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I don't know how, or why, but I think it's really Monday and someone is just playing a cruel joke on me.

"God !@#$ that Square Ra!"

-- Zach

Remember how all along I've said that Square was much too evil to translate the Final Fantasy collection? Well, I was wrong. They're far, far more evil than that. I know of no reason why they would choose not to tranlsate Final Fantasy 4. A small part of me is hoping they just forgot to announce that lil' fact, but it's highly doubtful. I'm sure in a day or two an explanation will surface, but for now we're just left to warm ourselves with this one, scary little thought: At least they didn't decide to only translate FF4 and FF6. <shudder>

Japanese 101

Let me ask a dumb question.I was just looking at screen shots of Final Fantasy 8 and some of the shots of the menus have english on them. I also noticed this of sceenshots of other games as well. Do the Japanese players have to know some english to play a game? Even when you play a Jananese emulation game, the start option says 'start' in english, not in japanese.

Just wondering,

-- Brian

From what I've heard in my years of searching for trivial information concernting videogames, Japanese gamers find a bit of English here and there stylish. Since most Japanese know at least some english, it's no problem for 'em. Darn those lucky Japanese, they can import and understand Secret of Evermore!

"Tell me about your first time"

How were you introduced to RPGs? I had played one or two when I was little, but it was not until Lunar that I truly fell in love with them. It was such a magical experience! <sniff> So how about you?

Zelda II, which confused me. It was the first time I'd ever heard of an EXP system. Then came Ultima: Exodus for the NES. So I hated RPGs, naturally. I really got into RPGs when, in under a month, I rented Final Fantasy 1, Final Fantasy 2 and bought FF:MQ. (To this day, I wish I had bought FF2 instead. Damnit.)

Videogames are to anime as marijuana is to crack. Sure, things start off simple -- admiring hand drawn sprites, looking at the sketches of Cloud and Tifa in the instruction booklet, maybe even doodling some fan art -- but before you know it, you're into the light stuff: Slayers. Lodoss. Ranma 1/2. And once you hit Evangelon, there's no turning back.

-- Sugoi

The EGM dude. And the other Sushi-X isn't a wrestler, he's just the webmaster of a wrestling site. Kinda like how Mike is just a webmaster, and doesn't routinely usurp, fray and quest for experience points. :D

Cideo Wild ARMs!
(Final Fantasy 9 spoiler? Dunno. Maybe.)

I saw the Latin translation yesterday, here's the translation I have found: (I should know, in Latin class and all.)

1st, there is no such word as vitus, but there is Vitis.

Vitis luce Vinciare osce sono
ieie una exito:

Binding bone, roar
spiritless, one end.

And considering Latin people it could mean this: Pure light and innocence, binding together eternally, I call out without hope, it all ends the same.

So, whatcha think Thor?

-- Emmy-Lee

I think you're a lot better at Latin than I am. I also think that I'll get a bunch of letters critiquing your translation and saying things like, "Just because she takes a class doesn't mean she's qualified to translate!". (Trust me, I get the weirdest "corrections" sometimes, heh heh.)

And in this corner, a lanky Californian!

"Oooh, That's got to hurt.. Sushi and bill are absolutely mashing Thor and Jay!" "Oh! Look! Fans are... erm.. Swarming from the stands to defend thier heroes!" "Huh? Where?" "Look, over in the corner.. The blond with the 'I love jay' hat, and the overweight guy in glasses who is carrying that little flag.. It appears to read 'I want thor's baby"

Ugh. That's it, I'm cancelling my appearance. MTV can sue me, I don't care. Just as long as I'm no where near that guy.

An AWOL Quickie

Pretty good. Last time I checked, they were gathering enough files for a good sized update. Have patience, my poppets. Waiting only makes it better. :D

Final Fantasy 7 crap.
(Final Fantasy 7 spoiler. Like we haven't all won the game by now.)

While lazing around in the soup of oddities that is my brain, I came up with a very different perspective on FF7. AVALANCHE is out there destroying Mako reactors (and consequently killing people), saying they are protecting the planet, as mako (lifestream) is a finite resource. But, as you level up materia, it grows (in size, presumably) becomes mastered, and creates a new one. Materia is condensed lifestream. And, in one of the training halls (Junon, I think), Cloud mentions that when you trash materia you are really returning it to the planet. This means that if Shinra got a bunch of people to go out and master materia, then return it to the planet, they would be renewing the lifestream, and mako reactors wouldn't be killing the planet. Hence, AVALANCHE would actually become the villains, depriving people of electricity and killing innocent folk in their misguided zeal. Of course, stopping Jenova and Sephiroth would still be a good thing, so Cloud & Co. wouldn't be totally out of a job. Then again, they could have just bombed the Temple of the Ancients into billions of tiny shards, thus making it impossible to get the black materia, so they would be out of a job after all if they'd thought better, plus Aeris would've lived. What's your take on all that?

I think we're all entitled to our opinions, and I'll leave it at that, heh heh.

-- Bart (no, I don't have spiky yellow hair and use "eat my shorts")

Oh. Well, did you win WWF's Brawl for it All last year? No, wait, that's too obscure a reference. Anyway, I've been looking for a Final Fantasy 7 timeline for quite a while. If anyone out there feels like working on one, feel free. Just be prepared to have twenty editorials attacking your beloved work. :D

How do they cram all that gram?

-- Tomm Hulett Team XKalibur

64? By one of Cthulhu's many gross tentacles! That's more than the number of mental disorders than they could cram into Cloud. Way to go, Nintendo. :D

"I may break the law, but I can still be politically correct"

-- dguy

Hey man, calm down. When the hacking culture was founded, do you think lumberjacks went around complaining that computer people were abusing what was pretty much the essence of their job? Words grab new meanings all the time. Just look how much "gay" has changed through the years: It went from meaning "merry", to "homosexual" and now is interchangeable with "lame". And don't get me started on lame -- how did "cripple" ever begin to apply to anything else but disabilities?

Unless you scream in rage every time a bad writer is called a "hack", I'd just try to let it slide. I seriously don't think as many hackers are enraged at the "Anime Thor Hack Archive" as you might think. And for the record, I do know the definition of "hacker". I just have no idea what the hell a "lumberjack" is.

ChivalryX wrote: "Lorelia sounds like a real babe, so what's up with you and her anyways? Anything us fellow rpgamers should know? hehe <grin>" Sorry my lewd little friend, but there's nothing between me and the goddess of fan art. However, me and Mike were quite an item until his wife started growing suspicious and we had to cut the romance off early. And yes, before you ask -- that's how I got this job. Heh, heh. // Sorbie wondered, " Has anyone else mentioned that [in Anime Thor] there's some kinda black stuff dripping down your neck? What is that?" It's called "shading". Try it, you'll like it! // UnLive pointed out that the mudflap girl is officially called the "pretty lady". He also sent in this picture showing that Terra and Pretty Lady, uh, don't really look much alike. Ahh, well. They can't all be Laguna/Sandra's. // I was kidding about the Mike thing. You knew that, right? Right...? Crap. // Matt said: " When that guy said you were in his dream, and you gave him the pear, and that he was lost, it was a blatant, near direct kids in the hall quote. I guess you never saw that skit. It was funny as all hell." Thirty Helens's agree: Thor doesn't know much about KitH. <grin> // And finally, Joel wanted to know what the true identify of Sushi-X is. I'm really not supposed to say, but I doubt Sushi reads this column, so here goes: Sushi-X is really

I'm going to hold off until Monday to update the Hack archive. I'm thinking of only adding my favorites instead of every entry I receive. This will battle redundancy ("Wow, another spice Thor.") and to save ya'll some download time. Thanks for sending 'em in, guys. I received like, 8 today. It's insane. The one downside is someone sent in a 1 megabyte .bmp file. JPEG compression: Know it, use it.

You know, this week I haven't really had much to rant about in Thor Stuff. I blame the pacifying effects of Lorelai's peanutbutter and prozac cookies. Mhhmm... cookies...

Don't worry, though. I'll be nice and bitter on Monday. And that's a Vince McMahon guarantee.

- Thor "MAD SKILLZ" Antrim
I dated a hacker once. It didn't work out, though. She kept threatening to nuke my bank account. All $5.