LET’S TALK!
Hello everyone I am Jmulls of Jmulls Gaming and welcome to my little corner of the internet!
Walkthroughs, First Impressions, Critique and Reviews for all things video games, by someone who loves video games!
In today’s video, I talk about my opinions on what Square Enix were aiming for with Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail !
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OF YOUR REFLEXES!
Dawntrail is a solid 5 for me. The first half is a 10 and the second half a 0. I'm tired of the same story again. We've gone through it for three expansions now. Can we go back to adventure and exploration and character driven stories and world development? Just because the universe isn't at stake doesn't mean those people and stories don't matter. Those who think that way seem to have completely forgotten the story arc they so much "love" and have grown to ignore the little things. The world and the people. The world the characters have supposedly been fighting for all this time. Nah, put that world in the trash can, who cares about it? More cosmic bullshit, more ancient civilizations, universal stakes, "remumbur us!", Twelve know we haven't heard enough platitudes or gotten enough Amaurot dungeons yet! Seems the story in this game is starting to go the same way the gameplay has been for a few years now. Stagnation.
And the worst part is everyone loves it.
I think you are thinking to much about it. I don't think it was a test, it just seems that way.
people hate wuk lamat only because they made the mistake of playing this expansion in english. previously it was correct to play in english. this expansion its play with JP voice or hate the story
You don't test with an expansion. Maybe a patch, but not an expansion.
Great video, I'm glad this discourse is out there.
I think the MC things comes down to whether you like the character or not. With an ensemble cast, if you dont like someone, you have other people you can care about and get to shine. In DT, it's the Wuk Lamat story. Everyone might give her tips, but I found myself asking all the time, "Why is anybody but her even here right now". And then anytime the party gets split up you ALWAYS get paired with her. My favorite part of the succession story was actually when you got to work together with Koana's team. I just couldn't stand how dorky and awkward she was so it ruined alot of the story for me because shes the main character. Its not that I wasnt its that the one they chose i didnt like.
Yeah i think the second half was much better. I've always said ever since they showed alot of the Tural stuff and the trailer that it felt too Disney for me. I will say that I'm not a fan of the last zone, though.
This whole expansion is literally based on pokemon and nobody can convince me otherwise. We even have badges and freaking TEAM ROCKET!
thank #@)*ing god for the 2nd half.
I enjoyed stormblood more than 1st half by a mile. At least stormblood 4.0 had conflict.
First half DT was:
1. friendship
2. 90% Lamat, 10% scions/anyone else
3. talking, no fighting
4. zzz ah fuck I fell asleep just remembering it, later.
So heres the big thing I see across multiple forms of media. A large number of people hate when a story hits a big epic moment and then suddenly drops to have a more slice of life feel. Ive seen it happen with anime and tv shows and I honestly expected here as well. How do we build up from "I went to the edge of existence and took down a god who was gonna bring the forth the end of all life."? That was the end. Thats the story. We have reached the point so many series run into of a story running longer than it needs to. So theyre doing the only thing that makes sense to try and keep the story interesting. Pull back, slow things down, shift focus so we can build back up again. I personally enjoy the pull back and taking things easy. We just prevented the apocalypse, lets take a nice little breather and return to our roots as adventurers exploring a new land. I dont like the idea of making the WoL a glorified side character, but theres nothing intimidating to us anymore. We've been slaying gods for over a decade. Nothing stands a chance against us anymore. That was my big problem with them hammering in Zenos as a foil for us. You expect me to be afraid of a weeb with a thrift shop katana when Ive slayed gods? I genuinely dont know a good approach to make the WoL shine again without repeating what shadow bringers did to some degree.
I have two big problems with MSQ: 1) Wuk Lamat in excess. Seriously, the whole expansion I felt like his minion. She even stole my last fight. 2) How poorly they wrote the Scions. They became bland filler NPCs. Frankly, the second half of the story should have belonged to Krile and Erenville. And the scions should have stayed in Eorzea (at least most of them). The writers missed a great opportunity to bring them together in an epic way in later expansions.
Great breakdown! I personally didn't like the Wuk Lamat character right off the bat. I found her insufferable. By the end she was OK, but already tainted… I literally liked every character more.
I will say though that I loved all the first half zones so much more than the last two.
Literally hate Heritage Found and the last zone was just meh!
Overall not bad, but not great either. Definitely was a 'test' or 'palet cleanser' as it was after the 10 year story arc.
wuk lamat had a decent amount of character building, remember though, she is 16, a young and inexperienced girl. her arc should have ended with the rite of succession. after which she just mudies the plot. her "force" relation and paralell to sphene was… aweful. removing 90% of wuk lamat in the later half would have improved ALOT of the story imho.
she was a bad insert in the final two zones… maybe okay to see up to the 97 msq before the dungeon, but after she made no sense. at that point it should have focused on us and erenvill.
the more mature tone the 97+ msq took was much needed and i liked it more. the stakes were finally real.
over all, the world building for tural was fine and a much needed breather in the story to get a more mature story beat going. but truely , the shoehorning in of wuk lamat into everything did rub me wrong.
we were the side kick almost the entire expansion msq sofar, this is not something i like, and it is something i HATE about WoW's lackluster story. (there the player character is always just unnamed side kick number 5)
for the past 10 years it has been our story (more or less) and our adventure. this abrupt change could have only been a test…
The Endless was a subject that could have filled a whole expansion. It got surface level examination and was tossed to the side. They laugh, play, fall in love, produce culture and are capable of interacting with the outside world. For all intents and purpose they were alive, but the story treats them like they weren't. It encouraged us to commit (deleting a group of people) because their existence was inconvenient. Rather than finding an alternate solution to the real issue, that was their need to kill people to survive. If their issue was they didn't have access to tacos, there would be no moral issue to letting them continue until the heat death of the universe. I guess we don't need to try because they aren't real… Much easier to just turn them off forever…
Hopefully it gets addressed in patches.
I'll just say this, the first half of Dawntrail's MSQ wasn't as big as a flop as this video makes it out to be simply for the fact that it established the setting and certain characters that made the second half hit as hard as it did. One thing you have to understand with Shadowbringers and Endwalker is that those storylines were setup by the works of A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, and Stormblood. This allowed both Shadowbringers and Endwalker to start without much exposition needed since you had prior knowledge going into those storylines.
With knowledge and events established from 1.0 and ARR, key characters from post ARR and HW MSQ, and the looming threat of both Ascian and Garlemald verities from SB, Shadowbringers didn't need much setup for it to be a bad situation before the first quest of it begins. Then you get to the twins' stories on the First, and then you learn just how much worse the true situation is. However the twins' stories are elevated by previous MSQ growths; Alphinaud's personality/political awareness growth from ARR and HW's MSQ, Alisae's martial and emotional growth (gained mostly off screen post Coil story) is established in the SB MSQ, these factors elevates their roles in their vinetes in Shadowbringers. They essentially are just specialized drag-n-drop characters to established that the the First is not a happy place.
From my perspective, the first half of Dawntrail was to give us levity after the doom and gloom of ShB and EW. While doing double duty and establishing the characters, location and the reasons why we should care about half of the stuff that is happening in the second half. It also slipped us an Mcguffin before we knew what we were looking at (one that by my guess will call back to ShB, Eden and EW). Whether we go back to some of the Turiyollal stuff has yet to be determined, and we still have issues from the second half that have yet to be addressed that may call back to stuff in the first half.
Emet Selch may have pushed us on a journey, but Tural itself has remained us that all is not well either. The threat on a macro scale is taken care of, but the threats on a micro scale are indeed running wild.
I did enjoy the first part but it didn't really feel like ff14 to me at the same time. It sticks out and reminded me of ARR where I didn't start enjoying it until I got near to stopping the Ultima weapon. It did feel better to play than ARR but I would not want to play an whole expansion like the first part. I like the story better when we get complex charters and verity and not having to babysit a grown adult when she should know more about the culture of her own home country. That my main grip is actually I got tired of Wuk Lamat knowing so little about her own country she lives in when she is basically the princess of that country.
As a writer and worked with other writers, you are right: this is a test. There are times when the creator of a story says, "Put A Fork In It, I'm Done", but sometimes a contract comes up from an investor, editor, boss or even fan demand that forces said creator to continue The story even though they said it's done. They will never admit it to the public because of a contract and maybe they will never say it no matter what. So in order to continue it, they end up posting a last minute story with plot holes and such which we all know as a "Filler Episode" to throw ideas at the wall to see what sticks. As we all saw by the results, looks like the First half didn't work and to be brutality honest, the second half has its issues, but a good number of it has already done in previous expansions and yet it still works; however we need to see what the Post-Dawntrail Story will bring in order to find out on what the writers will decide for the future of the game by listening to our feedback.
I don’t like wuk lamat. I like her story, her growth, but her story finished after the succession, solution 9 etc should’ve been konas journey
I loved a lot about the msq, but the ONLY thing that sucked for me was literally Wuk Lamat. If she wasn’t the the “main character” I would’ve given this expansion a much higher praise. I don’t mind lighthearted moments, but she just comes across as a goofy Mary sue in all the worst ways. I was happy with 95% of everything else in the msq.
Personally an expansion of exploring and adventuring with Erenville, Krile, and Graha, maybe the twins as well would’ve been fantastic. Even with Wuk Lamat in the background and not front and center constantly would’ve made me not despise her. We should’ve just been a neutral referee, as the strongest by far, to make sure no foul play was happening.
I’ve never been so sick of a character being thrown in your face constantly, I wanted to skip so many of her scenes
Nobody said we will buy a test. I am expicting finished well writen and fun game!
I see two huge flaws. The first flaw is that Dawntrail is the start of a new long, several years at least, Story. And the start must be majestic. First impression is important, we know.
First part of the story was a drag and mostly stupid. Imagine teaching Hanuhanu how to do their own ritual…
The second flaw is the execution. Way too many plot holes and dumb decisions. Zones feels empty and dead. Just look at Solution 9. Empty city. Nothing happens there. Only pretty pictures here and there. If you remove the several merchants from the zone then it will look like something from pre-alpha version of the game. The last zone is the most epic fail i have ever expirienced as part of a game that is considered VERY important. Helping a ghost to find his ring so he can propose to his beloved one and then 2 minutes later delete everyone. WTF was that? Krile part was good. Cahciua was Ok.
Dungeons and Trials are pure magic. I enjoyed all of them. Challenging and fun with very good aestetics content. I couldn't ask for more.
The start of the expansion feels very rushed to me.
That being said (alsmost) everything will change, IMO.
Yoshi-P said "i heared you guys liked the story of Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga" (or something like that). We have a better one! He also said that the start of the expansion will give them a giude of to where the story should go based on players opinion. He said that the start of the expansion is something like a test (not directly). So, they are basically not sure about the direction they should take.
All that means 7.1 to 7.3 patches are going to be a lot better. I strongly believe in that.
Overall i have fun in Dawntrail and that is important despite the fact i expected a lot more as a start.
Must been a test on how to stretch a one-zone side quest for Wuk Lamat into an entire game! So many chances for extra good story. They could have had a western-style tural vidral roundoup with Estien for the zone, but we are looking for jewelry. We go to one zone to… make spicy food. Where is the character growth? So disappointed. At least the last 40% of game stopped me from turning the game off.
Wuk Lamat the Yapservant