Final Fantasy XIV’s Dawntrail expansion underwhelms on all fronts. For a follow up to an amazing finale with Endwalker, this disappoints on almost every front. It’s easy to say that the biggest issue with all of this all comes down to Wuk Lamat, but there’s way more to it than that.
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Tried something different with this one – more of an opinion/rant instead of full on review. If you enjoy and want to see more like it, let me know and sound off in the comments!
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"If you switch to JP voices, you just like listening to voices you don't understand!"
Yes. I do. That's why I turn on subtitles and smile whenever Jotaro's voice comes out of the big lizard.
The way they wrote the scions in this expac is the most spit in the face thing they could of ever done, I love the twins and there is no kind of teasing twin banter in this story!
Can’t help but notice this ain’t FF13…
@9:00 onward, entirely disagree. Of the 4 VA that did Wuk Lamat, the English one dropped the ball. This VA suffers worse than the Thancred's VA did in ARR when it comes to matching tone, stress, exertion, and more often than not relays in a cadence as if they are having a general conversation where they are faking sincerity and attention. Perfect example? The lvl 100 trial where Wuk Lamat is stopping an attack while trying to appeal to the boss. There is absolutely no physical exertion in their voice, no urgency, it is said as if they are standing face to face having a normal conversation. It breaks the immersion and impact of the scene. The other 3 VA nailed that scene.
I don't say this for politic reasons, I don't care for the politics associated with the VA. However, to say the VA did an amazing job and others criticizing it are entirely wrong, nah. It was not good, especially in scenes where there should have been specific tone or strong emotion. The one thing this VA can take away from the criticism, is to work harder and practice more. Then again, no idea if anyone in the recording studio was coaching them either, if they saw the scene as it was playing out and was just trying to get the lines recorded 'well enough.' FFXIV has suffered from various VA over its many years in service, some were replaced and others got better as time went on because they listened to the criticism they received, and sadly some…well some still need work but still doing better than when they first entered.
1:39 that was a weird audio cut
Nah your VA bit is wrong, watch any other dub and you'll see how bad she was in comparison.
Dude you massively wrong about the voice acting, for Wuk Lamat, It was so poorly done I switched to Japanese and it was so much better done in Japanese. Also if your infering Ysthola slept throuhg her rle they had to record her lines over the phone because she was at home with her brand new baby.
The guy who voiced EN dub of Lamat is kind of shit though.
in french, Wuk Lamat voice actress performance are more than fine. Specially because they hired a voice actress that has experience on the matter, she dubbed A LOT of movies and cartoon/anime and tv shows, we talk about 50+ and obviously from my Profile pic, french is my mother's tongue.
So your take is incorrect.
Wuk's english voice is terrible.
Follows up a "don't be dismissive about story problems" with being dismissive about voice acting complaints. Hypocrite.
You didn't understand any of the themes and writing, truly impressive.
anyone who doesnt like wuk lamats voice is a weeb.. alright, lets break that down for a sec.
Lets take the most talked about gripe with the voice acting (that you also complained about, jared): the last line in the interphos trial.
There is no way to justify that voice acting in english, in the french and german dubs the actress conveys proper emotion for the scene, isnt phoning in an accent, and is able to properly project their voice into a distraught yell when screaming Sphenes name. This indicates a problem with the english voice acting. This is not a problem with the actress herself, this is not a slight against her character, and spending the video pre-emptively acting like you're correct creating strawmen for you to take down a peg makes no sense considering throughout your streams you complained about the acting yourself.
As for the romance… why? What would that have added to wuk lamats character other than creating a typical damsel archetype for people to lust over? Wuk Lamats story was about her finding *herself*, not becoming infatuated with you. We've already had characters become obsessed with us before, and in an MMORPG it just doesnt fit.
you can't tell me the VA for Wuk Lamat is good, man lol
"You just like noises you don't understand" had me in stiches lol
One of my biggest issues with the story is one they set up from the start personally. We just happen to have Deus Ex Earing that opens the Golden Gate to the city that Sphene herself has locked, and the only key be taken by her…..
Then it so happens the earing just happens to be like a usb device and we can enter with it.
I get they explain it later with her parents, but man i as unimpressed and annoyed.
Wuk Lamat was the worst mainline character in the entire series. The story is one of the worst in the entire series. So disappointing. I've never enjoyed FF as little as I did Dawntrail. Even the soundtrack was weak, normally a guarantee. Thankfully the dungeons and trials were fun.
I will say, categorically, in 100% my own opinion, that Wuk Lamat's voice acting was absolutely terrible. I will say it again, Wuk Lamat was an awful character and her voice actor was abysmal.
ok. now that i've watched the video. here's 2 things i disagree.
1) Yes. Wuk Lamat voice acting is bad. the VA is sounds okay but vocal direction IS a part of voice acting. and for the most part she sounds flat. (there's a reason why the voice acting the naruto storm connections game sounded so bad even with the returning VAs )
2) Wuk Lamat being a love interest would be awful because it would split people on her even more instead of winning people over. after all, if you hated Yhstola, you wouldn't was her to start purring and using your lap as a "throne"
As a Trails fan, we just had Trails through Daybreak which had the same task: Set up a new arc! And Daybreak and Dawntrail are like day and night in how they achieved that.
Dawntrail does not feel like a new, exiting adventure. Tural did not feel like exploring a completely new land. I wish they would have just gone full chill, explore, meet the Scion in peace times expansion – or leave the Scions out of it completely. Cause now, they are just there to be there without any reason. Krile is like the best example. This was her time to shine, we get a HUGE lore drop for her and…. nothing is done with it? She gets 1 (good) scene with her parents and that is all she got.
Wuk Lamat as a naive/hyper positive character is fine – but that type can always be challenged. That scene after the attack by Alexandrias forces, where she is at the beach trying to give a potion to an already dead person? So well done, showing her character crumble – to the be IMMEDIATELY back to 0 because our WoL gives ONE LINE of encouragement.
The character writing and development here is absolutely on an all time low while dungeons/trials are amazing and carrying the gameplay side at least.
WTF.
Calling japanese dub "noises you don't understand" is mighty racist m8. Wuk Lamat's ENG voice actor HAS some incredibly flat deliveries on most of the performances (can't be done otherwise or else the voice cracks will start to appear) and even a single sentence sleep-read from Y'shtola is better VA than the entirety of Wuk's performance.
Look, all I'm saying is that Wuk Lemat is a weak character that other characters praise for doing stuff they've seen dozens of times over the course of the other expacs.. and no Jared, her VA did a horrible job. And she's toxic as hell.. so don't be afraid to critique her just because she's trans.
We aren’t the main character anymore.
Counter point: All the new terms and people in the beginning is confusing but we are learning the same as Wuk Lamat about her people. The confusing terminology is to put us closer with her.
Second: the second part is interesting because of how the two leaders are loyal to their people and how they lead and without us going through and seeing what Wuk Lamat did for her people, the second half wouldn’t work.
Agree about the love part. But with the hate for Dawntrail, I think it might have been best.
I think Dawntrail is a story about grief and overcoming generational trauma. Which is interesting but hard to compare to the world ending story.
On Wuk Lamats VA. My opinion is that it’s bad, easily the worst from Shadowbringers to DT. This normally wouldn’t be a problem but because she’s the Main Character and has so many voice lines, it makes it worse. I feel that the VA lacks range which is made obvious during moments when Wuk is emotional like after the father son duel, and in the last trail especially (you can even see the animation for Wuk shouting and straining, but the VA is like a simple line read).
I think using the “poor voice direction” excuse is pretty silly when all other voice acting is directed well. Do you think that the person directing Wuks VA called in sick or phoned it in on those terrible lines? Come on.
Lost me as soon as you started praising the English VA for Wuk Lamat while simultaneously shitting on anyone who has an opinion different than your own. You need to accept that not everyone enjoys the same things you do, but that doesn't automatically mean they dont know what they're talking about. That being said, I didn't like the VA's performance. It's a white person doing a terrible imitation of…whatever accent that was supposed to be, and it's very awful. I may not know what the hell the Japanese VA is saying, but switching audio certainly helped me get through the story. The character herself is still annoying, sidelines other characters that deserved more development, has inconsistent power levels, has all other characters pandering and praising her at every turn, and I couldn't wait to get away from her, but I can see why other people would like her, and thats fine. I don't share the same opinion, but that doesn't mean they don't know what they're talking about and arent allowed to enjoy things I didn't.
My main takeaway from this vid is that Jared wants to snuggle the cat.
I agree with everything except for your take on Wuk Lamat's voice.
As I player I dont care if the problem is voice direction, badly writen lines, amateurish voice acting or a mix of all three.
I did not enjoy her voice acting in EN dub, and for the first time since ARR switched to JP, as did most of the people i know.
Did it make Dawntrail better? Hell no, the expansion is horrible, the pacing/exposition of the story really went down compared to shadowringers and endwalker.
But at least I had a Wuk Lamat (with most voice acted lines in any expansion ever) with a voice that was better at expressing emotions/was better directed.
You spoke my mind for many of the issues, its the execution of the story, the expectation the story wants you to have of the characters but did not actually properly setting then up for it.
However i don't agree with the voice acting. I've only watched some of the voice line deliveries and many of the EN voices (not just wuk alone, but she is a major offender because of per prominence) is downright horrible. It may not be the fault of the voice actress, as its pointed out that the voice director was probably the one that didn't even bother to try. Regardless, it doesn't move away from the fact that the english voice acting is bad.
And I've heard the German voices too and they're fantastic. For what its worth, I am fluent in english, japanese and German and play in all 3 languages. Its not a "foreign language sounds good english dub bad" thing. The EN voice acting across the board was just mid to bad.
First half of dawntrial MSQ felt to me like a tournament arc from an anime, i find them very boring as well
The 2nd half of the MSQ was goated
Wuk lamat being with you all the time copying how Emet is just fail attempt for this one specially with the story and how annoying wuk lamat is
Every expansion has an "Is this person in love with me?" scene.
ARR: Minnfilia
HW: Aymeric
StB: Lyse
ShB: Crystal Exarch
EW: Venat
DT: Wuk Lamat
Dude literally said that the scene with the pillars at the very beginning was bad bc it required an attention span. Like I'm sorry but your opinion must be rendered inconsequential after that take lmao
The gameplay is actually really good, the savage fights are designed well (the DPS check for the final floor is low, but if that is what it took to have a final floor without a door boss, then I am fine with it) and the casual content is fun and frenetic, as well. But man, the story just was not it…and it saddens me because it had potential to be good; both the interesting plot points and characters (soul currency being used as a societal backbone, Erenville, Krile) were sidelined in favor of black-and-white morality (The Endless) and a certain character who did not belong to be the focal point in the second half (Wuk Lamat).
The whole "You just cant handle a story that isnt about cosmic world ending threats!" is very funny because thats exactly how the story ends up anyway