Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail surprised me…
I never expected FF14 Dawntrail to be an emotional rollercoaster but here we are! I recently finished my Dawntrail MSQ playthrough on Twitch so I wanted to share my thoughts of the story, characters and combat!
Sit back and sip on your fantasia as I take you along with my summer vacation in Tural!
What do you think about Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail yourself? What are your thoughts on the main story, new maps, NPCs and combat? Share them down in the comments!
Subscribe for more Final Fantasy XIV content, useful guides, and other gaming shenanigans!
Twitch: https://m.twitch.tv/avycatte
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Avycatte
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@avycatte
Second Channel: @avyclips
Join our growing FFXIV Discord community!
https://discord.gg/BjU5H6dKf9
source
Started wathcing alot of your content as i'm fairly new to the game
recently got my first lvl 100 job which was WHM and you're the reason i first wanted to because of the top 10 reasons to play and i appreciate it SO much because it's now my favorite job in the game, excited to continue the story and more excited to see more videos of yours being uploaded
<3
Some ppl in my FC are still huffing copium that all the missing character writing is somehow going to be in Dawntrail Patch content, while I simply accept how things have changed, FFXIV have gone from long story arc to short self contained time bubble like story, much like FF11, and in someway like WOW. It is way easier to produce passable story this way, and as a player who primarily enjoy high difficulty content, if subpar story mean we get consistently good combat content, then I am all for it. I enjoyed the Hydaelyn storyarc from start to finish, even the suppose problematic Stormblood, but at the end, we just do MSQ once or twice, while we replay combat content many times over.
One thing to add, I really don't think Dawntrail have build up toward any future story arc other than giving us two macguffin which can be similarly produce by a mail or something, I really hope to be proven wrong though, maybe this two macguffin would be the best macguffin ever and Dawntrail story will be referencing countless time in meaningful manner instead of just stuck in a time bubble.
I was crying when Bakool Ja Ja explained what happened to the blessed siblings who didn't make it, him being driven by PTSD was well-written
The voice acting. I liked it, it was all very good delivered, no complaints there (except the last boss fight… that was bad… but to be fair, not even the best VA on this world could've made this scene not cringe). That being said, there was very little voice acting overall. Like you said, many cut scenes that were impactful were silent.
Another thing that I really didnt like where my character's reactions, whether those were facial expressions or the dialog options. In many cases I wished my character would just stick to the void expression from ARR and the "…"-replies. Some were just… sometimes I really felt alianated from my own WoL and even wholeheartedly disliked her more often that I would like to admit. If thats the cannonical WoL… I wouldnt invite them for tea.
Solution 9. The moment I got there, the moment I understood what all those regulators were… I wanted, and still want, to raze that place to the ground. The tower, the dome, the whole thing. Just… let me go berserk. The way it was explained, the Alexandrians have stopped the aetherial flow in their own world, or under the bubble, they suffer from dwindling birth rates (because without an Aethrial Sea, souls cannot be born in the first place), and use souls as a ressource to not only prolong their own lifes to the point of complete and utter dependency, but also to keep that giant computer of Living Memory running. Solution 9 may be nice to look at, but I hate the place… from the bottom of my soul, this place, these people… they creep me the f out. And for my crafter scripts I have to come here regularly -.- I hate it… just hate it…
Deleting the memories… Yes, there was a certain woefullness… On the other hand I didnt see these memories are real people. Its similar to what we saw in the Athia Scope dungeon: we met the leftover memories of the departed which were drawn to our presence, but the souls, the people, they had already moved on. The memory-people of Living World, despite what they looked like, they werent "alive" – and the best or worst part: they knew it.
Overall, I liked the story. It was good in concept but pacing and writing were off. What do I mean by that? Take the first two zones we visit: they were waaaay too long. Neither had any real meaning going forward with the story and they just overstayed their welcome. It didnt fit with the pacing of ShB where we learn about the state of the First, or even DT where we learn about the immediate threat we face as well as the secrets lurking beneeth the surface. In DT we learned about two tribes, two tribes out of nine (that we know of and that were introduced to in various levels of detail). It was too little stretched to long. – Then the writing. What irritated me most is that there were no real conflicts. Take Lolorito from ARR: a scheming power hungry rat that we came to at least begrudgingly respect (we learn he values stability, that he loves his family, that he even looks out for his employees, that he is an Uldahn patriot even). Sure, this development took several expansions and we cant expect DT to take that much time, but still… every character that was introduced as an antagonist switched sides too easily, the Mamool Ja come to mind how quickly they forgot their animosity because of the promise of some special grain. Sure, it would convince some but surely not all. It was all just too easy. Everyone is a "good noodle" in DT, and those that were not, were comically evil (like Zoraal Ja, whose story was disappointing: his whole drive was daddy issues? For real??!).
Like I said, overall the story was good and is a great start for a new arc. However, I hope they will answer the numerous questions they left unanswered – and I really hope, I get to raze Freehold to the ground (especially after what we learn in the raid series…) … or at least give me a good reason not to.
What about the mechanics and QOL changes plus the graphics enhancement? Why is no one talking about the graphic change?
It might have been a relatively minor thing, but I won't forget Dawntrail because of Namikka, that had me sobbing hard (mainly because recent events)
The first half was decent. Then we veered off into IX and its themes in what I found to be one of the most offensive ways possible. That evens it out to a nice 3/10 for me so far, maybe 3.5 now that the tournament arc is out.
This is my very first time reading through the story and I loved it. Maybe it isn’t what everyone wanted, but I enjoyed it and it’s even inspired me to go back and read from the beginning.
Whos Sefeen
For me, the story was overall boring, and Wuk Lamat was shoved in my face for way too much of it. Yes, the story had some good moments, but I was so tempted to actually skip the story this time around (I didn't, I powered through it). It almost made me quit playing till 7.1, combined with the fact that I don't like any of the current end game gear. None of it feels like Tuliyollal or Solution Nine gear, it feels like Shadowbringers gear (gear that I didn't really like either).
The game got more interesting once the rite of succession was done. Once you hit Xak Tural the thunder dome spawned over "fussy lil bun bun's" home, the story REALLY kicked in and GOT DEEP. A slow start but it made up for it in the latter half. Can't wait to see how the lore goes along in 7.+
My problem is that the story focuses on Wuk Lamat even when it should focus on anything else. Shaaloani onward should have been the Krile and Erenville Show, but Wuk Lamat just wouldn’t go away.
13:53……..Why Avy…..just why? Lol
I overly enjoyed this expansion for several reasons. I am still not sure where to place it but so far only cowboycatboy land felt a lil slow to me. The rest actually made great sense. Living memory as a zone surpasses every final zone so far. I still go here sometimes just to enjoy the music, or denying the obvious truth, turn on NG+ and see everything again. Can't wait to see where they go with this.
I love your points
Feel like a lot of the story just had a lot of missed opportunities or felt very incomplete. By the time I got to the cowboy town I started to skip because it was just boring to me. Then I got to the invasion and got interested again. However it lost me again in the last zone. I did not feel sadness because I didn't get attached to a bunch of npcs that were already dead anyways. It was objectively a moral and right thing to end the program. Otherwise real lives would be lost. I didn't hate the story but it really should have had more time to cook. Wuk was alright but she was just in the story way too much at times. It was incredibly random for her to just "appear" in the last trial somehow. I was never expecting ShB or EW levels of writing but I wasn't expecting what we got either. I am perfectly OK not being the focus either but maybe the WoL could have been a mentor type to Wuk instead of just a bodyguard. The scions could have also just as easily not been in the story. There was no real competition with any of them and Graha on the canoe was weird because it should have been Erenville to maybe talk to us about his relationship with his mom instead. Fun to play through but the more I think about the story the more I'm left with questions regarding a lot of the choices the writers made.
I'm so glad to see someone who likes the story. So far, the only stories I liked were Stormblood and Shadowbringers, and Stormblood's story was ruined for me by the post game. I have liked the first half of Dawntrail so far, and while I understand why the story takes a turn, I'm not looking forward to it. I really wanted a light-hearted expansion after Endwalker, so I'm wary of how I'll feel once I get to Solution 9.
In sort: I don't want to shut down San Junipero. I'm not looking forward to shutting down San Junipero.
Yea the writing and lore were less elegant. Very boring and a chore to play play through. I beat endwalker in 3 days. I had to force myself to play dt and took me two weeks to slog through. Found myself doing fares and aether currents to have a break from the awful msq. Demote the new writers and localizer.
The failed theater kid Hiroi did not deliver thats my review. Maybe do less nfts and forsaken, the current event the emote doesnt even have loop, just show how bad the neglection is getting they couldnt even click the option for it to loop.
in the first half Wuk Lamat is a good character in second half it completly falls apart and she gets extremely over exposed i went from "ok i like her" to "oh please shut the fuck up and let me do something else with someone else for a moment" and on top of that she steals my kill at the end and my moment by default so yeah i belive someone in the writing team fell in love with the character and decided to make her the main focus of EVERYTHING i kinda wished the second half of the story was basicly something in the lines of "so we found this thing in our land that is supposed to be this city of gold with treasure we cant find it but i give you permition to do whatever you want to find it if you want"
However despite all that there were a couple things in there that made me excited for the future ahead wich is Ultima The High Serapth eventually coming into play if this is the ultimate end game then im all in
"Voice actor delivered the lines wonderfully" no way bros saying that 💀💀 Look up wuk lamat sphene cs jp vs eng
I thought it was good for what it is: set-up for a new story. The beginning to most great stories starts out a little slow, then picks up as we get towards the end of the first part. Were there some things I thought could have been a little better? Sure. Was it terrible? No, it was not.
Dawntrail was Final Fantasy 14 fanfiction at its best. We was promised a summer vacation, but al we did was babysit this cat.
I overall enjoyed the msq and the expansion so far.
My main criticisms are: Wuk Lamat was a bit overexposed, and it felt like we should have been able to speak more…Forexample offer the porxie treatment for the levin sickness.
I play with JP voices so the Wuk Lamat voice acting debacle did not affect me at all.
I still don't know why I would get involved on Wuk behalf. She doesn't know her people. I don't know her people. It's a mess of a story and Wuk just never goes away. Every other expansion they don't have you stuck with a obnoxious monotone fake nice character. The front is such a train wreck and the end is just let's do endwalker again but in a dumber way. Lets turn everything off and make this zone dead forever.
If the patch stories is not us turning back on that zone then the writers are straight up moronic.