bad. If I were to do it again, I'd keep Faris the same, but I'd cut the Jewish thing. Not that it's particularly anti-semitic, it's just... stupid.

I liked the Jewish thing; setting up an expectation and then doing something different and unexpected is the basis for most good comedy. I don't think anyone reasonable would consider it anti-semitic in the least. It comes across as good-natured fun that adds to the spoof.

Sure, I'm sure some loons would try to call it anti-semitic, but every group and culture on Earth has that minority share of nutjobs who are always looking for an excuse to be offended. I wouldn't hesitate to show the spoof to a Jewish friend, if I knew which of my friends were Jewish.

* All your base are belong to us: This was actually new and funny when I wrote it into the spoof... problem is, I didn't release it until ten years later. Whoops.

Somehow, that reaction makes the joke seem funnier to me.

* Digger Nick: Yes, this is clearly the most offensive thing in the spoof, and yes, I do in fact regret it. It's Dave Chappelle without the satire, intelligence, or context. You have to set your brain to "lowest common denominator" mode to enjoy any of the Digger Nick stuff - I recognize that it can be funny, but it makes me wince, still. FF5Spoof is a complete project, and I have no plans to release another version, "now with less Digger Nick!", as much as I'd like to.

Yeah, that's why pretty much all of the Digger Nick dialogue got cut even though Gilgamesh is one of my favourite characters.

* Galuf steals Cara's body: Not only do I feel that this is *very* funny, but it fixes a bug in the original, where Cara starts spouting some of Galuf's dialog (with Galuf's name) if you don't visit the castle with the 12 elite weapons until after Galuf's death.

Dude, that made the game. Not only does it blindside the player with funny in what we're expecting to be a sad scene (there's the expectation reversal formula again), but it's timed for just when we get over the levity at Galuf burning down the forest in a kind of Leslie Nielsen movie-esque one-two punch. Plus it sets up a lot of jokes later on in the game.

* Tzepish / Exdeath turning into a tree: His "it was the first thing I could think of!" was deliberately making fun of the fact that Exdeath turns into a tree in the original. How lame is that?

That line is twice as funny if you've been reading Tzep/Exdeath's lines in the voice of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Maybe I'll start working on stuff again.

Hell yeah!