THQ Nordic Acquires Deep Silver Owner Koch Media In $150 Million Deal

"The deal means that franchises separated by the death of THQ - such as Darksiders and Red Faction - are now all under the same banner once more."

Speaking of Deep Silver.

THQ slowly morphing back to its former self. I'd heard of Saints Row and Metro. Never got to play them as a Nintendo only gamer. I do remember hearing rumours of Metro coming to Wii U.

Went looking for the story.

https://www.polygon.com/2012/11/21/3674818/metro-last-light-will-not-come-to-wii-u-due-to-its-horrible-slow-cpu

Another example of why the Wii U failed.

Now they can go bankrupt all over again!

as eggman always saids:
"you know what they say the more the merrier "

THQ was one of my favorite gaming companies for a while.......as they rebuild I hope they can find that magic again.

@Winklebottom Yeah, that's what this industry need, less individual companies, and more conglomerate entities.

Switch might finally get Dead Island...

Also it might get Metro at long last...

Please bring Darksiders to Switch. I need those games on the go!

@sillygostly @Gerbwmu THQ Nordic is formerly Nordic Games. legally, they're unaffiliated with THQ. With that being said, THQ Nordic is a financially smart company, they're not going to go through the same financial mis-steps that THQ did.

I love seeing this new THQ make good business decisions and continue to grow, all while supporting Switch!

Why, why, why would anyone think it's a good idea to merge back together the very conglomerate that catastrophically failed to create the present smaller companies? It's one thing to buy the franchises and IPs and handle them better, but they're taking a great leap into the same organizational bloat that contributed to the demise of the former company. This sounds like a great strategy to boost short term investment at the cost of long term stability.

Glad to see Nordic getting to be a stronger company now, they certainly deserve it.

Well, this sounds promising. THQ Nordic has been far better at handling THQ's properties than THQ had been for a long while. Hopefully, they'll leave Deep Silver be for the most part though.

Gotta admit there's no love for THQ titles in my collection!

...saint's row on switch? (I'll take 3 and 4 over gta 5, personally)

THQ Nordic is a Nintendo supporter, and also were on Wii U.

This is a good thing for Switch.

No wonder they remastered everything

Dead Island on the go.
Yes please!

This is goodles news, lots of THQ Nordics recent releases have been great. Would love to see Sphinx, Painkiller, and Biomutant get eventual Switch releases.

@NEStalgia Koch Media has been butchering every Deep Silver release to date, they need better management of game development and publishing, and who better than THQ Nordic?

Curious to know how a company with revenues of ~$64M in the past year is involved in a $150M acquisition. Sounds like they'll be borrowing heavily to fund this?

Mildly concerned...

@AlphaJaguar Koch/Deep Silver are kind of a B-grade budget publisher. So was Nordic before buying the chunk of the THQ they did. But other than acquiring the brands, I'm not sure how the acquisition of a lumbering, problem riddled budget publisher helps THQ Nordic strengthen if they're spending resources trying to right a listing ship. I get that they'd like to unify the remaining THQ brands that weren't bought outside, but they're not just acquiring brands, they're acquiring that organization that's been butchering games and have to fix it. A.K.A. re-assembling part of precisely what went wrong at THQ to begin with. I imagine they're mostly in it for the IP, but I can't help but worry that this will result in the very same woes for the company, studios under their care, and consumers as we had before.

@Ryu_Niiyama Saint's Row is definitely not what I pictured it to be. Gameplay in 4 is about 100x worse than GTAV, yet the game is actually fun....unlike GTAV..... I picked up 4 and had a hard time getting into what exactly it was until I saw the voice options screen: Male Voice 1, Male Voice 2 , Male Voice 3 ,Female Voice 1 ,Female Voice 2, Female Voice 3, Nolan North.

That right there sets the tone for the whole game, and unlike the forced humor of GTAV it's just so self referential wonderful.....freaky as it gets at times. It was refreshing in the way the South Park games are. That's really the only thing Deep Silver has that is making this appealing. Volition was always great, as was Outrage. Though they lost themselves around the time of Red Faction.

@NEStalgia See that is why I like saints row. As I've mentioned before, I like being the paragon...it aligns with my personal sensibilities and view of the world (I'm often accused of being a wet blanket and"old fashioned") so games like GTA are anathema to me. But Saints row makes NO sense and the boss is a hilarious violent psychopath (and somewhat of a sociopath as well) with some how a "heart of gold". I should hate it but it is one of the few things that hit the so stupid it's fun/funny for me. Except Gat out of H***, I don't like Johnny Gat and Kinzie isn't funny without the boss or the rest of the cast as a foil.

"Koch Media will continue to operate as a separate entity, and no restructuring is currently planned."

In any hostile take over and/or company merger there is almost always a form of restructuring that is planned even before the ink dries. Just watch.

Although unlikely to happen, I would like to see the Metro trilogy ported to the Switch.

@Ryu_Niiyama I have to agree with that completely. I think I come to it from the same state of mind you do. And GTA really doesn't click with me. In V, Michael I can get behind....the pseudo Mafioso, larger than life, kind of dapper budget-James Bond kind of guy he could be fun to play as. Up to a point. Franklin, I was ambivalent about. I didn't dislike his part of the game but didn't particularly care either but it edged toward "too gangster" for me. but once I got to Trevor it was serious effort to even TRY to force my self to play more. And most of the quests/characters missions, themes outside that were just really yucky. the game does well with it's parody if the US in some areas but takes it too far and overboard and stops being parody and starts just joining the fray of what it's supposed to be mocking.

I expected the same, but WORSE from Saint's Row. I fired it up and started in and am just kind of watching like what.....the...... It's not all gangster/purposely-offensive like GTA but is just totally batstuff nuts on levels I never even imagined.....and is somehow really hilarious as a result. The fact that it makes no sense and the characters are AWARE it makes no sense is just beautiful.

" I should hate it but it is one of the few things that hit the so stupid it's fun/funny for me." That's precisely the best way to sum up my thoughts on it as well.

I haven't seen Gat out of H* yet, but I think that was made during the freefall collapse of THQ and I imagine the game is a result of the environment.

Heck I just want THQ under any banner to reacquire the rights to Freespace from the former Interplay so we can finally get a close to the trilogy 20 years later.

@NEStalgia you text walled twice just so you know.

@Ryu_Niiyama Yeah, I noticed that....it's NL's fault. They were down for a while earlier and the posting has been weird since it came back up. It double posted and then wont' let me delete the second one. Someone on another thread got octuple posted.

Maybe Bethesda bought NL.

@NEStalgia spits out water Thank you I needed that. Here, have a can of Raid.

But yeah Saints Row is almost a weird lightning in a bottle series. I started GTA V but about an hour in I was reminded why I dont enjoy GTA games. I made a personal pact to stop playing games I don't like just to have something to talk about with the "gamers" (Read dudebros) at my job years ago. So I uninstalled it and played some Dragon Age Inquisition...I regret that for different reasons LOL.

Besides there are enough folks with varied tastes here that I can find something to talk about with the games I actually enjoy.

@Ryu_Niiyama Awww, I'm looking forward to my still shrink-wrapped Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'd gotten over the reported disappointment of the era and hoped it would look better in hindsight.... That just took a giant splattershot to my bubble.

The former-critic in me has an obsession with having to see all the biggest titles and kind of round out an opinion on them to be able to relate them to other gaming elements, whether I like them or not. Old habit. And GTAV was so big, it was hard to ignore. And a Black Friday deal made me decide to give it a try But...yeah....I didn't even push to the very end. As much as the world and themes grate at me though I could at least appreciate them for what they are even if it's not for me.....ok, maybe not Trevor. His existence makes me question why I like gaming. But other than him, personally my biggest problem with GTA isn't the theme, it's that it's just not a very good game. It's a minigame collection dressed in 'hood and presented as an amazing game. It has more in common with Minecraft than Saint's Row, which explains why it's so popular, and why I don't like it very much...

SR is just a shocker. And it's the rare game that supports co-op for the full campaign....even over LAN....that may be the ONLY LAN co-op game on Playstation, and that can be a crazy fun thing I haven't tried yet. I'm actually saving the rest of the game just to play it co-op just because I can. It's beyond over the top in the most charming of ways. I didn't WANT to be grinning like an idiot while playing, but I WAS.

Curse the demise of THQ denying me that game years ago on WiiU like was rumored!

@NEStalgia Well keep your bubble in tact. It isn't a terrible game. However the changes in staff for the writing throughout the series is noticeable and there are a lot of plot jagged edges imo. The area design is irredeemable though. A pain to traverse but full of stuff you have to find....not a good combo.

At this point I'm firmly of the opinion that like Ubisoft when it comes to story EAware is horrible at maintaining a consistently paced story (and a logical one) over several games. I tend to love the first Bioware game and dislike each sequel more and more. Part of that is the revolving door they have there now for the top talent. Part of that is the ea need to try to spin off countless streams of revenue that you have to keep up with for the story to make sense (I like my game worlds and lore contained IN the game...and not the dlc or comics or books. Those are enhancements...nothing more.). The other part is the fact that gaming is more malleable to fan reception for good or ill. The need to pursue the mainstream dollar often results in gameplay and story changes that you just dont usually see in other forms of media.

I used to try to play everything...but then gaming became a job or "cred" and there are few things I detest more than a measuring contest. So I had to just stop...so I just play what I like now. Still too many games to play and leaves me broke...so take that as you will.

@Ryu_Niiyama Bioware....poor Bioware...speaking of Volition and THQ, Bioware is the other half of that mess at Interplay.

Oddly our little off topic convo about Dragon Age ties into the actual topic: Saint's Row, Summoner, and Dragon Age (spiritual successor of Baldur's Gate) are actually connected via the demise of Interplay. sigh this industry sucks.... Both Volition and Bioware made awful deals to sell their souls to failing monolithic studios due to the previous failed publisher they shared. Though Volition is still more "themselves" apparently than Bioware that is pretty much to Bioware as Rare under MS is to Rare. A name on a wall and little more.

Mass Effect....that story was so botched because ME 1 was made for Microsoft exclusively and was meant as a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic without the SW license. 2 & 3 (can we even talk about Andromeda?) were all EA's mess and they wanted an online shooter with a companion mobile game because EA. Similar with Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware started that LONG before they were part of EA....before Jade Empire. Before Mass Effect. They wanted control of their own D&D like world because of falling out they had with the D&D license, and the writing on the wall with Interplay, the license holder, while they were still owed back royalties from the now obviously fully bankrupt Interplay. I remember following that game intently when they first started posting info on it. It was a continuation of the BG games post-Neverwinter Nights meant for the Atari publishing era. And then nothing happened....and it got dragged out of mothballs after the EA buyout....but especially the PC version remained very "Infinity engine" in play. It was still the pre-EA design. Then EA took over for the disastrous DA2 and whatever 3 became. So the consistency issues there stem mostly from the first game pre-dating EA and the followups being EA managed, more than EA not being consistent. EA just took good stuff and broke it

I don't see as much issue with Ubi only because their games are rarely connected between sequels. But IN a single game they get the story pacing all wrong and broken.

You're so right about the revenue streams....sadly it's not just EA. Look at Squeenix getting into that mess now. It's the AAA plague. Be a multi-media connected social franchise!

@NEStalgia The Prince of Persia franchise is my go to example for my "Ubisoft sucks at sequels when it comes to story" ...or AC (AC is so far from the franchise I adored it hurts).

It's funny that you commented on the state of the industry and all the changing of hands. I was explaining xenoblade (and the rest of the xeno series) to my brother today and I feel personally that 2 (I'm almost done!) was a big "f you, I'm connecting this massive lineage, no matter the licenses" that I've ever seen. The fact that it holds up on its on as a stand alone game made me remember why I loved JRPGS as a kid (I got away from them due to time sink, fan wank, fan service and "has anybody seen the plot" oh and "this plot is every major anime of the past 15 years". ... I'd say I'm getting old, but it is the price of lack of originality and having to keep things geared to a much younger demographic ad nausem. (reason I stopped reading comics and MOSTLY watching anime...I read manga since they usually have one author or group from start to finish. So mostly consistent story...but risk of author abandonment though.)

That is why I tend to like smaller franchises. Either they are self contained or they keep all the info you need in the game series alone...but then you usually run the risk of not so stellar game play all the time. Granted, I consider a lot of games B rank that others may rank higher.

@Ryu_Niiyama Ahh PoP....I almost forgot that series ever existed it's been so long (I realize AC is it's replacement.) In it's AC iterations....on one hand each is self contained, so I can't say it lacks continuity. But....you know, I can't quite put my finger on what broke between the first game and the rest, but it broke. People praise the Ezio chapters....they were very good...but IMO the game already broke there. The first one had SUCH a different gameplay loop, overall heavier feel without the action-hero combat, and was, IMO vastly superior to the guided narrative of all subsequent entries. In Ubisoft's own words at the time they "gave it the HBO treatment"......which right there explains so much of what went wrong. I will always hold that AC1 was the only true AC, and had by far the best gameplay (like a simplified Hitman.) And Desmond's story was actually interesting before it went to almost Saint's Row levels of insane (but unlike SR, they actually intended it to be serious.) I've often assumed a big problem with the series was the known creative differences between Jade Raymond and other producers followed by her departure leaving the series headless and directionless. However, when I look at the other work she's done both prior and after at EA....including her helming the core studio behind steaming pile that is Battlefront II.....I can't help but think perhaps she was part of the downturn after all.

I haven't started Breath of the Assassin....err...Origins yet....I'm still holding hope. III was the lowest point the series could possibly hit, so I can hold my nose for newer ones. III forgot you were supposed to be assassin's at all and became God of Boston. They've learned since then, but IMO, modern timelines, or any post-gunpowder timeline breaks the principal mechanic the game was built upon. Victorian England, Napoleonic France, even Renaissance Italy break the central gameplay. Egypt has me really remaining hopeful....I haven't been able to get myself to try it. My backlog skyrocketed immensely.

For JRPGs....so many are really just plain old poorly written. It's not Japanese quirkiness. It's just bad. And so many stories make no sense at all. I come at them from a perspective of watching no anime at all, so RPGs is pretty much all the anime I know.....the focus on rehashing or paying homage to "in the know" anime fans on its own is pretty off-putting.

Personally TMS#FE restored my faith in the JRPG format. An orignal story, that was engrossing, understandable, with delightful characters with well developed personalities a shamelessly fun over the top combat system that never got old, and a grind that never became TOO time consuming from beginning to end. There was grind, but it was fun grind and never kept you tied up in meaningless unfun combat (I still don't see the appeal of Bravely Default...the game world was a barren succession of boss battles, and the grinding due to the Jobs system was almost endless. The characters were great, but that was the strength of it.)

IMO the greatest problems are two pronged: 1, the AAAs needing to be all things to all people and monetize it across multiple formats due to the exponential costs. Whenever anything is focus-group tested to include something for everyone it's going to never be everything to anyone. And 2, outsourcing. Games aren't made by a studio anymore, they're broken up into multiple projects and outsourced to content farms. The content farms are usually bigger companies than the studio. So one company in Singapore designs the UI, 3 companies in China design enemy models, some company in Russia designs the gear, 2 companies in India design the online, some company in the UK handles play testing, and the studio in L.A. "manages" the project and glues the parts into a cohesive whole as they arrive at the end of the deadline. These games feel like they're a broken mess of disparate parts from a dozen companies hastily linked together....because that's what they are.

@NEStalgia AC most certainly broke with two. And it is a prime example of the Ubisoft kneejerk reaction of altering gameplay style to snag the mainstream audience. Each game is self contained true but the original design was that each game was merely a vehicle to propel the narrative of Those who came before/why humans have the abilities they do/why the Templars vs assassin fight exists.

Two delved into a revenge narrative with (imo) an unlikable, rash immature character who unlike Altair doesn't seem to grow and learn from his mistakes. Ezio's power/influence/ability increases, but his character stays largely the same until revelations and maybe the latter half of brother hood. Given Ezio is an older man in Revelations...that is a long time to be a self centered jerk. 2 became more obviously a videogame. More guard respawns (that don't make sense as opposed to shift changes) , the infamy system was broken (why are there posters appearing if i kill somebody out of sight on a rooftop? Why are the posters on the side of buildings several stories up? Who is reading them, the eagles on all the viewpoints? Why do I have to have a collectathon to fill ezio's mansion with stuff and change his clothes? Is this Ken's dreamhouse? Why are you stuffing somewhat significant-before the plot went off the rails- plot points into DLC?) and you already started to see some hand-wringing with the underlying meta narrative which ties the games together.

I still feel that Ubisoft didn't expect the apathy for the meta narrative from the average gamer (Which I found wildly intriguing), so they scrambled to shift focus to the era you played in and the character..which is why we got stuck with 3 ezio games instead of one and a lineage tie (showing how all the assassins contributed to the story as a whole) as the series went on they lost sense of what game they were making. Is this historical murder simulator? COD annual cash cow wannabe? Are the assassins a primarily noble group (instead of ezio's revenge posse) opposing a well meaning evil group? Is this about taking to fight to the modern era or are we going to continue to play for the losing team back during their heyday in the past? Or maybe its pirates of the Caribbean- oh wait I mean Abstergo- instead (I loathe 4 and had to quit the series for a while)?

Origins is on the list but honestly my non portable systems are in storage still so it will be a bit before I even think about playing it. Maybe the distance will do me some good. I think AC can and was imagined/designed to work in any time period leading to a modern time final game...but they lost the way too long ago so who knows what will happen now. After all everything in AC is tech, even the powers of the 'gods'.

#FE doesn't get enough love... I really hope it gets ported. I would so buy it a 3rd time. Grinding ....is an acquired taste. I grew up translating DQ games (which is really hard to do with the spell names) so I expect to devote about 40hours to grinding. It's just how it is for me. Part of why I'm looking forward to octopath...its bravely default with hopefully a less repetitive (or at least the illusion of such with all the characters) story. Haven't gotten to Second yet so I can't speak to that.

The process you describe is why I don't consider games to be an art form...or a good source of a coherent narrative. Honestly as I said before I've stepped away from many forms of media that have imo too many hands in the pot (also why I either watch reruns of older shows, or like two shows a year and that's it...otherwise I'm reading) for that reason. The process of manufacturing a product for public consumption is too... generic and broken because you can't offend (within reason...I'm not saying be a jerk just because "it's my opinion" I HATE that, as it is a copout from basic decency and logical discourse.) , you have to pander to the majority, and too many ideas get throw out left on the cutting room floor and it is more obvious than in other media because you also have to build a functional product outside of the storyline as well. Too many moving parts and most of them not done well.

That may be why Nintendo's mostly gameplay first mindset works so well. They make the game work, they make it fun...and then somewhere there is a story. It's like the good, fast cheap triangle: usually you only get two, although the masterpieces that give you all three are a gift from Hylia.

@Ryu_Niiyama Do you realize you're probably the first person I've actually encountered that agrees with AC1 being the best? Most players agree the series has gone downhill but nearly everyone believes II to be the high water mark, and accuses AC1 of being repetitive (as though the rest aren't!)

Interesting summation of narrative differences...it's been so long since i played II I forgot a lot of those oddities and wrinkles. Strangely I think I remember Brotherhood more clearly than II itself.

As for "The ones who came before".....there was something wrong about that story from the start though. I don't want to say they went the wrong way with it or catered to gamers whims too much, because I do think it was fundamentally flawed from the start. It was too weird a juxtaposition to have this sci-fi thriller wrapping a historic stealth sim. The core idea of desmond, captive, being medically probed for genetic memory which made up the game itself by this group tied to said ancient groups as briliant and fascinated me, like you, from the start. But where do you go with it? Seeking powerful ancient relics? Ok, maybe we can tie that in....but the moment you expand on that you end up with either supernatural or aliens. They weren't wrong to ditch the meta story. It was amazing in the first game, but it had nowhere to grow without getting strange. And indeed it got strange in II with basically aliens from the future as Roman gods. IMO the extent of the metastory resolving with a MacGuffin in the first game really broke their ability to use it. It needed to extend no farther than the genetic memory....maybe an artifact or information the Templars needed, information, wealth, or maybe the ability to change the past...or something other than a golden MacGuffin that then had to be explained by...."Aliens." (And that was all still Jade in charge.......going back to my earlier thoughts.)

The systems, the story...you reminded me of a lot of points. But...personally it's even more fundamental than all that. It's the gameplay. The entire gameplay design changed. The world design changed. Even if we ignore Desmond and just look at the series as a prehistoric murder simulator, the first game was built in a setting we don't often see in games, but the time period deliberately influenced gameplay. A medieval setting, with high walls, towers, climbable but crude objects, militarized locations, and a really really really dark period of human history where the setting itself lent itself to skulking in the shadows as a killer from unexpected locations. The limitation of the era to melee weapons defined the gameplay....and of course it actually featured the eponymous Creed. The gameplay focused on single missions much more like a Hitman or Thief, or Metal Gear type game, emphasis on the slow game, stealth, you were responsible for your own recon, finding your own way in, figuring out the patterns, stalking your prey, watching, waiting, following, and then the beautiful unique feature of the intentionally PUBLIC assassination followed by fleeing from a city on alert. It was a unique large scale mission structure where the assassinations felt important and significant and high adrenaline (versus the Hitman, Metal Gear, Thief stealth where you try to blend in and sneak out undetected from your silent mark, AC forced you to want to be seen....by everyone....but not until you strike.)

2 took that tactical stealth action game of careful planning and turned it into an on rails action adventure where each kill meant seemingly nothing, even the landmark targets, they were another speedbump to step over, and replaced the careful recon long game of single missions with a GTA inspired GPS map. The GTA inspired GPS map gameplay IS a very fun gameplay loop, and very addictive, no doubt. But it's not what made AC so special.

And nothing else offers that original gameplay. Thief goes weird with the supernatural and environments much too dark. And theft isn't as high adrenaline as public assassination of seemingly well meaning control freak sociopaths. Metal Gear's emphasis on non-violent ghosting is very different, Hitman comes closest but lurking in modern day machine rooms and hotel closets and the maze of on-foot doors to take out your target by drowning him in a toilet isn't the same as scaling stone towers and pouncing your target like a tiger in front of a crowd.

The time period and location informed the gameplay. Add in gunpowder, or at the absolute worst, the flat terrain of colonial Boston, and it just doesn't work.

I have mixed feelings of Syndicate. It's a very fun game. But it's not Assassin's Creed. The open world seemed too....different and limited. And gunpowder does not help this series....it fails to be AC with range. And yet they DID learn their lessons a little. Some of the "big" missions returned to that long form planning of the first game (the psych asylum stands out in my mind....picked up the creepy tones of the first game without resorting to horror...highlighting how human history has enough horror all its own) and a VERY long form plan to take the target.) Yet....the modern theme, the structured walls and rooms and windows of the 19th century too familiar....change the writing to Cyrillic and it would pass as a Metal Gear mission deep behind Soviet lines. It had nothing unique to AC about it. AC is unique precisely because it's the only game to apply that formula to an ancient civilization and the architectural constructs therein.

That's why I'm optimistic about Origins. it's a return to the general time and place of the original with the constructs that made the mechanics work as they did. If they can couple that with their mission structure lessons from Syndicate, it could be very good. But, I'm holding my breath still. I have it. haven't opened it.

#FE was just...wonderful. It can't get much love with a Japanese only soundtrack and a VERY Japanese world (idol culture isn't for everyone ) but.....it was soooo good with almost no real weak points. So underrated. I'd triple dip as well. (I bought standard, then bought the collectors edition (and imported the soundtrack....that soundtrack is just phenomenal. It's really what got me to pay serious attention to JPop (and through that, KPop) to begin with.)

Bravely....overrated. People praise Second....but it was really the same game. Same world....same map...same characters....really similar story.....a sequel, yes, but mostly an excuse to fix things that were broken before and make some enhancements. It features the same flaw of boss, dialog bubble, boss, dialog bubble. (grind between.) Octopath, so far feels so much "bigger" from the demo....more like the actual old Square RPGs where there's meat on the bones. Places have weight to them. NPCs have personalities.

...I guess that means we aren't unicorns anymore? lol I cannot express how excited I was for AC and how much I absolutely loved that game...minus the fact that Altair couldn't swim... but i kept telling myself his weapons and armor were heavy. ignores him jumping and flipping around Plus as a big fan of POP and the jade/anvil/whatever it is now system, that game was a pure joy to play. I loved how the recon and setup was done in the first game and it hurt to see that get stripped until it became "GTA history edition".

I do agree that boston's terrain really made it harder to keep the stealthy, almost insidious nature of the previous game play. It was possible but REALLY hard to play 3 like 1....but unlike 1 that you knew was geared towards that stealthy style 3 despite all the combat changes and additions was geared for the bull in the china shop approach...which wasn't fair to Connor I think. He was a little ball of righteous rage but he had patience to play the long game...the story was horribly paced though. (you went from who is that old templar dude to: connor I am your father...and I want to kill you...really quickly) As an aside because I'm not a starwars fan, is there anyone in vader's family that he didn't try to kill? dude was an abuser with a hero complex.

So the meta narrative was pretty firmly threaded throughout the first one. This was always supposed to be religion isn't divine and is tech that we can't comprehend type storyline backing the genetic memory. That is the game's dna and I think the first game was pretty up front about that with the memories you find about adam and eve's escape from the eden compound. The more advanced race was the tie to the assassins (humans with super powers and the ability to land in hay) and the existence of them was the impetus for the Templar disillusionment with religion and the knowledge that we are bred slaves was the reason why control was their end goal (to save humanity of course).

So that isnt the part where I felt the story went off the rails...it is (imo) the increasing lack of focus on that that is the issue. Because without it the game makes no sense. (I really think the end game was likely originally going to be the avoidance of the global mass extinction event from the solar flare either though the defeat of the Templar in the modern world but they truncated and then moved the story around because folks thought it was weird and nobody but like 3 people cared). I do think that the issue was many people reacted the way you did; which was thinking it was strange and didn't fit when imo they tried to do a "gotcha" and it backfired. (I still think it was well done with the glitches and the realization that the apple of eden was a mind controlling machine with a map built in...but that is just me). I was disappointed that they went greek/roman with TTCB because the game started out with a christian/islamic/Judaism slant and since they are cousin religions (that squabble at the dinner table) and they used the relics of that religion it seemed odd that like yahweh or jesus weren't the forbears that you spoke with ...granted they did allude that the jesus used the tech to make his whole story work. I suppose I get your objections to the time periods chosen, however like i said the assassins are losing big time in the present day...how long can we relive the good old days when the order has nearly been wiped out?

Oh yeah the soundtrack for #FE was great. (I imported the game first...had the soundtrack on repeat for days) Glad to hear you have some interest in asian music. It is diverse as our own here in the states but there is this unique spin on it that makes it all their own. I can't speak to k-pop...I have two cousins who are half and they used to fuss me out in the language when we were kids and i swore i would have nothing to do with it until i can speak it. Then i looked up the writing...I can't make heads or tails of it. I'll stick with learning greek and japanese.

Well, We got the "fixed" version of Bravely you know. (For the sequel was the name) but honestly it felt like every other squeenix rpg, with a more (for me) interesting battle system. So for me the meat is about the same...granted I've abandoned FF long ago. (I like 13 but that is because Lightning and Fang are awesome and it is a god killer game- I like games that make their gods knowable, tangible and even flawed as to me it offers a better story and a better explanation to this horrible world and species of ours....so that is why the xeno series has always been fun for me as well...though saga was too much. getting through that whole series was torture.) The pattern you describe is pretty much how jrpgs are structured with some story thrown over it the make you forget that you are really just moving from one fight to another. However its like monsterhunter which has no point beyond hunt monster, make armor, hunt monster rinse and repeat. For some that pattern is enjoyable...for others not so much. Doesn't mean that other jrpgs won't be fun because the battle system is half the ahem battle. I HAD to, don't look at me like that. Anyway. If you make the battle system enjoyable...then you have covered 75 percent of the game. Seriously most jrpgs had/have TERRIBLE stories (yes that includes chrono trigger) in the first place. I dont know how you stand it as a non Otaku (anime fan).

This will likely be typo city. I spent 4 hours fixing an interface because the network admin of my client locked down the systems worse than a prison (users weren't allowed to save). So i kinda typed a bit...fought with this client and typed a bit more. I'll edit later.