I’m optimistic and let’s talk about why…
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 react to YOUR hot takes for Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail
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I fully expected DT to not be as good as ShB or EW but I expected some decent writing at least. It's just crazy that they've been doing these scripts and just dropped the ball after all these years of experience.
All the content is great.
Pealeaf’s cover of Smile is amazing, please give it a listen! She isolates the main vocals which is a big problem with how I heard it in the MSQ. You can’t hear the main vocalist against the chorus, lower the decibels on that track!
Like i said on a previous video, DT was made in 31 months.
IMO, it was already delayed.
MSQ was a failure..but the rest, oh boi the rest? a huge success.
IMO I was advertised this expansion was gonna be a beach expansion, we were gonna have fun, explore a unique world, while fixing issues alone in secret.. and what we get?
speak to Wok lamat…
Edit: but seriusly the content been good so far, so will say its good expan, just story is some world of warcraft slop that Im not a fan off
I think the WoL does not need to be the main character, but they absolutely need to be a character with their own agency. The criticism rings true, too often we are just the camera — we the player do the work of running the character we control around the map, we click on objectives, and then the character we control stands back because our clicking someone is only to cue a scene of Wuk Lamat (or rarely another npc like Sphene) talking to someone or doing something at that destination. Our character though a lot of DT simple belongs to Wuk Lamat — we can't go anywhere or do anything for our own sake, we just have to follow where she goes because our presence is needed to make her things happen, but there isn't anything in that for ourselves.
My hot take:
FREE DT STORY SKIP FOR EVERYONE NOW.
It's should have been delayed.
You can polish a turd all you want till it's nice and shiny. In the end, it's still a turd. Delaying would have accomplished nothing. Endwalker was the peak of ff14, I doubt they will reach that again if they continue down the path they are heading.
A delay wouldn't have helped it at all. The problem is the writing. All the characters we liked were pushed away and we were forced to hold the hand of a shonen protagonist. Can't blame the high bar set by previous expansions for the failures of Dawntrail.
I think Dawntrail was a bit falsely advertized. We were promised a vacation adventure with relatively low stakes. Yet strangely enough the writers couldn't help themselves but introduce again a cosmic world-ending crisis with Alexandria wanting to harvest our world for souls, which isn't really low stakes. If someone here knows the original DuckTales cartoon series, I was expecting more of something like the original "Treasure of the Golden Suns" arc, where we go hunt across the globe for pieces of a treasure map, explore ancient temples, solve riddles, avoid epic ancient traps and find cool treasures (how about an expansion-long treasure hunting adventure to help Tataru finance our post-Scions organization?). This treasure hunting could have easily been combined with getting to know other cultures.
I kinda get the feeling the writers didn't really know what they wanted with this expansion:
– At one point we have rather low stakes with the Dawnservant trials
– Then we have super high stakes with Alexandria
– The story was supposed to be about Wuk Lamat
– Yet at the same time we still had to do most of the important stuff while Wuk was not present for most of the time during these moments (Trials)
– In the first dungeon they tried to establish the other Scions as rivals, trying their best to hinder us from progressing
– Yet we quickly teamed up with them without much effort
– We have two Antagonists (Bakool and Zoraal)
– Yet we barely had any gameplay-wise conflict with them during the MSQ, it's mostly just cutscenes
– The contest first made an impression of being a race to complete the tablets
– Yet there is no real pressure, everyone arrives everywhere at the same time
– We have the dimensional door in the Skydeep Cenote dungeon
– Yet we never use it and it never comes up again, instead the focus entirely shifts towards the Dome
– We have a great story-arc begin about Wuk's real father and us promising it to keep it a secret
– Yet it gets resolved less than 5 minutes later
– There is a great buildup about these super cyber soldiers invading our place and there being a huge mystery about where they came from and what they want
– Yet just after one dungeon they are mostly friendly NPCs
– There is a great secret buildup around what happened to the town inside the dome
– Yet 5 minutes later everything is explained
– There was a huge buildup about Krile's grandfather and her parents
– All resolved in a few minutes of cutscenes, as if this was just a relatively unimportant side-story.
– There was a big buildup about Ketenramm, the explorer
– All resolved in a few minutes of cutscenes
They had so many really good plot hooks, yet barely followed through on any of them and barely kept any subplot, after establishing it, going past a few cutscenes. For example, after learning about trading, how about Wuk tries to convince the next culture we meet with some trading, only to utterly fail, recognizing that this particular trait only works with certain kind of people? Or how about Wuk applying what she learned far later in the story? Again, the trading plot could have come up again in the Dome where perhaps someone demanded souls in trade for something important, giving Wuk an opportunity to apply what she learned about trading, to haggle and manages to pay with something else instead?
I think they should have swapped the personalities of Bakool Ja Ja and Zarool Ja and it would have worked much better for their motivations. Both of them were plagued by the expectations they felt from their people. And they also tried to use force to solve their problems.
But the expectations for Bakool Ja Ja was to become the dawnservant to improve the lives of the Mamool Ja and not make the 999 failed attempts trying to give birth to him be for nothing. And he used force in a comically evil fashion and goes around just bullying people/Wuk.
And the expectations for Zarool Ja was to become the next dawnservant because he is the resilient son expected to be Garool Ja Ja’s heir and surpass him. Then he uses force to intimidate people into doing what he wants.
I think it would have worked better if Bakool Ja Ja was the quiet intimidator because of the weight he feels as blessed siblings to earn the position of dawnservant and wouldn’t let anybody get in his way.
And Zarool Ja being a more comically evil because he expects to just be given the throne because he’s the resilient son. He even laments that he wasn’t guaranteed the position on his death bed. “He left me nothing. No throne, no legacy, nothing.” I could easily imagine him behaving like Bakool Ja Ja did at the start and saying “why even bother with this farce? Just declare me the next dawnservant and save us all the trouble!” Then, when he didn’t get it, he became ruler of Solution 9 and invaded Tuliyollal.
Vs Bakool Ja Ja who would have to earn his position because he isn’t the resilient son or one of Garool Ja Ja’s adopted children. He’s an outsider trying to earn the throne that everybody expects to be taken by a member of Garool Ja Ja’s family. He has no reason, besides being a blessed sibling, to expect Garool Ja to just hand it to him. Then it can end how it did for him before (he reveals his tragedy, scions help solve the food problem, he accepts Wuk as dawnservant and becomes a good guy, etc). Except without the lingering question of “why aren’t we punishing the guy who released Valigarmanda?” Because in this version it would’ve been Zoraal Ja who did that.
If someone brings you a pizza with a bad assortment of toppings, more time in the oven won't fix it. The Dawntrail story was finished, it just wasn't very good.
You nailed it perfectly in your last video where you state that turning the WoL into a cameraman for someone else's story didn't work for you. Many of us prefer the WoL to be the MC, or at least the pov or focus within the story even where other characters take an occasional spotlight. And if they were going to change that, why? And why in their responses to criticism do they never address such a drastic change? If I wanted to watch my "Faction Leaders" do Heroic Things in Cutscenes I would be playing WoW.
I was furious when the killed Otis. I was like THE ONLY NEW PERSON I ACTUALLY LIKE AND HE DIES.😂😢
8:47 Zoraal Ja is better than Gaius? 🤣🤣🤣
Well, if they are competing for the villain who doesnt talk/speak, Zoraal Ja definitely take win. Lol
Poor Gaius. His 1.0 introduction and story were so much better than his ARR intro and story. I still remember that reveal cutscene from 1.0. Such a badass.
Wouldn't be surprised if a "consultation firm" was involved in some way.
Delaying wouldn’t solve the problem, it’s the writing
Attencion.thud giy is a phobe. He harsssed the va of wuk lamat and said awfull things
I don't see Zoraal Ja on a level with Nidhogg. The dragon had a personal reason for his vengeance. Zoraal Ja's reason for hating the lulled sense of peace and the lack of its appreciation by the common populus was never quite apparent to me.