🤗 patreon.com/zeplahq
🐦 twitter @xepla
📺 Twitch.tv/zeplahq
🗣 Discord server: https://discord.gg/zeplahq
🎬 Twitch Clips On Youtube @zeplive69
Special thanks to Icycrits & Runali for editing this video!
& special thanks to my friend llamatodd for his footage of Dawntrail MSQ ~ twitch.tv/llamatodd
FINAL FANTASY is a registered trademark of Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd.
© SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
source
Regarding the feeling that every character is speaking in the same voice…
Is there any possibility that the dialogue was written using Language Learning Models or some other similar tech? Because that would neatly explain the odd tonality and loss of personality in dialogue.
While I didn't have as poor a time as Zepla seems to have, I do think this is weaker than Stormblood's story. They tried to do too much too fast, suffered from fragmentation, but even in that comparison, Lyse never seems like Yugiri or Hien. Meanwhile, the antagonists and protagonists bleed together in Dawntrail as the story goes on.
I have deep respect for the care in making this substantive critique. But if (again, IF) any of this has to do with cutting costs, such as using an LLM to generate dialogue rather than actual writers, I worry that no amount of feedback that fails to affect the bottom line will draw attention from those making the decisions that would change the situation.
20:00 Wuk Lamat: I was raised in this nation and have no idea about any of its' history, culture or people.
Also: I'm a protected palace princess, but I'm an amazing fighter that beats everyone due to the power of friendship!
Very basic change. The instigating event is our own desire to explore. After we've had a bit of fun, the Dawnservant fights us, recognizes our warrior spirit and good will, and asks us to help him with deciding the next leader.
The Dawnservant asks us to observe each of the candidates, so we get a different section for each. We needed more Zoraal Ja characterization, this is where we get it.
After that, it would barely be railroading to have the WoL pick either Koana or Wuk Lamat. Then have a slightly different cutscene that converges on the exact same conclusion; both become leader.
The second part has some major flaws and I'm not clever enough to untangle that mess.
Even when you get to zone four you're not completely free of Wuk Lamat. Immediately after arriving you set off to recover the bracelet she gave her nursemaid. She may not be present but she has her fingerprints all over the MSQ from beginning to end. I haven't even started the first story patch and I don't have any desire to outside for story locked content.
Your final point about the lack of nuance is what really got me as well. The way Nanamo's reckless idealistic reforms almost got her killed. The way you trying to make things better was met by opposition, not by enemies (which are a given), but by the same people you were trying to help, like it happened in Ishgard or Garlemald. The way Endwalker tried to establish a message about finding what makes life worth living, yet at the same time presented Zenos as a twisted version of it's own message by becoming single-mindedly consumed by his own obsession, not being afraid to show how finding the spark to beat despair can also go totally wrong.
These "devil's advocate" moments are what made me fall in love with FFXIV, and are sorely lacking in Dawntrail. Tural itself is presented as this melting pot of diverse cultures living in perfect harmony, which is a beautiful thought but also very unbelievable, lacking in nuance, and anathema to actually interesting storytelling. Any inkling of conflict in the tribes is easily steamrolled by Wuk Lamat's bright-eyed idealism, which goes through the whole story pretty much unopposed, and the constant repeat of the "peace and happiness" mantra feels tiring at best, infantilized and patronizing at worst.
I guess the way they tried to put the idealism to the test was with the idea that Wuk Lamat inevitably had to go to war against her brother in order to maintain peace, which is indeed a contradiction. But Zoraal Ja was portrayed in such a villanous way that in the end the whole thing just feels like a typical conflict with the bad guy rather than a highlight of the inevitable problems of her idealism. Remove Zoraal Ja, who is an over the top and exceptional anomaly, and everything is swell. It just misses the mark, IMO.
A huge reason I love EW's writing is all the little moments we got between characters. Alisaie and Alphinaud in Garlemald, Estinien and Alphinaud in Sharlayan, the twins and G'raha eating with you, Urianger and Moenbryda's parents, the night scene…
We barely got any in DT. Wuk Lamat and Erenville are supposed to be childhood friends, yet he had nothing but biting sarcasm and lectures for her. The twins barely interacted with other characters outside of plot necessity. Koana had a moment with Thancred and Urianger, but they didn't challenge his worldview or say much of substance.
This felt like a first draft that just laid out the plot and the basics of character.
Unpopular opinion, but Shadowbringers was a pace killing EXPANSION. We built up to the war with the empire over expansions and it's finally here and…we go on a side quest to save another shard.
The only reason people didn't rebel is because at least it was competently written.
'You're allowed to dislike popular things.'
Not in this game, not in this game at all. If you dare dislike what the base likes, you are dog piled by everyone because the consensus demands nothing but absolute fealty to this dev team.
Not me, nearly everything with DT, from the story to the mechs to the fights to world design and more, the entire package is tired and unfun and because the story was so underwhelming it exposes all the problems with this game that have been here for years. You forgave those issues because the story was great. The story is bad and you get a good long look at so trite this game has become.
And the apologists will defend this as "This is and has always been how this game was. Endwalker was an aberration." And to that I say, look at how bad that old model tanked the population for a game all about sociability.
People just quit, not for a patch, not because they did the endgame and took breaks; they're gone and that could have been avoided had this dev team not focused on the wrong things. The graphics overhaul was a mistake. The game engine and redesign should of been the focus. The story design should of been tantamount.
We got nothing and it really wounded what was the purest example of what a MMO can do with the genre.
Dawntrail, was phoned in.
I dont even need to watch the video. Literally Wuk Lamat is the issue. The player could NOT connect with her, the character was annoying. As such the entire race for the throne story was disinteresting and a slog. Solution 9 was cool, the train was cool. Finding out about Kriles parents was cool. Everything else was horrible.
We went from being the main character and saving the freaking universe. To being a voiceless face in the background. That feels extremely not good.
Ohohoooo Ive been waiting for this. I hope they course correct the story sooner sooooooner than later. Because of the GoT effect. Because season 8 sucked so bad. It tarnished the rest of the series for anykind of rewatchability.
For me personally DT was a typical example of "the more ads you see, the worse the product really is". I've never used this phrase in regards to my alltime favorite game but this time it was more than true. The game before didn't need any advertising and it was AWESOME most of the time. But DT was so heavily promoted and all we got was… this… weird experiment. I still don't get what exactly Yoshi-p was trying to do new here but I don't like it at all. The writing felt like the worst we experienced in the whole game, our beloved scions were there but they could've been faceless puppets and it wouldn't have made a difference. The villains were blank and forseeable (I wonder if we got Wuk pressed on us the way it did bc she turns evil in the future (too) and were supposed to feel heavily for her then?), way too many plotholes and I could rant forever about all these missed opportunities not only for character development but cute lil cs too.
I don't mind the devs trying new ways, especially on the waking of a new arc, but I don't see where they're going with this yet. I only see a huge half assed construction site. I mean I also see the possible plot threads just waiting to get picked up again (the whole globe issue, Sphene, the sick kid, maybe even Wuks Dad and so many others) which can only get awesome (as long as they really put their hearts and minds into like they usually do). But rn…I felt we finally got a better tasting piece of the cake DT was supposed to be with the epilogue. Koana got some nice piece of love there (even if the writing was kinda clumsy again), Sphene might finally become interesting (Ascians, show yourself! I wanna throw a damn party for you!!🤩🎉) and I'm curious about what happens next.
But all in all DT was a big let down. It felt so cheap and like a waste of time more than once, even now as I'm catching up with my 2nd main character, I only do MSQ in very tiny doses cause I don't want to feel like how I did first time. I NEVER even once thought "Gosh, I wanna start skipping to just get over with it!" during the whole game. I did with DT. More than once. Granted I still mostly didnt but often enough with Wuk I didn't really bother reading anymore. And Apparently I didn't miss anything important.
I really hope the Devs don't become like those greedy studios out there claiming to understand what we want and need but continuing to trash dump on us. SE has been my favorite studio since childhood. So please, if they dare to release another expansion like that, I'm gone for good. We're not getting younger, we don't want our time wasted for the sake of nostalgia.
This was a fantastic analysis, Zepla. Very well written and argued and clearly coming from a place of love for the game.
No, Wuk having flaws does not prevent her from being a Mary Sue. Her flaws are inconsequential and never inhibit her in any real way.
No, facing hardships doesn't prevent her from being a Mary Sue. The hardships she faces are just magically overcome. Her SECOND face off against her kidnapper she just solos him AND his army of mercenaries. Even being kidnapped didn't have any long term consequences since she's saved without issue and you just take someone else's proof.
Specifically, Wuk is a black hole Sue, with everything just warping around her.
Dawntrail unironically feels like a Humiliation Ritual of some spiteful being within the company who pushed it out.
The corporate speak that every character hits you with and the constant character assassinations make it clear to me that regardless of how the lead writer presented it, and he's made some semi okay things in the past, this all feels like sabotage.
I think the introduction of consultants on the writing smoothed out the edges of the world and characters so that it all became safe to consume corporate slop.
The Humiliation Ritual of Dawntrail was being sent on this adventure, only to watch every one of the characters you've loved for the past 10 years, be destroyed completely and for the story to lose any sense of scale or care.
I've unsubbed and unless 8.0 does a complete switch with something like the Crystal Braves, I won't be coming back. Square can keep wasting money on consultancy firms who poison their games and their writing, but they won't get a cent out of me.
One thing I liked about DT was Zoraal Ja's 2nd form in his trial.
His model told me more about him and his struggle than the entire msq.
…………………./´¯/)
………………..,/¯../
………………./…./
…………./´¯/'…'/´¯¯`·¸
………./'/…/…./……./¨¯
……..('(…´…´…. ¯~/'…')
……………………..'…../
……….''…………. _.·´
……………………..(
…………………………
FUCK YOU WUKLAMAT
Such a great review Zepla! 🙂 I agree with your overall rating of the story. I took a several month break from FFXIV and only came back this week because the Dawntrail MSQ was so disappointing. I'm playing through ARR right now and while it has issues as well, there's a lot of interesting things there to chew on. Not to mention how mature a lot of the subject matter was. Even the silly Arcanist class quests dealt with topics like s*xual abuse without spelling it out for you directly in the way everything is directly explained to you in DT. DT's writing feels like a direct to video Disney movie.
7.1 unfortunately hasn't improved the overall writing quality very much but I fully expected that. I hope things are better in the coming patches.
I've never skip a story so fast in FF14 I still play it because the fights are fun much better then EW fight but damn the story was so boring
I blame FF16, I just recently beat it and was amazed how much it reminded me of FF14(everything outside of the combat) makes me think 16 got all the attention and monopolized all the good devs while 14 was given the B team…
"Good luck in Ishgard, idiot" got me good lmao
All I’m gunna comment is “SPHEEEEENE”