I love how everyone forgets to mention that Wuk Lamat’s VA wanted Bridget from Guity Gear’s VA cancelled for being a woman when Bridget is trans And yet Wuk Lamat is a woman Double standards much?!
Bridget was never trans either way. A twitter mob harrassed the devs to appease them thanks to shitty localizers misleading players. And now we have a character that is PEAK transphobic for forcing them to be trans with their story.
then we are not even talking about the most recent rants about being racist if you do not like smile; a transphobe if you do not like Wuk Lamat cause apparently Wuk Lamat is trans now according to them it seems and all other hateful rhetoric this VA spews SE needs a PR team just to keep them in check it seems
The negative reactions are not just negative for the sake of negativity: They have reasons for their complaints, and are asking for genuine discussion on how to improve on these issues. I don't see how burying one's head in the sand and pretending that everything is fine is good for ourselves or for the game. We can enjoy future installments in the story if those installments are good - ARR was very bad, but the Crystal Braves and Teledji stuff was pretty great! Stormblood was a mixed bag, but the patches were spectacular! - but it is our right as customers to say that the product we bought was not up to the quality we have come to expect. I'd argue that we absolutely *should* be loud, because suppressing our honest opinions will *make it impossible to discuss anything about the game.* Discussion is what keeps interest in a story alive, not blind love. One would hope it is positive discussion about things that worked and what we could learn from those.... but if the story is bad, we must have the ability to discuss that openly so as to foster a community that allows for free expression. There is no better way to destroy a fanbase than to silence a group.
I want to write a bit more to clarify my ending: I'm going to say something seriously disgusting and vile here, you ready? I didn't like Shadowbringers. But never once have I been afraid to hurt people's feelings by saying it. I've had wonderful discussions about its storytelling with people who 100% believe me to be wrong, and we've enjoyed ourselves. (The short version of my issue is that Emet-Selch is constantly inserting himself into the story and I find his whining tiring: I don't care if you have a "good reason" for being an antagonist, you still want to kill everybody, dude... Omega had similar motivations but didn't run its mouth wanting us to feel sorry for it. More importantly, it stops the narrative I actually cared about - the war with Garlemald - for a sidequest in some alternate dimension. If it was placed after the first third of Endwalker, I would have liked it more.) I've heard the phrase "don't yuck someone else's yum," and I think it is a terrible sentiment. We should be able to discuss our differences of opinion openly, so as to better understand each other. If we become afraid to speak up for ourselves, our passion dies. I love Final Fantasy XIV. I love being able to talk about it with other people that love the game. I love having disagreements. I love that some people enjoy Dawntrail, because they can bring a different view to the table! If we censor ourselves so as not to step on any toes, we are denying ourselves access to other people that love FFXIV. This game is built on a community of fans. If we stop ourselves from honest discussion, we can no longer meet people who can supply different viewpoints and fresh insights. The fanbase for FFXIV is wonderful, and conflicting opinions is a big part of what makes that so true.
I don't mind our WoL taking a backseat or mentor role once in a while, but damn we're stupid. I mean like...really, really stupid. Our character stands around basically as an extra for a large majority of the MSQ letting awful things happen around them when we should be taking action. Our inaction has so many consequences in the story, and it's ridiculous after everything we've been through that we would be so passive. And then to top it off we need Wuk Lamat's help to save the day? This lady got kidnapped by a random group of thugs and required rescue, threw everything she had into an axe swing just to effortlessly get repelled by a one-handed Bakool Ja Ja, etc. I'm supposed to believe that in a matter of days she has suddenly become so strong that she can not only whoop Bakool Ja Ja and his merry band of lizardmen all on her own, but we also need her to bail us out against the final boss just so Square could try to force another Zenos moment? We have been to the edge of the universe and eat gods for breakfast; I don't buy that we needed Wuk Lamat's help when she couldn't even help herself just days prior. This was character assassination.
@@AiroDusk Ketenramm being hale and healthy is specifically what I'm thinking of. He should be over a century old. This is fine, so long as the narrative draws some sort of attention to it. I think they're planning a big twist with him later, but it is utterly moronic that not one of the archons ever mention his youth. Schoolchildren will know the date of the New World's discovery. (Ketenramm sailed the ocean blue in fourteen ninety....seven... dang it, I need a new rhyme.) The brightest minds in Sharlayan fail to bring it up. I would think that several of the former Scions would be *bursting* with questions for the famous Ketenramm! It may seem small, but it either reinforces the stupidity of our characters or breaks the established lifespans of Roegadyn men. I went through every Roegadyn in three volumes of Encyclopedia Eorzea, none of them are nearly as old as this hearty, youthful fella who fights robots and somehow survives an assassination attempt by Zoraal Ja.
One of my big problems with Dawntrail beyond having Wuk Lamat around way too much, was how she suddenly became so strong with no explanation. In one part, her strongest attack couldn't even phase Bakool Ja Ja, not long after she's solo'ing Bakool Ja Ja, his groupies, and hired mercs
They they didn't do her "training" arc well at all imo. I think they wanted the dungeons and Valigarmanda to represent that... but I dont think that was an effective way of showcasing it imo
What I didn't like: The fact that the world lost it's 'grit' in favour of being an idealized caricature of what a real place might look like in FF context. What I liked: Actually wiping to boss mechanics. What a pleasant surprise.
I don't put much stock in the people claiming that people don't like Wuk Lamat because of a trans VA. Most of it is chaff and fake. Cena Bryer tweeted out that she was joining the cast and then deleted the tweet the next day. Suddenly there was a wave of screaming idiots claiming that it was because she received "waves of transphobia" and attacking the player base. Then it turns out that she deleted the tweet because it broke NDA and Square had it removed. Oops. I didn't like any of the North or South American voice performances because the direction was beyond terrible. I didn't like the story because of the terrible writing, pacing or characterization. People claiming any personal reasons with one voice actor are lying and white knighting for attention.
@@SilverNightbane Talent and voice direction alone speak loudly in this case. Does it help if said person was of the biological gender in order to give that female character a voice...it'd help. However there's both genders that can pull off different types of female voices, along with male voices. It just depends on the direction...poor direction and lack of talent equals bad voice work.
@@greencaptain2783 wuk is the perfect storm of not good VA and really poor writing. I feel kinda bad for VA, she wouldnt be able to remedy the character even with the perfect angelic voice. it was a losing game from the beginning.
I thought Luis Bermudez did a great job as Koana, but damn near everyone else was pretty bad, in my opinion. Wuk Lamat, Gulool Ja Ja(this dude voiced Twister in Rocket Power which is kinda cool though), pretty much everyone in the cowboy zone, etc. People immediately resorting to insults and accusations of bigotry or transphobia as soon as you dare voice any criticism of Wuk Lamat are quite vocal, and it's a damn shame. The comment section of the VA's tweets are like an echo chamber of copium with everyone constantly praising her as like...the greatest VA of all time, had the best performance in the entire 10+ year history of FFXIV, deserves an Emmy award, etc. People are licking so much boot over there and it feels so performative like they're desperate to be seen as allies or something. Despite hating the performance, I don't put all the blame on the VA though. Someone had to have provided direction for her lines, someone had to approve the way she delivered them, etc. There were numerous times someone in charge could've stopped and asked her to re-record some lines or something, but no, this is what they gave us, so they must've been okay with it and that's not something I can blame her for. The character was written badly, the English voice casting could've been much better, the direction she was given was clearly terrible, and it was apparently good enough to make it into the final product regardless. I hate how much this expansion has fragmented the community, and it's mostly the people trying to twist constructive criticism into something else entirely.
On wuk lamat, I played the whole MSQ in JP and I'm still tired of seeing her. I've really enjoyed the combat related things of the expansion, trials and dungeons etc. This won't be a MSQ that I feel I'll have any fondness for in the future unlike the previous 2
Many people said that unlike Lamat, Lyse stepped aside when she was not part of the story, and they like that about her. Also that she is not even pretending to be part of the main Scions given who was teleported by G’raha Tia.
I did like the class quests. And the crafter and gatherer quest. As well as the raid. But not enough to justify staying. Quite frankly Tural while big is also very empty and boring. And the quest in tural felt BORING.
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj Pretty much. The only good story we got so far is from the Arcadion Raids. Even the role quests for DT boil down to Saturday Morning Fanfare
What I didn't like : Wuk Lamat stealing so much Spotlight from Erenville and Krile What I like : Surprisingly, the Job Changes. They don't look like much for the most part, but to me many still feel surprisingly good so far, like Samurai and Bard...and I honestly like Black Mage, though that's likely because I never understood how to play it before^^
Honestly Bakool Ja ja was one of my most hated parts, he goes from Mamool Ja Hitler to Wuk Lamats bestie in the blink of an eye. Redemption Arcs can be okay (I mean Fordola is still trying to redeem herself) but christ I got whiplash from how quickly Bakool did a 180.
@@rock2k14 I agree with you on the redemption part, after all he did he has not earned it. But the dead babies story was the only part in the game that got pretty dark and finally felt like was was not playing a game for 8 years old kids.
After playing FF14 for almost 4 years, Dawntrail actually got me to the point where it made me try out WoW. I'd have never seen this turn of events coming pre Dawntrail.
@@cool2bekeith I'm a bit lost right now because I don't know a lot of the names and what happened in the Story before, but otherwise I'm pleasently surprised how good the game actually is, considering all the hate towards it that I picked up.
Honestly, for the first time in the history of ff14, I couldn't even finish the story before I just got too bored and let my sub run out (Got to solution nine)
It's sort of weird to think about, but the last time they released a piece of main story content that was enjoyed by the vast majority was the release of Endwalker. Nearly three years ago now.
Want to enjoy DT skip story till end of 95 filler ark. Do 96-98 somewhat interesting story. Needed more of that, but actually fleshed out. Then skip final zone its so bad. Do final dungo and trial, then skip final cutscene, watch after credit. Then do the raid story which was way more interesting than most of the story.
@@Jinxyoutoheavenyou don't have to like it. But it makes sense to me, narratively. Sphene is Wuk Lamat villain to deal with. It isn't the WoL's. Wuk Lamat has to be the one to face her, with how the story is set up. Sphene has barely any connection to the WoL, the majority of her dialogue is with Wuk Lamat.
@@SuperRamos619 The majority of EVERYONE'S dialogue is with Wuk Lamat, not just Sphene. And Sphene also singles out US, the WOL, as the primary threat to dispose of. We're the godslayer who has been to multiple realities. Not Wuk
I played Dawntrail in Japanese so Wuk's VA didn't bother me as much as the damn character itself did. My wife who plays with English VA, couldn't stand the voice actor's performance though. Regardless of gender or whatever, the performance was meh at best, adding that to an extremely annoying character who changes the whole dynamic of the MSQ is a recipe for disaster. I enjoyed the dungeons and the savage raids so far, but I still feel all the classes feel quite boring at this point, they played it too safe. The promised button stacking only working for the 2 new jobs with other jobs getting maybe one skill or two as "flipping" buttons was quite lazy in my opinion, specially for tanks as I hate pressing my damn buff again as a GCD. I understand Yoshi P. Wanted something light hearted after FF16 being such an edgy, dark story that is dark for the sake of being dark. Then again 16 was a disappointment for me as well for the most past. For the same reasons, Safe static gameplay, too dark of a story with too much emphasis on forgettable characters everywhere.
Oh I agree, i didn't like the character or the voice acting in DT in general. The direction on the whole felt off and since Wuk Lamat had SO many lines I think it comes across doubly bad for that character in English. There's numerous times where the immediate reaction from me was "yeah that could have used a few more takes"
I've looked up other roles the English VA had and this is pretty standard fare for their performance, they're just not a good va. Square needs to just stick with the British VA talent pool they've been using.
Regarding the weird divide between post-msq quality and msq quality, my friends were discussing this and someone asserted that perhaps the MSQ is being written with story skippers in mind, so that's why post-MSQ is rather good. If that's true, that's pretty damn sad.
People are critical of Wuk Lamat for various reasons. She had too much screen time that the story actively pushed for it, she pushes aside other characters to elevate herself, and the characters that are pushed aside are dummed down to raise her up. She is written like your typical Shonen anime protag/Mary Sue. She just gets strong out of no where because shes the main character and theres no actual build up for it. I get that people bring up the argument that we are mentoring her but at the same time it feels like we arent. A mentor is someone one who is going to challenge you. Not just for your strength and grit, but for your ideals and what you are fighting for. That never happens. We just keep elevating and reinforcing Wuk Lamat just because shes a good person and has good intentions, and we never challeng her on her views. In regards to the VA Sena Bryer, lets be real here her voice is just objectively awful on all fronts, shes an amature VA who got placed in a major lead role and did a poor job in execution and line delivery. Her voice is completely monotone. It lacks any emotion or range, and the performance she gave was just god awful. But of course you have the keyboard/ssj warriors who will use Sena's identity as a deflection from these criticisims and be completely disingenuous while making horrible generalizations of anyone who is critical of Wuk Lamat and Sena by extension. Nevermind the fact that Sena has made awful and inflammatory remarks and posts on her Twitter. She's just an awful person. Now regarding DT's story. The whole reason why its been mixed is for various reasons, ranging from story pacing, to story telling, the message, and the under developed characters like Kaona, Krile, Zoraal Ja, and so on. And while I appreciate the FF9 references, as someone who liked FF9, I have mixed feelings about how it was executed. Lets be real here almost all of the later half of DT is back to back FF9 references, from Alexandria, to the caharacter references, little easter eggs in S9 and even parts of Living Memory. But...ill be honest if thats all what the expansion has going for it...then its really bad writing, because what would the experience be like for someone who hasn't played FF9, or know the story of FF9, or if they dislike FF9. I can imagine their experience wouldn't be any better or worse, but i can imagine it would be hollow.
Agreed, while I enjoyed MY story with DT and the journey I took upon myself and thought of the MSQ secondary until all was said and done to reflect on what happened. I do feel the quality in the MSQ writing & some of the voice acting was lacking to put it simply and hope the patch MSQ can remedy this to an extent. The combat content has been great and is what keeps me around. The hate that's just blindly going after every single frame or hyper focusing on the EN VA for Wuk being T it is wild and should just stop. BUT this is the internet so people will do what people do, and with that it is such a small percentage of people even going to those extreme ends of hate. Same goes for those that are blindly accepting said performance because of actor being T. It goes both ways and is a slippery slope of a debate to trend on, so best to avoid that side of the "discussion" and focus on what's objective comparative to what came before. Maybe not SH or EW; as that's completely unfair, but HW & SB when having said discussions now & down the line. Sorry mini ramble there. That being said, I hope with the patches we can get a vacation from Wuk Lamat cause omg was she just overbearing....lmfao. Give us more Koana or Bakool Ja Ja! But for sure we NEED more Krile in the patch content, there's just no debating against that.
Haven't felt this passionate about a piece of media in a long time because rarely have I been this disappointed. I don't think I'm the only one and this may be where a lot of the heated discussions you came accross come from. I don't know about the expansion being "woke", it could have been progressive and well written. But it's not. Pacing, charactarization, the hyper-focus on Wuk, it was all barely bearable. After 5K hours, I'm seriously considering putting down a game I have loved for years because I've lost faith in Yoshida's team. So I, like others, write and argue that this expansion was not ok. That we expected better and want SE to snap out of it before it is too late.
I'm with you. I have liked the normal mode gameplay a lot, but the story is beyond awful on an objective level. The game is utterly simplistic. The reason we are so vocal is because we *love* this game and this world. We have high standards, as we should - we've stuck through expansion after expansion, seen so many wonderful tales come out of both the MSQ and side quests. To make something of this quality is an insult not to the fans, but to the world that has been created. And we could have had something light and fun and good! I'd have loved an actual vacation arc with Estinien bartering with the pelupelu, Krile learning to cook, Tataru learning how best to exploit the ceruleum deposits of Shaaloani. But instead we got simplistic moralizing and preaching, from a game that has been mature and adult about politics and interpersonal conflict before this point. I think many content creators are taking a radical centrist view because they don't want to look into the genuine problems with this story and how this would have been unacceptable back when the game was newer. Imagine if we got out of ARR and went into DT - FFXIV would be dead! - or imagine that this came after HW, when we had one hit and then along comes the indefensibly bad DT. The story is what brought many people - myself included - into the game. I'm pessimistic, but I've loved some things I've been pessimistic for. I've hated Disney Star Wars, but Andor is legitimately one of my favorite TV shows ever. Arcane looked like a crappy video game adaptation that wound up being one of the greatest TV shows I've encountered. Being pessimistic isn't automatically hating something before it comes out, it's a natural defense mechanism after you have been betrayed.
Its more of a bunch of asylum inmates on twitter co-opting colors and themes for their side...and the reactionary side trying to prove a 'woke' agenda. I get it that Sweet Baby Inc had a hand in Square Enix but we'll never know the extent, along with the fact that SBI was kicked to the curb after a share holder's meeting (supposedly).
Im glad that im not invested with the story of ff14. So with that i still like dawntrail alot. the zones and stuff. The battle content was amazing withen dawntrail and thats what i carefor
Story is bad yea. All the characters were written poorly. The main cast were pingponged between smart and capable to brain damaged. Wuk Lamat especially switches from powerful and smart to mewling kitten and brain damaged on a whim. Even the scions arent exempt from this. Like the part where she gets kidnapped? That was so obviously a scam, yet the supposedly smartest people in the world all just decided to stand by and.... wait? Not to mention its literally a straight path, did they all go blind spontaneously or what? Speaking of standing by, the whole stand and watch syndrome got even worse somehow. When lizardboi got killed and the key dropped, everyone just stood by with their mouths agape like some kind of moronic ape. Why? Just take two steps and go pick it up. Whats with the spontantenous lobotomy? Its so bloody puzzling. To go from sb and ew story to this travesty is just embarassing.
I do wonder if FFXVI being developed in tandum with Dawntrail hurt it in some way. It just strange to see a game that is so well written, with such great characterization and with so many lore hooks to be reduced to the bare bones almost kids cartoon story of Dawntrail. All to introduce a key...
The majority of criticism I have seen about the VA has been focused the performance and/or on Bryer's own character. This is an individual who has tried to cancel other voice actors and get them fired or to step down from roles they worked for, all because these VAs do not have the same perceived identity as the character(s) they are voicing. So, by Bryer's own logic and reasoning, she should not be the voice of Wuk Lamat because Wuk is not a trans woman. It's hypocritical, and looks especially bad when you consider the fact those statements could have ruined livelihoods. There's much more out there, but I just wanted to express I think Bryer is not free of criticism -and no one should be afraid to call out a poor performance or bad character because of a label.
Let's hope that post patches would be better and without Wuk Lamat and dawntrail will be treated like ARR something what you must do(even if ARR was much better and it was real world building).
On a fundamental level, the major story beats were fine for the most part. The whole idea of the rite of succession, golden city, Heritage Found, and Solution 9 were all good story beats, the issue is the actual execution, dialogue, and missed opportunities. A B-team or new writing team definitely wrote this and it shows. Ishikawa and her team doesn't feel like they had any hand in this story besides the golden city and Solution 9 and the big implications that story has in moving forward in future expansions. I made sure to play this expansion with zero expectations, and so far the execution was just oddly poor. The script felt like it was one or two reviews and revisions away from being a good reset arc. As for Wuk Lamat, I can forgive her being front and center from level 90-95 in the MSQ. It's basically her story and makes sense she takes a central role. Her character basically feels like they tried a do over with Lyse from Stormblood 4.0 MSQ and still failed miserably. However, once the rite of succession was done, she should've taken a back seat. I'm not opposed to her joining us to the dome, but she should've stayed quiet for the most part and only chimed in during Zoraal Ja discussion or if Zoraal Ja was present. Erenville and Krile should've taken center stage here for very obvious reasons and those two shouldn't accompanied us more, not Wuk Lamat. Speaking of missed opportunities and the B-team/newbie writing team, the fact we don't get to see why Zoraal Ja is the way he is is insane. We don't know if Sareel Ja groomed him to be warmongering, we don't know how he came to have the mindset he has, and we don't even see how he ended up this messed up with as openly supportive and loving as a father Gulool Ja Ja is. "Proving the miracle of his birth" is all well and good, but how did that become his obsession, did he ever ask his dad if he even needs to do that, and how did that lead to "do big war so everyone appreciates peace" idea. I'm not even asking for Yotsuyu, Emet Selch, Elidibus, or Hermes level of character analysis, just show us the foundational steps that led to Zoraal Ja being the way he is while making it make sense. That's all it is.
The person who wrote this is the person who wrote all the auracite stuff. Meaning that person wrote the Ivalice raids, including the lengthy explanation of Tactics reconfigured to FFXIV’s conceit of swapping Tactics and FFXII around. And the initial Heart of Sabik stuff, and the Pandaemonium stuff. We really should have expected lengthy info dumps given both were very present in Ivalice and Pandaemonium (and only the complexity of both prevented onus from seeing this was his schtick).
I think the game is so outdated now. Not just on how they present the story telling but also in the way they implement all other contents. IMO the graphic update is not enough to counteract this. They need to try something new and take risks. Everything in the game seems recycled and nothing really feels new. Even the new classes feels boring and uninspired imo.
I think if the developers had put in some instances where we play as the scions. This could've strengthen the scion's presence more and make it feel less arbitrary with their presence in the story. I also can't find myself to really hate or like Wuk Lamat as a character. As for their va being trans, I find that part to be irrelevant for the most part. There's definitely a good bit of parts of the story that could be smoothen out some more. I do have to say that I appreciate the first half of dawntrail. The lighthearted and sometimes silly tone was really refreshing after 2 expansions of such heavy and high stakes scenarios that we had. If you keep hitting high stakes situations too many times in a row, it starts lessening the impact of further situations. I also think that having us take out the threat early on after it starts up was a good idea. Endwalker's story was fine, but I think we could've used a little bit more time after shadowbringers before hitting along the lines as those expansions did. Personally I liked living memory more than ultima thule. Going through this artificial world and having us choose when to move on and take the life out of the zone to leave the zone barren felt impactful to me. The scenes where each scion sacrifice themselves didn't do much since we already knew that they're already willing from the rest of the expansions including arr. It also doesn't help the impact since it's unlikely that the developers are going to kill off so many scions at once, especially Y'shtola. It's not all downhill since both Emet and Xenos both make a good show in the end.
The issue with living memory is it’s a dead zone. Nothing special. Finished my fates and never went back there. The gimmick worked once and quickly wear off. It was just so much more beautiful before and now we got a trash zone.
It's so frustrating. I did not like the MSQ or Wuk Lamat and I had a lot of issues with the voice acting(not just Wuk) but it has nothing to do with the VA's gender identity but so many comments either take fair criticism as a green light to be disgusting and transphobic or they assume you only criticize because you're being bigoted or hopping on the bandwagon. It's so frustrating and genuinely has made me dislike DT a lot more than I likely would without that. It's soured an experience that was already not great for me a lot. All because whoever was in charge of recording didn't make sure the English VAs lines sounded correct before shipping so now it's become this gender identity battle when that has nothing to do with critiquing the expansion.
THe story is the main selling point of this game. I personally think most of the story is pretty mid and saying it's the best story of any mmo is not a flex because most mmo have barely any story. In my opinion Dawntrail just sets us up for more 10 years of the same content from previous expansions being reskinned, the formula has grown stale on Stormblood and YoshiP refuses to step out of the safe zone which leads the game to feel more of just the same. So yeah, story aside FFXIV is still a pretty solid single player game with MMO elements her and there. Reusing the formula has carried the game for 10 years so I understand them being adamant about not changing it that much because predictability breeds comfort and that's pleasant to people. It keeps the subs running after all. I'm tired of it but I'm just one guy haha.
Dawntrail is the first time EVER playing this game I went "nope, fuck this, i dont care anymore" and decided to skip all dialogue and cutscenes. I gave it an earnest chance, but by the time we reach Shaaloani I had lost all motivation. The Rite of Succession wasn't fun or interesting, and the second part of the MSQ is just repeating the Emet Selch and Amaurot stories but high-tech whatnot thrown in. Not to mention the shallow childish writing and the cringe Pepsi-Cola Corporate Slop music they raped my ears with. The writing team should be fired and Yoshi P should feel ashamed for greenlighting this. They don't even have the "uhhh well we were working on another game at the same time so we didn't have the time or resources" excuse this time. This is just dog shit and if the story doesn't drastically improve by 7.1 I'm probably just going to unsub until next expansion.
I dont mind the WOL taking a backseat. But my god, atleast make the main character a good character with better than c tier voice acting. Like christ. Im so disappointed that THIS was the result of the 2 most successful expansions in mmo history. I do consider dawntrail story a failure. When 50% of your playbase cannot stand the chracter you gave 80% of the dialog in a game to, then that is a failure.
I have not played with EN VAs since the first cutscene in ARR so I'm generally pretty disconnected from the discourse from that part of the fandom (other than that I think that the localisation team butches a lot in ShB, but that is a different discussion...). However, I still heavily dislike Wuk from my first playthrough of the MSQ, and that is with voice acting that is *way* better than that of the EN version of this game. Yet, whenever I bring up criticism of Wuk or DT I still get backlash and called transphobe and other stupid stuff despite me not bringing up the VA at all.
Personally I felt like Zoraal Ja did things with Zenos better. Zenos was a bigger threat but I felt like his internality was more compelling than the base nihilism that Zenos was tied with. Zoraal Ja felt like he had to live up to an impossible standard and eventually loses because he never actually attained the self reflection he sorely needed. Even early on he never took into account important matters that were more rationally minded and lead to him criminally underestimating people (a la what he said about Garlemald in the Pelupelu quests). I could see more people behaving like Zoraal Ja than I ever could with Zenos
Thats nice, but where in the writing was all that explored? How many scenes did Zoraal Ja get? How much of that was written well? Outline and overview is only good if it was delivered well, and thats the problem with DT. Delivery was asinine, limited, rushed, and juvenile. The lore is good. The way it was delivered, atrocious.
@@MagiRa-r4m most of his scenes either showed the levels of expectation, his self isolation or the weight of his obsession to prove himself. I mean the fact he still held onto his grudge and his need to surpass his father after 30 years in Alexandria at least shows how much his inferiority complex towards his Father (and subsequently Wuk Lamat) had become integral to how he behaves. Is he as complex and nuanced as Emet Selch, Meteion and Elidibus? No. But I feel he has more interesting facets as a character and there's more tying him to Dawntrail's themes of family, community and moving on when compared to Zenos. Zenos only had a thematic relevance with Endwalker as like Meteion he also acted as a force of nihilism. Generally Zenos' main draws in my view is his ability to act as a threatening obstacle and whatever personal rivalry you can glean with your Warrior of Light. Beyond that I feel like he doesn't have much more to draw on. He's not the worst main villain (that would be Lahabrea) but I don't think he feels as complex as other villains and I think Zoraal Ja is more nuanced than he's given credit for. Like he is shown to value brute force over community and that is integral to why Koana & Wuk Lamat both win over him in the rite and both defend Tuliyolall and overcome him in Everkeep. He never learned to think tactically so when faced with stuff like the Great Wyrm's or the WoL or Gulool Ja Ja in his prime he comes up lacking since he can't win on that terms.
@@benmcnally9935 I think you give too much credit to Zarool Ja. For me, he was not a good villain at all and his plot made no sense in a couple of ways. One, his entire nation has no deep water ships, they say it in the MSQ, which means he can't even attack Eorzea at all. Second, his character makes no sense. It is not shown how Zarool became the way he is. With a father like Galool you would think they would have seen the darkness growing in Zarool and would have taught him something if anything. Where did Zarool learn his mind set for instance? Also the fact Zarool did not change at all after 30 years is mind boggling. Go and ask anyone who is older if they still hold the same feelings they did 30 years ago for instance. I feel Zarool Ja was mishandled entirely.
@@eternaljohhny4908 Honestly I have to disagree. The majority of your points I feel either are lending further credence to my point that he is not thinking in any way about tactics or logistics and is thus severely underestimating opponents and overestimating himself (thinking you can go out into the world to conquer when you cannot even muster a miniscule navy is textbook hubris as is showing such profound ignorance pof the actual power Garlemald had its peak and treating them like fools playing at conquerors). Or are explained by the major factors of him isolating himself and stubbornly refusing to learn from others. He has felt isolated from others for several reasons. One he's literally unique no other blue skinned Hoobigo existed when he was growing up and everyone else treated him like a miracle birth (something no other member of the major players in DT dealt with). Two, he as the actual blood offspring of Gulool Ja Ja probably felt the most pressure to live up to his legacy. Specifically given his penchant for martial prowess he focused on emulating the Head of Resolve. Three, becoming so widely seen as strong as head of the Landsguard further isolated him as the citizenry further fed into the pressure to live up to legacy as The Resilient Son of Gulool Ja Ja. Four, this isolation would continue in Alexandria as he continued to reject familial connections as he simply does not know how to foster them as seen by his cold demeanour to the other promises even pre ascension and everything with Gulool Ja afterwards. As such given he remained isolated with no real emotional connections tethering him he did change in Alexandria but for the worse. The resentment he harboured towards his father and siblings and the shattering of his self image festered and caused him to hyperfocus on his revenge over anything else. Even as a King of Alexandria he did not care for the citizenry unless it was a means to his end of striking back against Gulool Ja Ja and Wuk Lamat. To expand on my point about him not learning from others. It seemed that Gulool Ja JA even if he did see Zoraal Ja's dark path he seemed to have faith that his children would make good use of the lesson he was trying to impart through the feats but unlike his siblings who did actively take in the lessons Zoraal Ja did not and either coasted on his own strength (Feat of Gold), only focused on the lesson he wanted (Everything with Valigarmanda) or actively did not care to learn anything (Feat of repast). Primarily, the things he actively refused to learn were elated to strategy and planning avowed by the Head of Reason or focused on community and making connections with others (Everything in Iq Braax primarily). This all comes to a head in Mamook where any chance of him becoming Dawnservant and living up to or surpassing his father is lost since he cannot measure up with solely his own brute force leading to him lashing out and being disqualified. He believes that power is all that is required to rule and doesn't learn the lesson that reason and community are also vital. Him rejecting community and family just lets his problems fester and his lack of tactical skill means that when a planned defense and equal might brought from connections with other nations and people (Bakool Ja Ja, the Scions, Vrtra and the Dravanian Horde, The Warrior of Light themselves when the party gets to Everkeep) means he has no way to overcome such obstacle. And honestly all this feels deliberate since like how Queen Sphene is meant to show Wuk Lamat with her concern for her people taken to desperate extremes Zoraal Ja shows Wuk Lamat who rejected the community and connections with others and the mediating forces of counsel from wiser and cooler heads. Even when he does have his "Queen of Reason" they do not work in consort but against each other. And all of this culminates with his one winged angel form showing both his motivation for his actions (an unrelenting need to live up to or surpass his father's legacy shown in his resemblance to Gulool Ja JA) and his reasons for why he consistently fell short (lack of forethought, refusal to learn and rejection of connection with others shown by having the appearance of a beheaded or atrophied head on his left side signifying his lack of reason). I get why people may not like him or feel he could have been explored better but the actual internality and motivation is all there in the text in my view and does expound on some good thematic points.
@@benmcnally9935 My only issue with what you're saying is that it's a bunch of reading between the lines and not showing us the foundational steps that led to Zoraal Ja being the way he is. Were we ever shown how this obsession with "proving his miraculous birth" started? Were the Palace servants and maids saying that to Zoraal Ja's face or loud enough for him to overhear it? Did a young Zoraal Ja even consult his father if he should even be concerned with that? Frankly seeing how Gulool Ja Ja is portrayed, he would be "Nah, eff that nonsense my boy, live as you see fit and how you want to." How did he even start hating/distrusting his own father? How does that obsession even lead to "do big war so everyone appreciates peace" mindset? Did Sareel Ja groom him to be that way? Why does he dislike his adopted siblings? There's just so many characterization steps not shown that even if you have the right idea of what Zoraal Ja is supposed to be as a character, it's basically just your enlightened reading on his character and not because the writers wrote him well. Don't think that just because I never mentioned the distinct lack of Wuk Lamat and Koana's retellings of their childhoods as siblings, that they are exempt from the criticisms I gave to Zoraal Ja. Those two could've had better character writings if we're shown parts of how they came to be.
Sure you can link some of the hate for Wuk is because of the English VA being Trans, but the fact as the hate for Wuk is about the same in every Language says a different story, and honestly I feel sorry for the English VA as she got stuck with such a poorly written character.
She could have refused, or advocated to fix her character. Then again because she's such an unknown talent they would have replaced her. To be honest I would have forced the director to fix my character or pay out my contract to cut me loose. No reason to be tied to dumpster ripe for kindling.
@@grygaming5519 Eh, I don't think you can advocate to fix your character when you're so far removed from the actual writing. The writers are half a world away speaking a different language, and your job as an actor in a translated piece is to translate as originally intended, not improve upon the bad writing. Even if you think it's crap, you can't "fix" a translation. It would stop being a translation at that point. If you are the originator of the role, working with the writers directly, you could complain that your character is crap.
They need to give Wuk the Lyse treatment. They've ruined any chance of making her likable in the eyes of a large portion of the fanbase. Has nothing to do with who voiced her. They tried way too hard to push her, and when you try to force people to like something, you'll inevitably push them into hating that thing. Happens to wrestlers all of the time to use an example from the video. I do like the direction of the playable content outside of basic questing. It's a lot more engaging. I was ready to unsub after finishing the story, but the dungeons and trials kept me playing.
I think I've seen a dozen or so reviews of Dawntrail, and they're all saying the same thing. Personally, I don't like 90% of anime. Well done stories like Cowboy Beebop and Violet Evergarden are a couple exceptions to that. That being said, I detest shonen anime. Dawntrail had me looking back at the dark days of Realm Reborn with a fondness.
This. I see people defend it by saying it's just like Shonen anime. And I always respond,"That doesn't help it. I've hated Shonen anime for over 30 years. lol"
@@xL0stKIlah Gave Naruto a dozen episodes and dropped it(I was watching it when it first came out so many years ago). Bleach was okay but I got seriously tired of Rukia always trying to get Ichigo to stop doing what he was doing. I dropped it when the filler started coming on. I've been watching anime almost 40 years... Shonen just isn't it for me.
@@xL0stKIlah One Piece didn't appeal to me. Gundam 0079 was okay. Gundam Wing pissed me off with it's Pacifism. Gundam Seed while beautiful also pissed me off for similar reasons. Full Metal Alchemist had good parts to them. Yu yu Hakusho was okay. None of these would be in my top 25 of anime or franchises. Macross the original Saga, Kimagure Orange Road, Ah My Goddess, Armor Hunter Mellowlink, Crest of the Stars, 86, Full Metal Panic, Great Teacher Onizuka, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Maison Ikkoku, No Game No Life, Outlaw Star, Tekkaman Blade, Touch, I could keep going... There is VERY little Shonen in my anime libary of almost 40 years. Even Dragon Ball Z, I prefer the abridged version over Kai or the OG. They drag on wayyyyyyy too long.
I really don't like criticising the writting and design, it makes me sound snobbish af, but when people are legitimately debating on whether this is the worst MSQ story in the entire game, worse than even the first half of Stormblood with its glacial pace, that's when you KNOW you messed up. The main problem I'd argue nit being Wuk Lamat, though they try way too hard to make you like her and it makes her overbearing, but rather that ALL the stuff they actually built up and advertised for the story was half-baked and handwaved away almost as quickly as it was introduced. The Scions picking different heirs to the throne to support, driving a wedge between this tightly nit group that isn't personal but more political & philosophical. As well as asking if the Scions perphaps shouldn't have the influence to get involved to begin with unless a Primal shows up. That whole plotline is BARELY a thing Krile is given 5 minutes for her arc. Nothing more nothing less. They did her dirty The other heirs to the throne also barely get any screentime and despite all the focus on Wuk Lamat, we don't REALLY get a feel for her relationship with her adoptive family. And all that time that SHOULD have been spent on these plotlines is wasted instead on the most mind-numbing MSQ quests in the history of the game. Not even STORMBLOOD made me want to skip cutscenes this badly! The final arc is also just a good summation of this expansion: a solid premise, ruined by lousy execution. Also, the english dub is just ATROCIOUS at times. People say Wuk Lamat's VA is bad, but I'd argue its not entirely their fault. Because the voice direction for Dawntrail ACROSS THE BOARD is weird. Cutscenes that should be voiced are silent and often ones that *are* have wooden deliveries that should have never made it into the game. Seriously, I have no idea what happened with Dawntrail. Its like the game went *backwards* in quality.
After 7 years I actually quit. This expansion is just bad. I don’t care about the setting, the story, or any of the new characters The raid is okay, but how many times can you do it? I am not motivated to PF Savage. The only thing I was looking forward to was making more glams, but not only are the new gear sets not appealing at all, there aren’t near enough glamour plates to make anymore. Without major improvements to character customization, glamour plates, performance mode (my character is an RP Idol and I actually use performance more a lot) and improvements to PvP combat- I think I might just be done with FF14. And that sucks. But right now, WoW is doing everything better than FF14. Now FF14 doesn’t even have a great story to bank on. Wow story has sucked for a decade, but now FF14 is just as lousy. What a bad time to be a dedicated FF14 when you don’t just mindlessly love everything that Square puts out.
I could see some of your points until you pull out the "if you like it, you're just a fanboy". Why do people automatically dismiss others just because the enjoy different things? I personally DON'T like the new story and questing, but my wife and sister in law and her daughter love it. They're just fangirls who don't know any better?
@@alchemi8085 This comment is why I said that. Beating the marks to the punch. Anyone who likes Dawntrail story and characters does just mindlessly loves everything that square puts out
*"The raid is okay, but how many times can you do it? I am not motivated to PF Savage. "* _______________________ Git gud *" performance mode (my character is an RP Idol and I actually use performance more a lot)"* _______________________ LMAO, and you have the gall to call other people mindless. Real glass house moment.
I hesitated watching this because of how many videos are malding about DT i went in wanting to enjoy an expac and had a great time. Also had no idea that wuks VA was trans cool
Eh. People overreact to D.T. story. The first half was meh at best with Wuk Lamat annoying us out every time she could. The second part of the story was amazing BUT once again kinda ruined by Wuk Lamat's consistent persistence as the main character. The fact W.L is forced down our throats is what has left a sour taste in FF14 MSQ enjoyers which is the majority of people. Having said that, D.T as an expansion is one of the best we have gotten so far. Combat content, music, and quality of life changes are top tier for the most part and that is the part people will experience daily. The story ends, and you must wait for the next patch.
Nah all of DT was pretty boring, the last half reused the same story beats seen from the Emet in Amorut section and Metion in Ktisis/Dead Ends. Wuk pulling a Zenos at the end too, it deserves the criticism.
As someone who's played almost every MMORPG since 2003 and as a Final Fantasy fanboy....DT is thee worst expansion I've ever played. This expansion feels like a giant bad anime filler with god awful writing and chacters, I want to like Lamat but whoever wrote that character...please never do it again. Lamat comes off as a walking bad meme with no aura and I can never take Lamat serious even in the "oh no" moments. Now let's get to the meat and potatoes of why DT is thee worst expansion ever. We got 10 new levels and jobs barely got any new changes or talents besides level 100 capstone...that's insulting....no I'm not gonna count passive talents like improved healing or slight inc in dmg on some abilities...that's lazy. You have beastmaster, oh a highly requested job from the fans....but wait it's a limited job....which the player base hated you (SE), for making a highly requested job...only usable in weak solo content. Did you learn anything from that backlash? Nah you just doubled down on it. The new jobs are broken and not in a good way. Old jobs need a rework and some even need more utilities or dmg, cause for example RDM only being brought for rez is worthless outside of progression or randoms and it's dmg is laughable. Here's my take on the jobs in DT, time to ether bring in more abilities that are impactful or redo them from the ground up. I don't think I can think of a single positive thing to say about this expansion except maybe the first raid looks gorgeous. Even this expansions first seasonal event is a slap to the face with 1 decorative reward and 1 emote.....are you kidding me Square Enix? Did all of your budget and talent go to finish FF 16 while DT was being finished? Lastly revamp the horrendous quest system, it's god awful. The dumb stealth missions need to go, the go to from point A to point B to point C back to point A just to talk to people who walk away just to talk to them in a different spot...this whole quest system is bad anime filler. Oh and not every msq needs 5 cutscenes like damn I have never pressed skip cutscenes so much in this game since HW.
I love how everyone forgets to mention that Wuk Lamat’s VA wanted Bridget from Guity Gear’s VA cancelled for being a woman when Bridget is trans
And yet Wuk Lamat is a woman
Double standards much?!
Yeah VA's moral compass is wonk. Saw the tweets as well.
Bridget was never trans either way. A twitter mob harrassed the devs to appease them thanks to shitty localizers misleading players. And now we have a character that is PEAK transphobic for forcing them to be trans with their story.
Can you source this? This sounds nuts.
then we are not even talking about the most recent rants about being racist if you do not like smile; a transphobe if you do not like Wuk Lamat cause apparently Wuk Lamat is trans now according to them it seems and all other hateful rhetoric this VA spews SE needs a PR team just to keep them in check it seems
If there weren't for double standard they wouldn't have any standard.
The negative reactions are not just negative for the sake of negativity: They have reasons for their complaints, and are asking for genuine discussion on how to improve on these issues. I don't see how burying one's head in the sand and pretending that everything is fine is good for ourselves or for the game. We can enjoy future installments in the story if those installments are good - ARR was very bad, but the Crystal Braves and Teledji stuff was pretty great! Stormblood was a mixed bag, but the patches were spectacular! - but it is our right as customers to say that the product we bought was not up to the quality we have come to expect. I'd argue that we absolutely *should* be loud, because suppressing our honest opinions will *make it impossible to discuss anything about the game.* Discussion is what keeps interest in a story alive, not blind love. One would hope it is positive discussion about things that worked and what we could learn from those.... but if the story is bad, we must have the ability to discuss that openly so as to foster a community that allows for free expression. There is no better way to destroy a fanbase than to silence a group.
I want to write a bit more to clarify my ending:
I'm going to say something seriously disgusting and vile here, you ready?
I didn't like Shadowbringers.
But never once have I been afraid to hurt people's feelings by saying it. I've had wonderful discussions about its storytelling with people who 100% believe me to be wrong, and we've enjoyed ourselves. (The short version of my issue is that Emet-Selch is constantly inserting himself into the story and I find his whining tiring: I don't care if you have a "good reason" for being an antagonist, you still want to kill everybody, dude... Omega had similar motivations but didn't run its mouth wanting us to feel sorry for it. More importantly, it stops the narrative I actually cared about - the war with Garlemald - for a sidequest in some alternate dimension. If it was placed after the first third of Endwalker, I would have liked it more.)
I've heard the phrase "don't yuck someone else's yum," and I think it is a terrible sentiment. We should be able to discuss our differences of opinion openly, so as to better understand each other. If we become afraid to speak up for ourselves, our passion dies. I love Final Fantasy XIV. I love being able to talk about it with other people that love the game. I love having disagreements. I love that some people enjoy Dawntrail, because they can bring a different view to the table! If we censor ourselves so as not to step on any toes, we are denying ourselves access to other people that love FFXIV. This game is built on a community of fans. If we stop ourselves from honest discussion, we can no longer meet people who can supply different viewpoints and fresh insights. The fanbase for FFXIV is wonderful, and conflicting opinions is a big part of what makes that so true.
I don't mind our WoL taking a backseat or mentor role once in a while, but damn we're stupid. I mean like...really, really stupid. Our character stands around basically as an extra for a large majority of the MSQ letting awful things happen around them when we should be taking action. Our inaction has so many consequences in the story, and it's ridiculous after everything we've been through that we would be so passive. And then to top it off we need Wuk Lamat's help to save the day? This lady got kidnapped by a random group of thugs and required rescue, threw everything she had into an axe swing just to effortlessly get repelled by a one-handed Bakool Ja Ja, etc. I'm supposed to believe that in a matter of days she has suddenly become so strong that she can not only whoop Bakool Ja Ja and his merry band of lizardmen all on her own, but we also need her to bail us out against the final boss just so Square could try to force another Zenos moment? We have been to the edge of the universe and eat gods for breakfast; I don't buy that we needed Wuk Lamat's help when she couldn't even help herself just days prior. This was character assassination.
For the MSQ,Dawntrail is "The Last Jedi" of Final fantasy XIV. Change my mind.
it is 🤣
It breaks the lore, turns every character into an idiot, and is extremely childish and simplistic. That checks out.
@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1i got everything except the lore part. Which part did it break?
@@AiroDusk Ketenramm being hale and healthy is specifically what I'm thinking of. He should be over a century old. This is fine, so long as the narrative draws some sort of attention to it. I think they're planning a big twist with him later, but it is utterly moronic that not one of the archons ever mention his youth. Schoolchildren will know the date of the New World's discovery. (Ketenramm sailed the ocean blue in fourteen ninety....seven... dang it, I need a new rhyme.) The brightest minds in Sharlayan fail to bring it up. I would think that several of the former Scions would be *bursting* with questions for the famous Ketenramm!
It may seem small, but it either reinforces the stupidity of our characters or breaks the established lifespans of Roegadyn men. I went through every Roegadyn in three volumes of Encyclopedia Eorzea, none of them are nearly as old as this hearty, youthful fella who fights robots and somehow survives an assassination attempt by Zoraal Ja.
Instantly made me not care what comes next in the story.
One of my big problems with Dawntrail beyond having Wuk Lamat around way too much, was how she suddenly became so strong with no explanation. In one part, her strongest attack couldn't even phase Bakool Ja Ja, not long after she's solo'ing Bakool Ja Ja, his groupies, and hired mercs
They they didn't do her "training" arc well at all imo. I think they wanted the dungeons and Valigarmanda to represent that... but I dont think that was an effective way of showcasing it imo
What I didn't like: The fact that the world lost it's 'grit' in favour of being an idealized caricature of what a real place might look like in FF context.
What I liked: Actually wiping to boss mechanics. What a pleasant surprise.
Why’d they do Krile so dirty😭
I don't put much stock in the people claiming that people don't like Wuk Lamat because of a trans VA. Most of it is chaff and fake.
Cena Bryer tweeted out that she was joining the cast and then deleted the tweet the next day. Suddenly there was a wave of screaming idiots claiming that it was because she received "waves of transphobia" and attacking the player base. Then it turns out that she deleted the tweet because it broke NDA and Square had it removed. Oops.
I didn't like any of the North or South American voice performances because the direction was beyond terrible. I didn't like the story because of the terrible writing, pacing or characterization. People claiming any personal reasons with one voice actor are lying and white knighting for attention.
That's kind of the problem about it. People are using that as a shield from actual criticism...
@@SilverNightbane Talent and voice direction alone speak loudly in this case. Does it help if said person was of the biological gender in order to give that female character a voice...it'd help. However there's both genders that can pull off different types of female voices, along with male voices. It just depends on the direction...poor direction and lack of talent equals bad voice work.
Voice actor is not that good but its like 5% of wuk lamat problem.
@@greencaptain2783 wuk is the perfect storm of not good VA and really poor writing. I feel kinda bad for VA, she wouldnt be able to remedy the character even with the perfect angelic voice. it was a losing game from the beginning.
I thought Luis Bermudez did a great job as Koana, but damn near everyone else was pretty bad, in my opinion. Wuk Lamat, Gulool Ja Ja(this dude voiced Twister in Rocket Power which is kinda cool though), pretty much everyone in the cowboy zone, etc. People immediately resorting to insults and accusations of bigotry or transphobia as soon as you dare voice any criticism of Wuk Lamat are quite vocal, and it's a damn shame. The comment section of the VA's tweets are like an echo chamber of copium with everyone constantly praising her as like...the greatest VA of all time, had the best performance in the entire 10+ year history of FFXIV, deserves an Emmy award, etc. People are licking so much boot over there and it feels so performative like they're desperate to be seen as allies or something. Despite hating the performance, I don't put all the blame on the VA though. Someone had to have provided direction for her lines, someone had to approve the way she delivered them, etc. There were numerous times someone in charge could've stopped and asked her to re-record some lines or something, but no, this is what they gave us, so they must've been okay with it and that's not something I can blame her for. The character was written badly, the English voice casting could've been much better, the direction she was given was clearly terrible, and it was apparently good enough to make it into the final product regardless. I hate how much this expansion has fragmented the community, and it's mostly the people trying to twist constructive criticism into something else entirely.
On wuk lamat, I played the whole MSQ in JP and I'm still tired of seeing her. I've really enjoyed the combat related things of the expansion, trials and dungeons etc. This won't be a MSQ that I feel I'll have any fondness for in the future unlike the previous 2
Stormblood also. At least we had Hien, Gosetsu, and Tsuyu as a bopping second half.
Many people said that unlike Lamat, Lyse stepped aside when she was not part of the story, and they like that about her. Also that she is not even pretending to be part of the main Scions given who was teleported by G’raha Tia.
What I didn't like: The MSQ and Wuk Lamat
What I did like: Everything else XD
This. Completely.
I feel like a lot of the playerbase has the same opinion.
I did like the class quests. And the crafter and gatherer quest. As well as the raid. But not enough to justify staying. Quite frankly Tural while big is also very empty and boring. And the quest in tural felt BORING.
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj Pretty much. The only good story we got so far is from the Arcadion Raids. Even the role quests for DT boil down to Saturday Morning Fanfare
What I didn't like : Wuk Lamat stealing so much Spotlight from Erenville and Krile
What I like : Surprisingly, the Job Changes. They don't look like much for the most part, but to me many still feel surprisingly good so far, like Samurai and Bard...and I honestly like Black Mage, though that's likely because I never understood how to play it before^^
One thing i liked: the whole Bakool Ja ja backstory section.
One thing i didnt like: the final zone. It was a waste of time.
Honestly Bakool Ja ja was one of my most hated parts, he goes from Mamool Ja Hitler to Wuk Lamats bestie in the blink of an eye. Redemption Arcs can be okay (I mean Fordola is still trying to redeem herself) but christ I got whiplash from how quickly Bakool did a 180.
@@rock2k14
I agree with you on the redemption part, after all he did he has not earned it.
But the dead babies story was the only part in the game that got pretty dark and finally felt like was was not playing a game for 8 years old kids.
After playing FF14 for almost 4 years, Dawntrail actually got me to the point where it made me try out WoW.
I'd have never seen this turn of events coming pre Dawntrail.
Wow's writing is trash just so you know
@@cool2bekeith I'm a bit lost right now because I don't know a lot of the names and what happened in the Story before, but otherwise I'm pleasently surprised how good the game actually is, considering all the hate towards it that I picked up.
Honestly, for the first time in the history of ff14, I couldn't even finish the story before I just got too bored and let my sub run out (Got to solution nine)
wow I heard the end of the story wasn't that great. is that true? hope they fix that.
@@venranava949personally ithe 2nd half of the story is even worse and messier than the 1st half
It's sort of weird to think about, but the last time they released a piece of main story content that was enjoyed by the vast majority was the release of Endwalker. Nearly three years ago now.
It just goes to show how good Ishikawa's writing was. We were invested in the story because it was done that way.
Want to enjoy DT skip story till end of 95 filler ark. Do 96-98 somewhat interesting story. Needed more of that, but actually fleshed out. Then skip final zone its so bad. Do final dungo and trial, then skip final cutscene, watch after credit. Then do the raid story which was way more interesting than most of the story.
My only real issue with DT's MSQ is too much Wuk Lamat.
She's all up in your face constantly.
oversaturation of any character will leave a foul taste.
Bruh I almost uninstalled at the last trial…you know the part that makes no sense
@@Jinxyoutoheavenyou don't have to like it. But it makes sense to me, narratively. Sphene is Wuk Lamat villain to deal with. It isn't the WoL's. Wuk Lamat has to be the one to face her, with how the story is set up. Sphene has barely any connection to the WoL, the majority of her dialogue is with Wuk Lamat.
@@SuperRamos619 The majority of EVERYONE'S dialogue is with Wuk Lamat, not just Sphene. And Sphene also singles out US, the WOL, as the primary threat to dispose of. We're the godslayer who has been to multiple realities. Not Wuk
I played Dawntrail in Japanese so Wuk's VA didn't bother me as much as the damn character itself did. My wife who plays with English VA, couldn't stand the voice actor's performance though. Regardless of gender or whatever, the performance was meh at best, adding that to an extremely annoying character who changes the whole dynamic of the MSQ is a recipe for disaster.
I enjoyed the dungeons and the savage raids so far, but I still feel all the classes feel quite boring at this point, they played it too safe. The promised button stacking only working for the 2 new jobs with other jobs getting maybe one skill or two as "flipping" buttons was quite lazy in my opinion, specially for tanks as I hate pressing my damn buff again as a GCD.
I understand Yoshi P. Wanted something light hearted after FF16 being such an edgy, dark story that is dark for the sake of being dark. Then again 16 was a disappointment for me as well for the most past. For the same reasons, Safe static gameplay, too dark of a story with too much emphasis on forgettable characters everywhere.
Oh I agree, i didn't like the character or the voice acting in DT in general. The direction on the whole felt off and since Wuk Lamat had SO many lines I think it comes across doubly bad for that character in English. There's numerous times where the immediate reaction from me was "yeah that could have used a few more takes"
I've looked up other roles the English VA had and this is pretty standard fare for their performance, they're just not a good va. Square needs to just stick with the British VA talent pool they've been using.
Good discussion. Good breakdown.
The problem with playing backseat to Wuk is we already did this... ZERO!!
We ( or at least I ) had enough of being sided at this point!
Regarding the weird divide between post-msq quality and msq quality, my friends were discussing this and someone asserted that perhaps the MSQ is being written with story skippers in mind, so that's why post-MSQ is rather good. If that's true, that's pretty damn sad.
People are critical of Wuk Lamat for various reasons.
She had too much screen time that the story actively pushed for it, she pushes aside other characters to elevate herself, and the characters that are pushed aside are dummed down to raise her up. She is written like your typical Shonen anime protag/Mary Sue. She just gets strong out of no where because shes the main character and theres no actual build up for it. I get that people bring up the argument that we are mentoring her but at the same time it feels like we arent. A mentor is someone one who is going to challenge you. Not just for your strength and grit, but for your ideals and what you are fighting for. That never happens. We just keep elevating and reinforcing Wuk Lamat just because shes a good person and has good intentions, and we never challeng her on her views.
In regards to the VA Sena Bryer, lets be real here her voice is just objectively awful on all fronts, shes an amature VA who got placed in a major lead role and did a poor job in execution and line delivery. Her voice is completely monotone. It lacks any emotion or range, and the performance she gave was just god awful. But of course you have the keyboard/ssj warriors who will use Sena's identity as a deflection from these criticisims and be completely disingenuous while making horrible generalizations of anyone who is critical of Wuk Lamat and Sena by extension. Nevermind the fact that Sena has made awful and inflammatory remarks and posts on her Twitter. She's just an awful person.
Now regarding DT's story. The whole reason why its been mixed is for various reasons, ranging from story pacing, to story telling, the message, and the under developed characters like Kaona, Krile, Zoraal Ja, and so on. And while I appreciate the FF9 references, as someone who liked FF9, I have mixed feelings about how it was executed. Lets be real here almost all of the later half of DT is back to back FF9 references, from Alexandria, to the caharacter references, little easter eggs in S9 and even parts of Living Memory. But...ill be honest if thats all what the expansion has going for it...then its really bad writing, because what would the experience be like for someone who hasn't played FF9, or know the story of FF9, or if they dislike FF9. I can imagine their experience wouldn't be any better or worse, but i can imagine it would be hollow.
Agreed, while I enjoyed MY story with DT and the journey I took upon myself and thought of the MSQ secondary until all was said and done to reflect on what happened. I do feel the quality in the MSQ writing & some of the voice acting was lacking to put it simply and hope the patch MSQ can remedy this to an extent. The combat content has been great and is what keeps me around. The hate that's just blindly going after every single frame or hyper focusing on the EN VA for Wuk being T it is wild and should just stop. BUT this is the internet so people will do what people do, and with that it is such a small percentage of people even going to those extreme ends of hate. Same goes for those that are blindly accepting said performance because of actor being T. It goes both ways and is a slippery slope of a debate to trend on, so best to avoid that side of the "discussion" and focus on what's objective comparative to what came before. Maybe not SH or EW; as that's completely unfair, but HW & SB when having said discussions now & down the line. Sorry mini ramble there.
That being said, I hope with the patches we can get a vacation from Wuk Lamat cause omg was she just overbearing....lmfao. Give us more Koana or Bakool Ja Ja! But for sure we NEED more Krile in the patch content, there's just no debating against that.
This is the first expansion of FF14 that I would encourage people to use a story skip potion on when it becomes available. I am that letdown by it.
The only issue with the arcadian is i didnt get to cook the announcer medium well.
Haven't felt this passionate about a piece of media in a long time because rarely have I been this disappointed. I don't think I'm the only one and this may be where a lot of the heated discussions you came accross come from. I don't know about the expansion being "woke", it could have been progressive and well written. But it's not. Pacing, charactarization, the hyper-focus on Wuk, it was all barely bearable. After 5K hours, I'm seriously considering putting down a game I have loved for years because I've lost faith in Yoshida's team. So I, like others, write and argue that this expansion was not ok. That we expected better and want SE to snap out of it before it is too late.
I'm with you. I have liked the normal mode gameplay a lot, but the story is beyond awful on an objective level. The game is utterly simplistic. The reason we are so vocal is because we *love* this game and this world. We have high standards, as we should - we've stuck through expansion after expansion, seen so many wonderful tales come out of both the MSQ and side quests. To make something of this quality is an insult not to the fans, but to the world that has been created.
And we could have had something light and fun and good! I'd have loved an actual vacation arc with Estinien bartering with the pelupelu, Krile learning to cook, Tataru learning how best to exploit the ceruleum deposits of Shaaloani. But instead we got simplistic moralizing and preaching, from a game that has been mature and adult about politics and interpersonal conflict before this point.
I think many content creators are taking a radical centrist view because they don't want to look into the genuine problems with this story and how this would have been unacceptable back when the game was newer. Imagine if we got out of ARR and went into DT - FFXIV would be dead! - or imagine that this came after HW, when we had one hit and then along comes the indefensibly bad DT.
The story is what brought many people - myself included - into the game. I'm pessimistic, but I've loved some things I've been pessimistic for. I've hated Disney Star Wars, but Andor is legitimately one of my favorite TV shows ever. Arcane looked like a crappy video game adaptation that wound up being one of the greatest TV shows I've encountered. Being pessimistic isn't automatically hating something before it comes out, it's a natural defense mechanism after you have been betrayed.
Its more of a bunch of asylum inmates on twitter co-opting colors and themes for their side...and the reactionary side trying to prove a 'woke' agenda.
I get it that Sweet Baby Inc had a hand in Square Enix but we'll never know the extent, along with the fact that SBI was kicked to the curb after a share holder's meeting (supposedly).
Im glad that im not invested with the story of ff14. So with that i still like dawntrail alot. the zones and stuff. The battle content was amazing withen dawntrail and thats what i carefor
Story is bad yea. All the characters were written poorly. The main cast were pingponged between smart and capable to brain damaged. Wuk Lamat especially switches from powerful and smart to mewling kitten and brain damaged on a whim. Even the scions arent exempt from this. Like the part where she gets kidnapped? That was so obviously a scam, yet the supposedly smartest people in the world all just decided to stand by and.... wait? Not to mention its literally a straight path, did they all go blind spontaneously or what?
Speaking of standing by, the whole stand and watch syndrome got even worse somehow. When lizardboi got killed and the key dropped, everyone just stood by with their mouths agape like some kind of moronic ape. Why? Just take two steps and go pick it up. Whats with the spontantenous lobotomy?
Its so bloody puzzling. To go from sb and ew story to this travesty is just embarassing.
I do wonder if FFXVI being developed in tandum with Dawntrail hurt it in some way. It just strange to see a game that is so well written, with such great characterization and with so many lore hooks to be reduced to the bare bones almost kids cartoon story of Dawntrail. All to introduce a key...
completely unrelated question.... where is your accent from? :o
The majority of criticism I have seen about the VA has been focused the performance and/or on Bryer's own character.
This is an individual who has tried to cancel other voice actors and get them fired or to step down from roles they worked for, all because these VAs do not have the same perceived identity as the character(s) they are voicing.
So, by Bryer's own logic and reasoning, she should not be the voice of Wuk Lamat because Wuk is not a trans woman. It's hypocritical, and looks especially bad when you consider the fact those statements could have ruined livelihoods.
There's much more out there, but I just wanted to express I think Bryer is not free of criticism -and no one should be afraid to call out a poor performance or bad character because of a label.
Yes the VA is a horrible person. But that's not the reason Wuk Lamat is annoying. She is annoying on all languages, not just English.
Let's hope that post patches would be better and without Wuk Lamat and dawntrail will be treated like ARR something what you must do(even if ARR was much better and it was real world building).
On a fundamental level, the major story beats were fine for the most part. The whole idea of the rite of succession, golden city, Heritage Found, and Solution 9 were all good story beats, the issue is the actual execution, dialogue, and missed opportunities. A B-team or new writing team definitely wrote this and it shows. Ishikawa and her team doesn't feel like they had any hand in this story besides the golden city and Solution 9 and the big implications that story has in moving forward in future expansions.
I made sure to play this expansion with zero expectations, and so far the execution was just oddly poor. The script felt like it was one or two reviews and revisions away from being a good reset arc.
As for Wuk Lamat, I can forgive her being front and center from level 90-95 in the MSQ. It's basically her story and makes sense she takes a central role. Her character basically feels like they tried a do over with Lyse from Stormblood 4.0 MSQ and still failed miserably. However, once the rite of succession was done, she should've taken a back seat. I'm not opposed to her joining us to the dome, but she should've stayed quiet for the most part and only chimed in during Zoraal Ja discussion or if Zoraal Ja was present. Erenville and Krile should've taken center stage here for very obvious reasons and those two shouldn't accompanied us more, not Wuk Lamat.
Speaking of missed opportunities and the B-team/newbie writing team, the fact we don't get to see why Zoraal Ja is the way he is is insane. We don't know if Sareel Ja groomed him to be warmongering, we don't know how he came to have the mindset he has, and we don't even see how he ended up this messed up with as openly supportive and loving as a father Gulool Ja Ja is. "Proving the miracle of his birth" is all well and good, but how did that become his obsession, did he ever ask his dad if he even needs to do that, and how did that lead to "do big war so everyone appreciates peace" idea. I'm not even asking for Yotsuyu, Emet Selch, Elidibus, or Hermes level of character analysis, just show us the foundational steps that led to Zoraal Ja being the way he is while making it make sense. That's all it is.
The person who wrote this is the person who wrote all the auracite stuff. Meaning that person wrote the Ivalice raids, including the lengthy explanation of Tactics reconfigured to FFXIV’s conceit of swapping Tactics and FFXII around. And the initial Heart of Sabik stuff, and the Pandaemonium stuff.
We really should have expected lengthy info dumps given both were very present in Ivalice and Pandaemonium (and only the complexity of both prevented onus from seeing this was his schtick).
I saw something on Twitter or X comparing the menu screen to the pride flag.
I think the game is so outdated now. Not just on how they present the story telling but also in the way they implement all other contents. IMO the graphic update is not enough to counteract this. They need to try something new and take risks. Everything in the game seems recycled and nothing really feels new. Even the new classes feels boring and uninspired imo.
What I don't like: Dark Knight's current poor excuse of a job
What I do like: Anything combat related
I think if the developers had put in some instances where we play as the scions. This could've strengthen the scion's presence more and make it feel less arbitrary with their presence in the story. I also can't find myself to really hate or like Wuk Lamat as a character. As for their va being trans, I find that part to be irrelevant for the most part. There's definitely a good bit of parts of the story that could be smoothen out some more.
I do have to say that I appreciate the first half of dawntrail. The lighthearted and sometimes silly tone was really refreshing after 2 expansions of such heavy and high stakes scenarios that we had. If you keep hitting high stakes situations too many times in a row, it starts lessening the impact of further situations. I also think that having us take out the threat early on after it starts up was a good idea. Endwalker's story was fine, but I think we could've used a little bit more time after shadowbringers before hitting along the lines as those expansions did.
Personally I liked living memory more than ultima thule. Going through this artificial world and having us choose when to move on and take the life out of the zone to leave the zone barren felt impactful to me. The scenes where each scion sacrifice themselves didn't do much since we already knew that they're already willing from the rest of the expansions including arr. It also doesn't help the impact since it's unlikely that the developers are going to kill off so many scions at once, especially Y'shtola. It's not all downhill since both Emet and Xenos both make a good show in the end.
New zones music and fights all epic, MSQ boring TBH 5/10
The issue with living memory is it’s a dead zone. Nothing special. Finished my fates and never went back there. The gimmick worked once and quickly wear off. It was just so much more beautiful before and now we got a trash zone.
I liked Wuk Lamat, fight me 😂
More power to you. But some people have standards.
It's so frustrating. I did not like the MSQ or Wuk Lamat and I had a lot of issues with the voice acting(not just Wuk) but it has nothing to do with the VA's gender identity but so many comments either take fair criticism as a green light to be disgusting and transphobic or they assume you only criticize because you're being bigoted or hopping on the bandwagon.
It's so frustrating and genuinely has made me dislike DT a lot more than I likely would without that. It's soured an experience that was already not great for me a lot. All because whoever was in charge of recording didn't make sure the English VAs lines sounded correct before shipping so now it's become this gender identity battle when that has nothing to do with critiquing the expansion.
Yeah it's super crappy for multiple reasons that you talked about. The execution on the whole for DT's msq just felt... off
THe story is the main selling point of this game. I personally think most of the story is pretty mid and saying it's the best story of any mmo is not a flex because most mmo have barely any story.
In my opinion Dawntrail just sets us up for more 10 years of the same content from previous expansions being reskinned, the formula has grown stale on Stormblood and YoshiP refuses to step out of the safe zone which leads the game to feel more of just the same. So yeah, story aside FFXIV is still a pretty solid single player game with MMO elements her and there.
Reusing the formula has carried the game for 10 years so I understand them being adamant about not changing it that much because predictability breeds comfort and that's pleasant to people. It keeps the subs running after all.
I'm tired of it but I'm just one guy haha.
Dawntrail is the first time EVER playing this game I went "nope, fuck this, i dont care anymore" and decided to skip all dialogue and cutscenes.
I gave it an earnest chance, but by the time we reach Shaaloani I had lost all motivation. The Rite of Succession wasn't fun or interesting, and the second part of the MSQ is just repeating the Emet Selch and Amaurot stories but high-tech whatnot thrown in. Not to mention the shallow childish writing and the cringe Pepsi-Cola Corporate Slop music they raped my ears with.
The writing team should be fired and Yoshi P should feel ashamed for greenlighting this. They don't even have the "uhhh well we were working on another game at the same time so we didn't have the time or resources" excuse this time. This is just dog shit and if the story doesn't drastically improve by 7.1 I'm probably just going to unsub until next expansion.
I dont mind the WOL taking a backseat. But my god, atleast make the main character a good character with better than c tier voice acting. Like christ.
Im so disappointed that THIS was the result of the 2 most successful expansions in mmo history.
I do consider dawntrail story a failure. When 50% of your playbase cannot stand the chracter you gave 80% of the dialog in a game to, then that is a failure.
I have not played with EN VAs since the first cutscene in ARR so I'm generally pretty disconnected from the discourse from that part of the fandom (other than that I think that the localisation team butches a lot in ShB, but that is a different discussion...). However, I still heavily dislike Wuk from my first playthrough of the MSQ, and that is with voice acting that is *way* better than that of the EN version of this game. Yet, whenever I bring up criticism of Wuk or DT I still get backlash and called transphobe and other stupid stuff despite me not bringing up the VA at all.
Personally I felt like Zoraal Ja did things with Zenos better. Zenos was a bigger threat but I felt like his internality was more compelling than the base nihilism that Zenos was tied with. Zoraal Ja felt like he had to live up to an impossible standard and eventually loses because he never actually attained the self reflection he sorely needed. Even early on he never took into account important matters that were more rationally minded and lead to him criminally underestimating people (a la what he said about Garlemald in the Pelupelu quests). I could see more people behaving like Zoraal Ja than I ever could with Zenos
Thats nice, but where in the writing was all that explored? How many scenes did Zoraal Ja get? How much of that was written well? Outline and overview is only good if it was delivered well, and thats the problem with DT. Delivery was asinine, limited, rushed, and juvenile. The lore is good. The way it was delivered, atrocious.
@@MagiRa-r4m most of his scenes either showed the levels of expectation, his self isolation or the weight of his obsession to prove himself. I mean the fact he still held onto his grudge and his need to surpass his father after 30 years in Alexandria at least shows how much his inferiority complex towards his Father (and subsequently Wuk Lamat) had become integral to how he behaves. Is he as complex and nuanced as Emet Selch, Meteion and Elidibus? No. But I feel he has more interesting facets as a character and there's more tying him to Dawntrail's themes of family, community and moving on when compared to Zenos. Zenos only had a thematic relevance with Endwalker as like Meteion he also acted as a force of nihilism. Generally Zenos' main draws in my view is his ability to act as a threatening obstacle and whatever personal rivalry you can glean with your Warrior of Light. Beyond that I feel like he doesn't have much more to draw on. He's not the worst main villain (that would be Lahabrea) but I don't think he feels as complex as other villains and I think Zoraal Ja is more nuanced than he's given credit for. Like he is shown to value brute force over community and that is integral to why Koana & Wuk Lamat both win over him in the rite and both defend Tuliyolall and overcome him in Everkeep. He never learned to think tactically so when faced with stuff like the Great Wyrm's or the WoL or Gulool Ja Ja in his prime he comes up lacking since he can't win on that terms.
@@benmcnally9935 I think you give too much credit to Zarool Ja. For me, he was not a good villain at all and his plot made no sense in a couple of ways. One, his entire nation has no deep water ships, they say it in the MSQ, which means he can't even attack Eorzea at all. Second, his character makes no sense. It is not shown how Zarool became the way he is. With a father like Galool you would think they would have seen the darkness growing in Zarool and would have taught him something if anything. Where did Zarool learn his mind set for instance? Also the fact Zarool did not change at all after 30 years is mind boggling. Go and ask anyone who is older if they still hold the same feelings they did 30 years ago for instance. I feel Zarool Ja was mishandled entirely.
@@eternaljohhny4908 Honestly I have to disagree. The majority of your points I feel either are lending further credence to my point that he is not thinking in any way about tactics or logistics and is thus severely underestimating opponents and overestimating himself (thinking you can go out into the world to conquer when you cannot even muster a miniscule navy is textbook hubris as is showing such profound ignorance pof the actual power Garlemald had its peak and treating them like fools playing at conquerors). Or are explained by the major factors of him isolating himself and stubbornly refusing to learn from others. He has felt isolated from others for several reasons. One he's literally unique no other blue skinned Hoobigo existed when he was growing up and everyone else treated him like a miracle birth (something no other member of the major players in DT dealt with). Two, he as the actual blood offspring of Gulool Ja Ja probably felt the most pressure to live up to his legacy. Specifically given his penchant for martial prowess he focused on emulating the Head of Resolve. Three, becoming so widely seen as strong as head of the Landsguard further isolated him as the citizenry further fed into the pressure to live up to legacy as The Resilient Son of Gulool Ja Ja. Four, this isolation would continue in Alexandria as he continued to reject familial connections as he simply does not know how to foster them as seen by his cold demeanour to the other promises even pre ascension and everything with Gulool Ja afterwards. As such given he remained isolated with no real emotional connections tethering him he did change in Alexandria but for the worse. The resentment he harboured towards his father and siblings and the shattering of his self image festered and caused him to hyperfocus on his revenge over anything else. Even as a King of Alexandria he did not care for the citizenry unless it was a means to his end of striking back against Gulool Ja Ja and Wuk Lamat. To expand on my point about him not learning from others. It seemed that Gulool Ja JA even if he did see Zoraal Ja's dark path he seemed to have faith that his children would make good use of the lesson he was trying to impart through the feats but unlike his siblings who did actively take in the lessons Zoraal Ja did not and either coasted on his own strength (Feat of Gold), only focused on the lesson he wanted (Everything with Valigarmanda) or actively did not care to learn anything (Feat of repast). Primarily, the things he actively refused to learn were elated to strategy and planning avowed by the Head of Reason or focused on community and making connections with others (Everything in Iq Braax primarily). This all comes to a head in Mamook where any chance of him becoming Dawnservant and living up to or surpassing his father is lost since he cannot measure up with solely his own brute force leading to him lashing out and being disqualified. He believes that power is all that is required to rule and doesn't learn the lesson that reason and community are also vital. Him rejecting community and family just lets his problems fester and his lack of tactical skill means that when a planned defense and equal might brought from connections with other nations and people (Bakool Ja Ja, the Scions, Vrtra and the Dravanian Horde, The Warrior of Light themselves when the party gets to Everkeep) means he has no way to overcome such obstacle. And honestly all this feels deliberate since like how Queen Sphene is meant to show Wuk Lamat with her concern for her people taken to desperate extremes Zoraal Ja shows Wuk Lamat who rejected the community and connections with others and the mediating forces of counsel from wiser and cooler heads. Even when he does have his "Queen of Reason" they do not work in consort but against each other. And all of this culminates with his one winged angel form showing both his motivation for his actions (an unrelenting need to live up to or surpass his father's legacy shown in his resemblance to Gulool Ja JA) and his reasons for why he consistently fell short (lack of forethought, refusal to learn and rejection of connection with others shown by having the appearance of a beheaded or atrophied head on his left side signifying his lack of reason). I get why people may not like him or feel he could have been explored better but the actual internality and motivation is all there in the text in my view and does expound on some good thematic points.
@@benmcnally9935 My only issue with what you're saying is that it's a bunch of reading between the lines and not showing us the foundational steps that led to Zoraal Ja being the way he is. Were we ever shown how this obsession with "proving his miraculous birth" started? Were the Palace servants and maids saying that to Zoraal Ja's face or loud enough for him to overhear it? Did a young Zoraal Ja even consult his father if he should even be concerned with that? Frankly seeing how Gulool Ja Ja is portrayed, he would be "Nah, eff that nonsense my boy, live as you see fit and how you want to." How did he even start hating/distrusting his own father? How does that obsession even lead to "do big war so everyone appreciates peace" mindset? Did Sareel Ja groom him to be that way? Why does he dislike his adopted siblings? There's just so many characterization steps not shown that even if you have the right idea of what Zoraal Ja is supposed to be as a character, it's basically just your enlightened reading on his character and not because the writers wrote him well.
Don't think that just because I never mentioned the distinct lack of Wuk Lamat and Koana's retellings of their childhoods as siblings, that they are exempt from the criticisms I gave to Zoraal Ja. Those two could've had better character writings if we're shown parts of how they came to be.
Sure you can link some of the hate for Wuk is because of the English VA being Trans, but the fact as the hate for Wuk is about the same in every Language says a different story, and honestly I feel sorry for the English VA as she got stuck with such a poorly written character.
I don't feel sorry for the VA because they are a horrible human being. Have you seen some of the tweets they've made?
She could have refused, or advocated to fix her character. Then again because she's such an unknown talent they would have replaced her. To be honest I would have forced the director to fix my character or pay out my contract to cut me loose. No reason to be tied to dumpster ripe for kindling.
@@grygaming5519 Eh, I don't think you can advocate to fix your character when you're so far removed from the actual writing. The writers are half a world away speaking a different language, and your job as an actor in a translated piece is to translate as originally intended, not improve upon the bad writing. Even if you think it's crap, you can't "fix" a translation. It would stop being a translation at that point.
If you are the originator of the role, working with the writers directly, you could complain that your character is crap.
I'm really in the minority that I actually really liked the MSQ. It felt like a good beginning and set up for a new story.
They need to give Wuk the Lyse treatment. They've ruined any chance of making her likable in the eyes of a large portion of the fanbase. Has nothing to do with who voiced her. They tried way too hard to push her, and when you try to force people to like something, you'll inevitably push them into hating that thing. Happens to wrestlers all of the time to use an example from the video.
I do like the direction of the playable content outside of basic questing. It's a lot more engaging. I was ready to unsub after finishing the story, but the dungeons and trials kept me playing.
Oh yea. Like when they tried to push Heidenreich holy hell.
Just skip cutscenes until you get to the bridge. You'll know which one.
The story wasnt good wuk lamat is a boring character but the fight designs are amazing
They are ok. Just ok. Not amazing.
@@RicardoSantos-oz3uj idk man this raid tier alone is already better then all of endwalker
I think I've seen a dozen or so reviews of Dawntrail, and they're all saying the same thing. Personally, I don't like 90% of anime. Well done stories like Cowboy Beebop and Violet Evergarden are a couple exceptions to that. That being said, I detest shonen anime. Dawntrail had me looking back at the dark days of Realm Reborn with a fondness.
This. I see people defend it by saying it's just like Shonen anime. And I always respond,"That doesn't help it. I've hated Shonen anime for over 30 years. lol"
@@JustinStrife give naruto and bleach a chance bro
@@xL0stKIlah Gave Naruto a dozen episodes and dropped it(I was watching it when it first came out so many years ago). Bleach was okay but I got seriously tired of Rukia always trying to get Ichigo to stop doing what he was doing. I dropped it when the filler started coming on. I've been watching anime almost 40 years... Shonen just isn't it for me.
@@JustinStrife hunter x hunter one piece? Gundam,Full metal aclechemist.,Yu yu hakusho, really no shonen at all?
@@xL0stKIlah One Piece didn't appeal to me. Gundam 0079 was okay. Gundam Wing pissed me off with it's Pacifism. Gundam Seed while beautiful also pissed me off for similar reasons. Full Metal Alchemist had good parts to them. Yu yu Hakusho was okay. None of these would be in my top 25 of anime or franchises.
Macross the original Saga, Kimagure Orange Road, Ah My Goddess, Armor Hunter Mellowlink, Crest of the Stars, 86, Full Metal Panic, Great Teacher Onizuka, Kaichou wa Maid-sama, Maison Ikkoku, No Game No Life, Outlaw Star, Tekkaman Blade, Touch, I could keep going...
There is VERY little Shonen in my anime libary of almost 40 years. Even Dragon Ball Z, I prefer the abridged version over Kai or the OG. They drag on wayyyyyyy too long.
I really don't like criticising the writting and design, it makes me sound snobbish af, but when people are legitimately debating on whether this is the worst MSQ story in the entire game, worse than even the first half of Stormblood with its glacial pace, that's when you KNOW you messed up.
The main problem I'd argue nit being Wuk Lamat, though they try way too hard to make you like her and it makes her overbearing, but rather that ALL the stuff they actually built up and advertised for the story was half-baked and handwaved away almost as quickly as it was introduced.
The Scions picking different heirs to the throne to support, driving a wedge between this tightly nit group that isn't personal but more political & philosophical. As well as asking if the Scions perphaps shouldn't have the influence to get involved to begin with unless a Primal shows up. That whole plotline is BARELY a thing
Krile is given 5 minutes for her arc. Nothing more nothing less. They did her dirty
The other heirs to the throne also barely get any screentime and despite all the focus on Wuk Lamat, we don't REALLY get a feel for her relationship with her adoptive family.
And all that time that SHOULD have been spent on these plotlines is wasted instead on the most mind-numbing MSQ quests in the history of the game. Not even STORMBLOOD made me want to skip cutscenes this badly!
The final arc is also just a good summation of this expansion:
a solid premise, ruined by lousy execution.
Also, the english dub is just ATROCIOUS at times. People say Wuk Lamat's VA is bad, but I'd argue its not entirely their fault. Because the voice direction for Dawntrail ACROSS THE BOARD is weird.
Cutscenes that should be voiced are silent and often ones that *are* have wooden deliveries that should have never made it into the game.
Seriously, I have no idea what happened with Dawntrail. Its like the game went *backwards* in quality.
After 7 years I actually quit. This expansion is just bad. I don’t care about the setting, the story, or any of the new characters
The raid is okay, but how many times can you do it? I am not motivated to PF Savage.
The only thing I was looking forward to was making more glams, but not only are the new gear sets not appealing at all, there aren’t near enough glamour plates to make anymore.
Without major improvements to character customization, glamour plates, performance mode (my character is an RP Idol and I actually use performance more a lot) and improvements to PvP combat- I think I might just be done with FF14. And that sucks.
But right now, WoW is doing everything better than FF14. Now FF14 doesn’t even have a great story to bank on. Wow story has sucked for a decade, but now FF14 is just as lousy.
What a bad time to be a dedicated FF14 when you don’t just mindlessly love everything that Square puts out.
Lol
I could see some of your points until you pull out the "if you like it, you're just a fanboy". Why do people automatically dismiss others just because the enjoy different things? I personally DON'T like the new story and questing, but my wife and sister in law and her daughter love it. They're just fangirls who don't know any better?
@@alchemi8085 some people have bad taste and yes. People like your family ruined this game
@@alchemi8085 This comment is why I said that. Beating the marks to the punch.
Anyone who likes Dawntrail story and characters does just mindlessly loves everything that square puts out
*"The raid is okay, but how many times can you do it? I am not motivated to PF Savage. "*
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Git gud
*" performance mode (my character is an RP Idol and I actually use performance more a lot)"*
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LMAO, and you have the gall to call other people mindless. Real glass house moment.
I hesitated watching this because of how many videos are malding about DT i went in wanting to enjoy an expac and had a great time. Also had no idea that wuks VA was trans cool
you had no idea? the blatant man voice wasn't a red flag? Wuk Lamat sounded like a teenage boy doing a joke mexican accent
@@Sneedmeister People say "Oh but they're Puerto Rican!" Umm no they aren't. They have ancestors that were. They're born and raised in Kentucky.
Hot take: I liked the MSQ
That's ok. Some people have lower standards than others.
Eh. People overreact to D.T. story. The first half was meh at best with Wuk Lamat annoying us out every time she could. The second part of the story was amazing BUT once again kinda ruined by Wuk Lamat's consistent persistence as the main character.
The fact W.L is forced down our throats is what has left a sour taste in FF14 MSQ enjoyers which is the majority of people. Having said that, D.T as an expansion is one of the best we have gotten so far. Combat content, music, and quality of life changes are top tier for the most part and that is the part people will experience daily. The story ends, and you must wait for the next patch.
Nah all of DT was pretty boring, the last half reused the same story beats seen from the Emet in Amorut section and Metion in Ktisis/Dead Ends. Wuk pulling a Zenos at the end too, it deserves the criticism.
the second part of DT was not amazing. it was just Amaurot again, but in a high-tech setting.
As someone who's played almost every MMORPG since 2003 and as a Final Fantasy fanboy....DT is thee worst expansion I've ever played.
This expansion feels like a giant bad anime filler with god awful writing and chacters, I want to like Lamat but whoever wrote that character...please never do it again. Lamat comes off as a walking bad meme with no aura and I can never take Lamat serious even in the "oh no" moments.
Now let's get to the meat and potatoes of why DT is thee worst expansion ever. We got 10 new levels and jobs barely got any new changes or talents besides level 100 capstone...that's insulting....no I'm not gonna count passive talents like improved healing or slight inc in dmg on some abilities...that's lazy.
You have beastmaster, oh a highly requested job from the fans....but wait it's a limited job....which the player base hated you (SE), for making a highly requested job...only usable in weak solo content. Did you learn anything from that backlash? Nah you just doubled down on it.
The new jobs are broken and not in a good way. Old jobs need a rework and some even need more utilities or dmg, cause for example RDM only being brought for rez is worthless outside of progression or randoms and it's dmg is laughable.
Here's my take on the jobs in DT, time to ether bring in more abilities that are impactful or redo them from the ground up.
I don't think I can think of a single positive thing to say about this expansion except maybe the first raid looks gorgeous. Even this expansions first seasonal event is a slap to the face with 1 decorative reward and 1 emote.....are you kidding me Square Enix? Did all of your budget and talent go to finish FF 16 while DT was being finished?
Lastly revamp the horrendous quest system, it's god awful. The dumb stealth missions need to go, the go to from point A to point B to point C back to point A just to talk to people who walk away just to talk to them in a different spot...this whole quest system is bad anime filler. Oh and not every msq needs 5 cutscenes like damn I have never pressed skip cutscenes so much in this game since HW.
I overall didnt like the story, great themes but poorly executed, but gameplay wise DT feels really good