Thank you all for all the interesting feedback on the video. I wanted to say that after reading some comments and opinions I have changed my opinion especially in regards to Bakool Ja Ja. There are a lot of subtle hints in the story that I simply didn't pick up on, on my first playthrough and it has been an interesting morning for me reading through all these, and facepalming myself thinking "damn how did I not notice that"
L take, wrong take :D woke lmao get's way less hate than she deserves, and the writing team too, this expansions story is ass, anyone who likes that shit has a severe lack of taste and intelligence xD
its NUTS to me that the alpaca catching wasant a roleplaying solo instance Its also crazy that the extent of Scion VS Scion teams was relegated to Urianger asking about if something happened to our boat and Thancred blocking a cave that we just walk around in the first dungeon. After that point, we team up with them for the rest of the story...
This is a remarkable piece about the rite of succession, actually. It shows that the players who felt similar were also not ready to succeed the rite. As early as the 6.5 patch content, I was _not_ looking forward to a pointless competition. The fact _that_ it was one, in hindsight, shows great insight by Gulool Ja Ja. For all throughout the journey, and what people have come to be annoyed about (?!), Wuk Lamat wants to understand the people. To help them where she can. To foster a mutually beneficial relationship; something the modern day IRL world is keen to avoid at all cost, for some reason. But that's the _point_ and message both of the rite: to cooperate. To mutually understand. Gods know IRL needs it, and it's _the_ key to success even in the wild. I strongly encourage you to check out Veritasium's Game theory video if this still sounds weird to you.
For me it was the train sequence, it was a cool cutscene but that could've easily been a shooting minigame. There were so many moments that could've been playable to break up the cutscenes so it doesn't feel like watching a movie for most of the expansion.
@hypnotic13371337 the alpaca catching could have easily at least been a shitty stealth section. The egregious omissions are the play re-enactment ala FFIX and the train cutscene leading to Vanguard. Otherwise I think the vast majority of people forget that mandatory minigames aren't usually that fun, especially on repeat playthroughs.
Yeah, for how much it was hyped up at Fanfest I was disappointed they didn't do more with it, but it wasn't something I was super looking forward to either so I'm not that mad
I truly hated how krile was treated in this expansion, ive personally always loved this character and was happy to see that square finally giving her some much needed screen time, shes in the background most of the time, you barely interact with her at all even as her freaking friend and ally, most any story or development krile has gotten is through OPTIONAL content eureka and the endwalker alliance raid, a lot of people dont know kriles story because of that, even in dt when she gets back to the place she was born she showed no real interest in it and if it wasnt for the wol pointing her parents out i kinda feel she wouldnt have sought them out herself. While she does get her moment it does feel like the writers have just kinda once again forgot about her (which theyve admitted theyve done before btw), hell even getting into the golden city she wasnt allowed to do on her own, she had to have someone else do it for her, im like come on let this girl have SOMETHING. Sorry for the tangent but if i had any expectations of this expansions it was with kriles character and they just didnt deliver on that.
Dawntrail's MSQ was entertaining enough but it felt quite sloppy in spots. Mamook feels like a *serious* missed opportunity for an interesting cultural conflict with the long standing worship of blessed siblings (also feels like we should've seen 1 or 2 more of those guys in general) that we just quickly and unceremoniously resolve with "just find appropriate crops for your weird land, here's a connection to Sharlayan that'll set you up, k thx bye." Seriously feels like there should've been way more to narratively explore here, especially with Bakool Ja Ja's dad who just folds like laundry the moment we present a potential solution. If the expansion was more about the Mamool Ja tribes in general, this could've been GREATLY expanded, maybe even becoming the main conflict instead of the stuff with Alexandria imo. Also Krile got done dirty in this expansion. She barely has any story presence even though it's set up for her but she doesn't really get a proper moment to call her own other than meeting her birth parents and seeing where she came from which...eh...it's fine but was kinda just handed to her, she didn't have a real journey getting there. I like Wuk Lamat well enough but we could've cut down on some of her screen time to give Krile a proper section to take the reigns like Erenville got in Shaaloani.
I really missed the solo instances this time around. I feel like this would have been a great way to give the other Scions some time to shine too, especially during phases like the second attack. The cutscene with the dragons was amazing but it could have been awesome to maybe ge tsome interaction from Alphi's perspective, let us add in the fight. While I quite enjoyed just being a mentor, sometimes it did feel a bit strange how we just "watched". I'd rather have preferred then we'd have been in the team that wasn't there and we just arrived when it was too late, adding some tension.
The scions should of not even been there. Have say yshtola away the entire time and estinien maybe shows up briefly but leaves. They shouldn't of just been dragged around doing nothing. If you arent using them dont gave them there, and if you want some around make sure it makes sense.
I totally agree with this. They were just shoehorned in and I didn’t care for that. It’s ok to sit them out. They added no value to the narrative. The twins could’ve been replaced with anyone.
Yeah this was really my #1 issue with the story. Obviously I can't say for sure but I feel like marketing may have gotten their hands into the writing a little too much here bc "we can't sell an expansion without the scions!!!" Ngl this issue concerns me a little for future expansions. Like, it's going to become an even more glaring problem as time passes.
@Asin24 I think the main issue was actually with the trust system and duty support for their inclusion. Otherwise it would need to rework those systems
They were there almost exclusively because of trusts. Ironically, Alisaie was the healer half of the time because Alphinaud was left behind to heal people offscreen and such.
It wasn't only the pressure from Bakool Ja Ja's people but his father as well. When they met for the first time in the rite, not only was he very dissapointed that Bakool tried and fail to take the other stones. But also immidiatly disowned him for his failings. There was no hesitation in his actions because that was how he was raised. He was never taught that his actions, might makes right mindset was harmful to others. Cause that's what he was raised to believe and do. The WoL's group are kind of the first people to tell him that there is another way. If you tell a child their hole life that they should kick dogs and they start doing that are rewarded for doing it and starts kicking every dog. It's the failing of the parent not the child. The child has no frame of reference to know any better. Bakool was born to win the rite of succession. Failing was not an option because that was what he was born and raised to do.
Also, I don't think it's ever mentioned how old Bakool Ja Ja is. It's quite possible, considering how difficult it is to produce a blessed siblings, that he's the youngest of the candidates. That he was trained to fight from as young as possible. He might be 15 for all I know. That would fit with him going to the skydeep cenote to cry.
And this all the more proves that he couldn’t have such a drastic change of character if he grew up in such a toxic environment, especially when the character is so young. I remember the words of Elidibus in 5.2 when he laughed at Scions propousel and said something like why on earth would he now try to become friends with them. This is a different situation, but still, being an absolutely disgusting character in the first part of the plot, he simply couldn't change so quickly just because someone who is not his mother was nice to him.
Bakool Ja Ja and Zarool Ja were meant to be mirrors of one another. Both of them were born through extreme adversity; Blessed Brothers birth rate versus the actual existance of a child OF a Blessed sibling. Both of them got immense expecation heaped on: Bakool because his people and parents pushing him. Zarool because of the way everyone looked up to him; the people of Tullyolal and his brother and sister. Though both of them react differently to what is finally their failure of living up to the expectations they perceived to have to live up to. The first eventually pulls himself through, the other completely loses himself into the belief that he has to be BETTER than his father. Look closely even at the end of his life. - He sits on a throne that is a copy of the Tullyolan one. - He has a son, because his dad has one, but he has no idea how to care for him. Or actually treats him the way he THINKS his dad treated him. - His transformed form has a 'dead' second head. His hands still have a vestigial finger on the ends. His feet are kindof three-toed. He even has a growth on his back that looks like the feathered adornment of his dad. Only when his life is at an end do his true feelings finally push through the delusion and self-loathing. But it's too late. While Bakool Ja Ja eventually joined the Landsguard and will most likely be the Captain of it soon.
When she screams it sounds like someone running their throat over a cheese grater. Their natural voice is struggling to hold the tone and breaks... often.
@@MrMiQT Yeah... this scene in specifical was so atrocious that I'm shocked that that's the take they went with in the finished release, like what the hell? I've heard some people saying that SE changed their localization team, and that seems to be the case as the direction for voice actors is of a relatively poor standard across the whole expansion, Like when you go to Shaaloani and everyone has a thick southern drawl until they don't. Some characters have it for ONE line and then drop it for the rest of the sentence within the exact same scene at times. it's just poor work and I hope we get the old localization team back.
17:26 I actually disagree with you here. Think about how powerful that memory still was for Otis all those centuries later. He's been ruminating on it the whole time. Keep in mind that his endless self is actually a different person. Yet even being in essentially paradise the whole time, he was still paralyzed by it. And he had people to talk to. Goals to achieve. Robo Otis had nothing but regrets. Conversely I completely agree with you on Zoraal Ja. Very good ethos on that guy. They always communicate power and assurance with his presence, his walk. But at the end, he staggers into the ring. And frankly, any actual tension as to whether he would completely lose there or not died. I knew he was a dead man.
I think the issue with Wuk Lamat stealing the spotlight is more the way it was done, rather than the fact it was done. Had she been the central character and actually have done all the work, rather than us doing all the real work and her taking all the credit, it would have been less irritating (for me at least).
Zero reason for taking the spotlight. The game forced all the Scions to take on the fighting challenge. It cheapens Wuk's fighting ability and right to be king.
For me it's the writing in general, like, the scions for starters, why are they even there? They barely add aniything of value, the twins are incredibly plain and become non-characters for most of the game, and Krile, who was done the dirtiest, it's even BARELY about her, if someone needed the spotlight it was her. Some people say "Well, we had enough of the scions already", yeah... it doesn't change the fact that they ARE here after all and they are almost blank slates, compare them to how they were in Shadowbringers and EW, and no, I don't mean the high stakes, just the regular dialogue, what they have to say and the 1 on 1's, the scene with G'raha in DT stands out SO much because it feels like it's the only legit scene in the game where you interact with one of them.
@rickydargence5948 I agree, Krile should have given the spotlight. The moment we found the golden city and seen WOL flashbacks, I expected she would be the next focus. But no :( The Graha moment was nice, wish we could had for the others
@@rickydargence5948 I still can't believe Y'shtola, the person who is actually reasearching for ways to visit other reflections, passed on the opportunity to visit one
Yeah, the whole point was the WoL become a sort of mentor/role model for Wuk (she even offer us a spot in her royal council), but the execution was atrocious.
One correction, Alexandria isn't the 12th reflection. The lalafell fled to Alexandria after the 5th calamity, and the lightning was after that. It feels like another failed rejoining like the 1st or 13th. It's unknown which reflection it is, but it still exists since we can even visit it in the final zone. That would not be possible if it ACTUALLY rejoined like during the second calamity.
I am not wholly educated on how the rejoinings work and what happens if they fail or not, but what you said makes sense if true. I just read off the wiki that the calamity of lightning happened in the 12th reflection so it made sense to assume Alexandria existed there. One person in the comments mentioned the thing where time flows differently in other reflections so that might explain the weird order of events.
It could very well be 12th, since concept of time between each of the Reflections not stable and thats why Alexander was needed so much to people who inherited Ironworks to send G'raha into the First
Honestly the 9th or the 13th make the most sense because of how funny it would be. The night because of the Final Fantasy 9 references, and the 13th because the protagonist was named lightning
The rate time flows can vary between shards, but order of events should still remain same. So if the Milala left from the ice calamity, they couldn't have arrived before the lightning calamity, unless the key can also do time travel. But all other clues point to Alexandria being the remnants of the lightning calamity reflection. I don't know what to make of this, but I assume this will be elaborated on in the patch content.
I'll summarise Dawntrail in two words: Character Whiplash The development happened too abruptly and if there's an explanation it was so off handed and they expected us to go "Yeah that makes sense". This felt like a fanfic tier of writing. Sorry.
I would not be surprised if they give Wuk the Lyse treatment where they only pop up from time to time here on out. While I think the character is meh the only real annoying part about them are the people that demand you love her and try to harass you if you don’t.
Funny, I've been seeing the opposite of that.People who vehemently dislike wuk are way more louder and volatile online from what I've seen on these discussions. Not denying that some wuk defenders are cancer, but the negativity around her character has arguably been worse imo. If you liked dawntrail and wuk they immediately categorize you as a se boot licker with no taste in quality story telling. This expansion launch is reminding me why I stick to guides when it comes to FFXIV YT.
I think she's okay as a character. Her voice actress's performance (in English) wasn't stellar but it was also just okay. I'm leaning towards her not being the right woman for the job.
I think the biggest problem with her is, that she gets too much time at the cost of everyone else. Krile and the twins don't get to do anything because we always have to accompany Wuk Lamat. If they didn't push her in our faces all the time, she would have been much more tolerable even to people who dislike her.
@@LontEnCaras The twins have done plenty at this point in the story tbh, heck a good chunk of the previous expansion is focused on their family situation. So I wasn't bothered by that. I definitely wanted more Krile time, considering she was teased as a focal point for this expac in the post ew quests. I don't get the need some people are wanting for more erenville though, he had shaaloni, solution nine, and living memory. 3 zones which is honestly more than a lot of side characters in this game get. As a Y'shtola fan though, I'm getting tired of her being only present at near the end of base expansions or not at all lately aside from SHB and EW. Feels like she's been mostly relegated to post patch stories. It happened with HW, SB, and now DT.
@@Mexu-k9e It's true, that the twins had enough time in previous expansions, which is why I wasn't exactly thrilled to have them acompany us again. But they were there. And it doesn't make sense, that they barely talk or do anything, if they are there! It makes sense for Estinien, since he isn't really with us, but instead is on his own journey. But the twins are with us. And it's just not like them to be in the background all the time. Also fully agree with Y'shtola. She's trying to find a way to get into other shards for almost two expansions now, and when we finally have some sort of portal in another one she does... almost nothing. Shouldn't that have been a moment for her?
I agree with this review. I wish Erenville and Krile got more screen time and i wish Wuk Lamut American voice actress sounded as lively as the Japanese voice actress. There were just way too many her lines were so flat sounding. Also different topic, your male miqo'te is most original i seen
The Japanese voice acting has never failed me since ARR, the English acting has gotten way better since then but now im too used to hearing Japanese and I can't go back. Also thank you for the compliment 🙏😄
Wuk lamut is the first character who's English Va I didn't really like. Everyone else in the main cast as well the new ones sounded great to me. But I will definitely do a new game plus to hear the Japanese voices, I especially like how Koana sounds in Japanese
@@aw685I play in german and saw a lot of Englisch cutscenes on TH-cam. Voiceacting is always a hit and miss in FF over all the games. And thats fine. Not everyone has a perfect voice. I dont like Japanese cause I always have a feeling as If I heared a lot of similar voices a hundred Times already.
I agree with pretty much all of this. Imo the scions felt unnecessary since all they do is stand there as decoration in the cutscenes without adding anything to the larger narrative. I think you're right about the writers feeling like they HAD to add them, probably for marketing's sake. I was also kinda disappointed with how Krile was handled bc I feel like she should've had more focus. For Wuk Lamat, there are quite a few flaws with her writing, but I still think she's over hated. I think my main problem with her was that she's basically the establishment candidate that we're forced to side with just bc she's the main character even though I didn't have any investment in her motivations. Still, I think the story had a lot of good points too and the endgame content has been great, so I'm looking forward to what they do in the patches.
Story wise Dawntrail was a huge disappointment gameplay was still top tier. I was thinking of ways I would have altered the story to make it more interesting and revolve less around WL. I would first make change the whole dungeon ever odd level and add more dungeons that made sense. First add a mini game to tame an alpaca as WL. Only makes sense. Trader area maybe make it a bit more open ended and less hand holdy. Birds were honestly super stupid not realizing that their big festival was actually magic. I got no clue how they don’t notice that when they had their festival. First dungeon, sure fine whatever maybe replace one of the bosses with Urianger and Thancred to make it feel like more of a competition. Moblins, make WL recruiting the goldsmith cause Bakool Ja Ja to kidnap WL and the gold smith. This leads to the finding who kidnapped her, have a metal gear Thancred stealth mission. Then a dungeon to go find Bakool Ja Ja and beat him at the end. Hell’s Kitchen needed some sort of story mini game this section was just so boring it needed something. Blue area totally fine but I’d suggest having WL realize that her simple mindset on just wanting peace wasn’t enough for a true leader and needed to be able to create plans and solutions to issues and just just want peace. She destroys her tablets and fights with her brother Koana to help defeat the shade of her father considering Koana overcame his issues with not respecting tradition and only wanting to bring tech to the world. Koana becomes Dawn Servant and gets WL to become co-Dawnservant with him. We go to Texas and maybe have a dungeon to find the bandit leader. We bring that MCH kid and some other folks, maybe our Dragoon friend for example? Before we leave dome shows up as usual. We have a solo instance of the invasion ending in the palace seeing the Zoraal Ja vs Gabool Ja Ja. We intercept the revival and fight alongside the ex Dawn servant but ultimately fail to stop him. Make him seem strong. Koana and WL decide they need to stay in the capital and help rebuild. WL says though once that is over she’ll join the scions to help kill her brother. Go through the dome, everything goes as normal but with us actively hostile towards Sphene since we literally saw her and it is never brought up. We realize that WL’s mother is there and on death’s bed. She dies and everything proceeds as usual with people forgetting her and us trying to figure out why. Solution nine same as normal, we hear about the impending raid on the capital and inform WL and Koana about the raid. We try and stop the invasion and ultimately fail to prevent the green light on the attack. Raid ensues as usual. We tell Sphene during the assault to stay with the survivors since she wasn’t bringing anything to the table for combat and was a liability. We manage to convert Otis back to our side and he survives due to not dying in vane on Sphene who we all know is an endless. After the whole invasion WL comes to S9 and we inform her of the situation including the thing with her mother. All the other scions meet back up in S9 and we have the invasion on the tower. Our group lead by WL as a frontal invasion force. Otis is also alive here too which could make for a cool duty support character. The rest of the scions sneaking in and assisting. Would make the scions all being there making sense instead of the whole “Oh the trial needs to happen shit.” We fight WL’s brother as normal. Sphene retreats to LM and we go there as normal. Instead of Sphene pushing the doomsday machine button instantly she becomes more and more desperate harassing us with every terminal we disable. This gets rid of the major urgency issue that happens with knowing the world is about to be destroyed and we are just screwing around with dead people wasting time. With WL not seeing her mother die it makes their reunion more impactful since she wasn’t there for her death. After aero terminal Sphene pushes the button and the world fusion process begins. We continue as normal. Remove WL’s interruption or make it something more along the line of the Endsinger fight. The WoL defeats Sphene and WL and others are able to enter the area afterwards. Expansion over.
It honestly feel less like we are the world saving, gd killing vet WoL but the fresh green adventurer we were at the start of ARR, hell the plot makes more sense as an AU set during that era
That scene was beyond stupid. Have a room of capable fighters (also why was explorer roe there? So random). Then Lamat's dad is like nah, does the dumbass honor pride bullshit 1v1 nonsense most shounen anime crap. Instead just all gang up on zooraal ja, he auto-rezzes they see the device glow. Smash it and kill them again, there done. Instead they all watch 1v1 as her dad gets murdered, nobody intervenes at all. Why do anime/JRPGs do this shit? It's so frustrating as an awful writing trope.
I did like Wuk Lamat - but I don't think she has main character energy. She's more of a goofy sidekick. There was a time and place for the story to dump the sidekick schtick - and it didn't. She's naive, outspoken and clumsy to the point that Erenville feels like a babysitter at the start, and she's exactly the same at the end. I think they really did her dirty.
Thank you, reading this helped me figure out what my main issue with her was, I liked her character, fun and cute, but I would of preferred for the focus on her to lessen after she’s named dawnservant, a lot of my issues with her and dawntrail are similar to my issues with Lyse and stormblood.
I agree with no character growth. Wuk Lamat starts out just wanting everyone to be happy and ends with the same sentiment but still has no way to actually procure their happiness. She only won because the WoL did all the hard work and Koana gave up.
I disagree that she had no character growth - she did finally accept that if she is going to protect the peace, she is going to have to sometimes fight, even if it's merely in self defense. Talk-no-jutsu and coming together over Tasting History style lessons and meals can only get you so far.
First of all, love your catboy! This may be the expansion with the most diverse opinions, I rarely see a community consensus on anything. I agree with most of the points (happy that you mentioned Otis' death, I was really mad about it too) but there is a major disagreement. I think none of the villains is well written, and that's a huge problem for me. As I couldn't understand the rationale of the villains' actions, I couldn't fully enjoy the part of the story that involved conflict with them, and that's pretty much all of the MSQ save Shaaloani. Bakool Ja Ja won't try the easy way first, he even made multiple moves that would possibly result in his disqualification, which is bizarre given how much he wanted to win. Zorrol Ja's objectives are inconsistent from start to finish, like do you want to educate your people about peace or not? If it's bad parenting or trauma, why not elaborate further? Sphene's villain arc is kinda forced and could be easily turned into a 'help find other ways to preserve the endless without killing everyone else', she even suggested that with Zorrol Ja!
I agree on the point with Bakool jaja and I agree that him and Zoraal ja needed some more explanation for their reasons. In my head, Zoraal ja, in the beginning was bent on conquest because he wanted to prove himself. And when that doesnt work out he becomed mad and does all the things he did until he goes too far and loses himself. But I was also confused where he got that idea from because he needed more explanation that was never given for that 😢 cuz I really liked him as a villain its a shame. A good point there with Sphene trying to reason with Zoraal Ja but not with us. Interesting. I'm guessing she was just still delulu when she did that and later realized there was no other way
Same my problem are the last trial scene and that she repeats herself a lot “I am Wuk Lamat the Vow of Resolve…” I think we heard that lines like 5 times or more on zone 5 and 6. The writing definitely needed some improvement and localization direction too for the english VA. I love this game, so I am ready to see where this all leads up to.
I LOVED Zoraal Ja with both English and Japanese voices and though I personally would like they took different approach with his character, overall I enjoyed his story arc a lot! See, not gonna lie here, some of his moments in MSQ should be explored more but still I think he was a better villian then, say, Zenos back in Stormblood... And to be honest, I hope we uncover more of his story in future.
I wanted to know more of his back story, like why he felt such rage towards his siblings (and not just their speculation after the fact) and how he decided that in order to usher in peace he had to put the fear of war into his people. It would have given a bigger impact on how you (WoL) felt at the end.
@@annameme1834 Yeah, my thoughts exactly. What still bothers me is that why we were not allowed to communicate with him at all? I kinda understand they wanted to make his story the one which needs to be figured out by the players through other stuff and thus make it more personal for interpretation, but like that's not Dark Souls or Elden Ring, why writers couldn't just write down what they wanted through more dialogue as usual? I really started to think at one point that Daisuke Ono was too expensive VA probably lol
I found Wuk to be fine doing the sucsession part of the story, and i enjoyed learning about the different people making up the country. HOWEVER. I felt she overstayed her welcome in the second part of the story. I was all for visiting Erenville's village and do some old classic 'Heroing'. Then the flyingbiker nation attacked and Wuk was tossed back into the story taking the spot light from Krille and Erenville who barely had any story made for them (apart from Erenville being shown having changed his name). Also this would have been a nice place to give the Scions their time to show their expetice in saving the world, but no, we had to escort the MC (Wuk) around. I felt Zoraal Ja was done dirty. i wish he had been the final boss of DT. there could have been so much more done with him and i didnt feel that he was given much time to be a villain. Also i partly expected him to be with Kiana and Wuk, perhaps learning a lesson doing the trials, but no, he's a homicidal lizard. Sphene... i wish i liked her. i felt that she was rushed to be a baddie and her story was very 'meh' to me. She felt like the End singer combined with an Ascian as a villain, wanting to take the souls of those living outside of Alexandria, to keep Living Memory ''alive''. Living Memory also felt like 'Ultima Thule' + 'Amaurot' light. It somewhat anoyed me that Wuk said we had to hurry (which i agreed on form a story perspective) but then we started being tourists in the zone... Sorry for ranting. I wish i liked the DT story, but atleast the dungeons are fun. the difficulty is good and i'll be hoping that we get some more story about how they travel between worlds with their technology.
Same, I think she could have took a side seat a bit on the back half. I also thought Xak Tural was perfect for bringing back in more Thancrad, Urianger, Estinien, Raha, Shtola and Krile. Not sure if they were going for the vibe of friends who move away and barely talk to you anymore but it sure came off like suddenly they were just old work acquaintances...
We don’t exactly know that Alexandria is on the 12th. I thought this was the case too, but if it was indeed the 12th it would’ve been rejoined with the source, and we know it isn’t because we went to living memory, a physical location on that shard. Also, the Milala escaped the calamity of ice, which was the fifth calamity, and ended up on the Alexandrian shard. The shard they escaped to being the 12th is impossible, since calamity of the 12th, the calamity of lightning, was the second calamity. It's all so confusing
I believe they said that they managed to avoid rejoining by making the bubble. And so it would be the 12th but just a small fragment of it. I might be wrong on that though. The other thing is it is possible that there is some wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey stuff going on that caused them to technically go back in time. But I feel like this will be extrapolated on later.
@Strider1321 while they don't say it outright, this is my belief. The bubble saved them from rejoining then they had 30 years to conduct a bridge once Alexandria landed. It can't be a whole shard on the other side, Living Memory is too small
There was other instances with Bakool Ja ja before it that hinted at other stuff going on, he always put a show on, but Thancred and a few other instances also mention that he had the opportunity to kill people/go harder on them, but always held back at the last moment or pulled away. Even with Wuk Lamat he had ample opportunity to kill her but never actually committed. There is also the Duel with Wuk where he is on the ropes and the other Mamool ja are getting involved, he gets very upset about it and tells them to stop getting involved. I think a big part that is missing in the undertone of all this is others peoples pressure during the rites. Be in Sareel ja, Zarool ja or his own flunkies pushing him in certain directions and having to keep the show up for them and maintain face. (And in Sareel ja's case its hinted that he was manipulating him) I still wish he at least shown more Empathy on screen, but off screen interactions did quite a bit of hinting that he wasn't fully prepared to cross certain lines. His 180 did seem quick, but don't underestimate the power of peer pressure. His 180 came when the expectant people were away from him, every scene he's being a dick he had people breathing down his neck on screen. Having toxic people removed from the picture does often induce drastic changes in peoples personality.
The Interphos fight was what kinda killed me at the end. I was all vibed up after doing Alexandria and then I got into the fight and I was like FINALLY I GET TO BE AZEM DOING MY AZEM THING AND SAVING PEOPLE. And then Wuk Lamat shows up. And I love her, by all means, but it felt it cheapened the fight SO MUCH while also left me going how this character, who I've BARELY seen any growth with for the entire story (as opposed to expansions worth for the Scions) was able to just unga bunga her way into an Azem level fight. It really dampened the mood for the final fight. She could have shown up afterwards, once we beat Sphene, and had the little heart to heart. They could have brought in some of Living Memories NPCs to appear next to Wuk Lamat while she did this. But like, please. Just leave the fight to us. You kept telling me SOOOOO much how you don't understand anything we're talking about. Souces, Shards, Reflections, Souls, etc. So leave the interdimensional robot slaying to us. It didn't help that by the end of this arc, I was wishing Wuk Lamat to please, PLEASE stop trying to reason with the murder robot that wants to suck the Source dry of aether. Ya'll aren't going to see eye to eye, so please, just shut up. Heritage, Solution 9, Living Memory. That should have been the time for the Scions to do their thing with Wuk Lamat somewhere in the background. ----- I loved Dawntrail. Cried a bunch, laughed a bunch. It was worth it, but the ending just fell really REALLY short for me cause I had to suspend my disbelief that Wuk Lamat was somehow on par with the WOL & Scions for destiny defying situations.
I guess the whole idea bahind Wuk Lamat was that by the end she would be way stronger but they might have buffed her too much XD I also wish she didn't take over the Interphos that way, kinda ruined it for me
@@Bricktor_ Well, if it was with the help of the others it would have been fine. The whole message of Dawntrail is "do things together", yet for the Interphos Wuk Lamat does it all alone. But you don't see Krile or G'raha Tia helping her join the fight. Also it's a cheap reskin of Gaia coming to help Ryne.
I've often seen people compare Wuk Lamat with Lyse and I'll just say: Lyse from the beginning of 6.0 to the end of 6.0 is not the same Lyse. I can't say the same about Wuk Lamat.
My biggest problem is extremely small Wuk lamat's voice range. She has a great voice and played happy and neutral scenes well but there's no emotion in more tense or sad situations. I don't think the story was bad at all, in fact I think it beats ARR and Stormblood. The expectations set by previous expansions did people dirty imo. Active content is peak and aside from not letting me pull the entire dungeon I have no complaints here.
My only gripe with Zoraal Ja is that his "peace by war" methodology was very rudimentary and didn't really have much reasoning. If we are to take the Naruto example for DT's journey, and take Pain's ideology and reasoning, you can see that Zoraal Ja's lacks a lot of substance. I would've loved to have Zoraal Ja's reasoning more fleshed out during his fight with the shade of Gulool Ja Ja or something like that. Having him be too stoic and silent was honestly a detriment to him as a character and I feel was the catalyst to holding him back.
I think Zoraal Ja's plan to make everyone sick of war was an excuse. It seemed obvious to me at the end it was justification to expand more than his father did. He wanted to be better than his father in every way, but it would be hard to convince everyone to go to war with the rest of the world without a "good" reason.
Wuk Lamat's fixation on smiles doesn't seem to make sense on first playthrough, but I feel that it is much more sensible in the context of the whole story and Sphene's obsession with her people's smiles. Without Sphene to compare to, Wuk Lamat just seems to be droning on about smiles out of context. That said, I would NOT be surprised if Wuk Lamat was a version of Sphene's soul from the source. They both make several allusions to the idea that they're almost eerily similar in goals and demeanor. In a work that makes blatant references to alternate reflections of the same people, it makes perfect sense in the story.
i actually prefer the english VA even though it has its weakness bc they kinda try to atleast give each region its own accent which makes it easier to immerse instead of having everyone sound like a normal anime va japanese person
That is one thing that is a shame about the Japanese voice acting, there are some variations in dialecs and accents but when all the VA's are Japanese there is only that much variety that you can do xd
Crazy, I agree 100% with everything. I wasn’t sure how to articulate my opinion on Wuk Lamat since I felt as if I liked her character but she had small issues that my brain couldn’t quite register. Excellent video.
I loved the last third of the expansion. Ive always been a big fan of Final Fantasy 9, and stepping into Heritage Found to see ~the Ilfa Tree~ Everkeep was astounding. But taken as a whole, it feels, shoehorned in. I liked meeting all the new people, and that could have easily been written out to be an entire expansion in and of itself - and, perhaps, should have been? As cool as Zoraal Ja-as-Kuja was, nothing about the story would have been that hard to reframe to let him stay the 98 trial, with Gulool Ja Ja as the 100 and the True Final Test. Then Zoraal Ja can come back with Sphene and lead to a lot more breathing room for everyone. One thing people keep mentioning is the expectation that the Shard that Alexandria is from had been part of a rejoining - I dont think thats the case. I think it is straight up the Ninth shard (not just because its ff9, but not not that), and the gates and overlaying abilities Preservation was able to figure out was what let Sphene drop the Tower and Terra all over the citizens of Yak Tal. The lowest point for me was Fantasy Texas, personally, although I dont like Westerns all that much, and it didnt feel like it had anything to really say about the people who lived there, when we know there are a handful of other neat cultures, and they could have played up the settled/nomad schism a lot of communities end up getting. Missed opportunities.
I agree with the most of what you said. The thing that i could add, is that the nature of msq in the living memory felt a bit slow. I get what was intended from the team, but i feel like it was not a wise decision to slow down the "hype" just before the finale. Also too much following "stealth" quests. I didn't like them that much
There is an explanation to Bakool's behaviour. He legit lived his life thinking he was the one, he was the best. His father cultivated this behaviour and pandered to him to be like this. It was an all or nothing for him and he was of the same mindset as Zoraal Ja's... Moreover, the moment he changes it is because he was faced with his own shame and the shame of his people. I get it is at a breakneck pace but it's not out of nowhere. There was build up with his father yelling at him and the reminder of the millions of siblings that were sacrificed for him to live... It was there. It was explained
I get why he needed to win it so badly and that he was raised to think that he was better than everyone. But still feel like they went way too hard on making him as evil as possible. doing things that should have gotten him disqualified when he needed to win so badly.
@@Bricktor_ I mean... Bakool serves as a narrative foil for Zoraal lmao. The only reason anyone got disqualified (Zoraal Ja was self serving until the end, and even if he got disqualified, he still got to go on his merry mword spree) was because Bakool's father wanted to prove his own point. The point of "well it was too fast" doesn't work when everything has been explained and shown in completion, and the "well they made him evil!!" Doesn't work because he had a reason to be evil and, in equal parts, serve as a narrative bridge (Skydeep Cenote wouldn't have opened without him) and a narrative foil for Zoraal Ja. Should have he been disqualified? Maybe. Would the story have ended up in Alexandria as soon as he had been disqualified? Nope. We wouldn't even have the option to go and see the endless. Or are we complaining about Emet-Selch who *also* did horrible things and should have been kept under the rug and not brought back as Hades to, again, further up the narrative? Literally every single main NPC that carries story has had some sort of plot point for narrative purposes...
@@Astorhorns Maybe you're right. If I had a chance to remake the video I would definately reword some parts of the script because there were many things I wasn't aware of. Don't get me wrong I think Bakool jaja was an interesting villain I just dont agree with some actions he made before we learned more about him. Like when he released valigarmanda he didn't seem to care if thousands would die, including children. But later he also says that he doesn't want any more children to die for the purpose of birthing blessed twins. So he only cares about mamool children?? It might have been necessary to further the narrative, sure. But they could have shown him at least attempting the feat normally, then somehow failing and THEN being forced to release her because he was so desperate.
@@Bricktor_ Again, he was taught not to care about anyone else but himself. He was supposed to be top dog, ergo, no one else/nothing else matters. It is 1:1 to his character and his actions were never exaggerated. He released valigarmanda to slow/m*rder the other contestants and, perhaps very naively, slay Valigarmanda himself to take other ppls stones. You don't need to agree, imo. But Bakool's narrative is incredibly streamlined and very emotionally driven, which is something I think your opinion/analysis of Dawntrail casts aside way too much. (IE: your complaint about Otis' end and a couple more). I don't mean that as a dig or me being snarky/mean, btw. It was something that surprised me. Also, another short critic: we were never the main character in this expac. Wuk Lamat was. She didn't do a "talk no jutsu", she didn't cut out with an inspiring speech just to get Sphene to turn. She ultimately helped us disconnect it. Just like Emet helped us in SoS, just like the Scions helped us with the Endsinger... I could grab so, oh so many parallels from previous expansions that it isn't even funny. She helped us defeat it. Yes, we are the warrior of light... But you're a stranger in a strange land. People can tell that you are strong, but they don't know you... Have you ever thought about why every calamity that affected eorzea has not affected any other continent? (Aka, Tural has no Abominations.) Wild to see how many people are having so many people are having issues grasping this concept. The fight is about 15-20 minutes long. 18 minutes is the wol fighting and about 30 seconds is the duration of Wuk Lamat's cutscene... I said short but I over extended myself.
@@Astorhorns Thank you for your comments, this is my first time doing a review of sorts and you've definately changed my opinion on some things even though I might not 100% agree with everything you said. These were my thoughts after going through the story once and there were clearly a lot of things I missed that I have now had a chance to rethink on.
The worst line of wuk lamat in english is by far the one where she calla to sphene during the interphos, she sounds so casual that her dialogue box has more emotion put into the lines
I felt it was after you finished MSQ (so spoilers) ****************** When Wuk Lamat shows up at the Inn Room and nonchalantly talks about how tired she's been with getting the city back in order and her attending father's funeral (I can't remember the actual wording but I was just shocked by how unemotional she was when mentioning the funeral). I would liked to have my WoL attend the funeral and I was probably more emotional about his loss than WL was. Whether is was just bad VA (english), bad directing or both, I bothered me.
@@annameme1834after getting through the MSQ, everyone feels off. I don't know who was the voice director for this expansion, but they really fumbled it. I had to go listen to some of the actors previous cutscenes because I felt like I was going crazy.
@@annameme1834 I disagree. It's days later by this point: she's been busy and is finally getting a chance to relax. You'd be amazed how well people can pick themselves up and get on with life after a traumatic experience like that, especially if they're rushed off their feet afterwards. She's probably talked about the funeral a million times by this point.
I can see why people say they found it boring. I found it perfectly fine, but that is because I went into the expansion with the expectation that it was gonna be kinda boring. Beginnings of new stories usually are. There aren't many reveals or relatable characters you have known (or that have had a connection to the story) for years. People just went into it expecting to be hit with something on the level of endwalker, which was obviously not what we were gonna get. Be patient and wait for the new story arc to grow. This is like ARR. A boring, but important beginning.
I can't say I agree with people comparing this to ARR as the foundation they have build with the Zodiark Hydellin saga is still there for them to work with. But I also went into this with a positive and patient mindset that really helped me see things in a better light and yeah expecting something on the level of Endwalker is not a realistic expectation to have, true.
I don't believe people were expecting an epic saga comparable to Shadowbringer/Endwalker. The problem was this was a mediocre at best story with bad execution. Expecting the foundation of a new story to be boring is a bad mindset. This is a full release expansion and players shouldn't have to rely on two more years of patches to make up for it. Dawntrail is like what, 30-40 hours long? That's the first four seasons of Game of Thrones. That is more than enough time to have a fleshed out story contained in the expansion that also plants seeds for future adventures. Dawntrail had a concept with a lot of potential but really was badly carried out.
Most people who did not enjoy the story did so not because they expected another Endwalker. Everyone was clear from the start that this was going to be slow. People have problems with the blatantly bad writing that seem obvious to them. One of the more commonly cited reasons is how Erenville was treated by the writer concerning the death of his mom. People who recently lost loved ones found it to be incredibly insulting that no time was given to Erenville to process the loss and Clearly-not-a-self-insert was focused on again instead.
@@Bricktor_tru but starting with Action without Settings a foundation gets us only A FF13 experience where you constantly asking what is going on and who is who. Tural is a complete new Continent most of the characters know shit about
@@inekd Yea and we are like 10 minutes in now. Is the stuff that happened in the first 10 minutes of the movie THAT epic? No. We are not even 5% into the next story arc.
To me Dawntrail felt like a Prologue the actual first chapter of the storyline! I think we will get the real storyline in November hopefully! I ended up liking the story in the end! I want the full story of the people of the Source teleporting to another Shard with the Key Artifact! To me the people of the Source teleported through space/time to the 12th Shard during the Lightening Calamity! Then Sphene used the Key & teleported to the Source in the current timeline for us! I also want the storyline of how we Azem are connected to the Key! I think Ancient Azem before the Sundering could travel to other dimensions with the Key, but we will see! Sphene will be back because her Crown activated in the credits! Hopefully the Endless ended up going into the Lifestream! Great vid, keep up the good work! Liked & Subbed!!!
I love this trick so much(i wanna try and see if I can restore lights in SB zones), sadly you can't do the sidequests while in NG+, so it's still a shame for us who leave the sidequest till the last.
@@Bricktor_ While it would kind of ruin the message of Living Memory as well as the liminal space and haunting beauty of its emptiness, I do agree that we need to find a way to bring it all back.
Honestly, more characters that make sense in the setting is what I want personally. If we have to bench like half the scions for that - I dont care anymore. Its better then just dragging them around for 0 reason.
Great video. I agree with almost every point you made. I really do wish the Scions had a larger role; their time was so brief and many of their lines felt...off to me. It reminded me of Leonard Nimoy explaining why he didn't want to participate in Star Trek: Generations: "There was a character called Spock who had a dozen lines you could easily assign to anyone else, which they did." The Scions popped up, said a few words that didn't really feel like they were in-character, and then disappeared. Oh well...they'll be back. My favorite bit of "subtle hints" in the MSQ was when Sphene described her first encounter with Zoraal Ja and their relationship and I thought "Wait, that's not how it went..."
The English voice actor for Wuk Lamat isn't terrible. She's actually quite good when just talking in normal conversation. It's when she's required to do anything emotional that you begin to see the issue
11:04 The way I process this is to treat the story more like a stage play. While this make the story as a whole has some little mismatch in style, it in fact explain and makes a lot of weird cut scences way more sensical. It's pretty typical for East Asian country to have more Stage Play *Director* than actual Film Directors.
If taken in a vacuum, the story is honestly good. The main problem is that Wuks VA is painfully amateur-ish. Her line deliveries gives the player no idea how the scene is to be taken. I recently saw a TH-cam video, with very few views, comparing all of Wuks languages from the llama spit scene. Color me surprised to see how much the non english VAs give a wonderful performance. I plan to do a 2nd run of DT after I lvl up my jobs to see how I would feel if the English VA did a good job.
I find the part where Wuk Lamat popped in at the end was jarring, but I preferred it. This expansion feels way more like we and the scions are more mentors to help guide the next generation, NOT be the center of attention. We've been that for a decade now. So it makes more sense for us to pass the torch (metaphorically speaking) to the new kids on the block. I genuinely prefer that we are more of a mentor role. All throughout the questing, you HEAR the other characters talk about how they can tell, just by looking at us, "Yeah, YOU are strong". Which is something that wasn't happening before. I expect that some time soon, we'll go back to being our stereotypical central protagonist selves, but I prefer that the game is essentially saying, "You've done it all. You're not what's most important in the story right now."
Honestly I've played till the end I didn't expect to be the centre of attention. I didn't expect to be Wuk Lamat babysitter too. I expected that we and the Scions are on an adventure competing to find the Golden City. Meeting new people and helping others. As it were in ARR. I genuinely don't like the bait and switch that is going on.
I generally didn't mind that as well, from a lore perspective it also makes sense. Just didn't like it happening during the last fight cuz I barely got any cool moments in the story until that point and then that one got taken away from me as well. But I enjoyed going along for the new adventures and being the mentor figure for Wuk Lamat. Just think some things could have gone differently is all
So...I thought Daisuke Ono voiced Zereek Ja too, and I clip the end credit after I finished the MSQ to find out if it really was him. And it turns out to be Kenji Hamada's work. But he still did a great job anyway.
Maybe this is just my bias against Wuk Lamat speaking but the whole story (with its potential and failed execution) was only interesting to me when we explored the new world and its lore/people without the rite stuff. Or let's say I enjoyed everyone's story Arc (yes even Zoraal Ja's) except Wuk Lamats...cus it was literally non-existent. She started the story with an inferiorty complex and after 1-2 talks she became an invinceable Mary Sue, yeah no thank you. I love every side character tho (I can't even believe I say this but Bakool Ja Ja became one of my fav sat the end xD) But I do have to correct you on one part: It is shown at least once or twice how desperate Bakool Ja Ja is to win....I would have to check for myself. And I am a bit salty cus the story had such big potential with Alexandria...it was like free on a silver platter but they decided to make a shit show out of it...i was so sad. I mean I do understand it can't be the "next Endwalker" but this? But vexes me most is that I enjoyed everything else immensely. They stepped up their Dungeon/Trial game so hard, I was in awe everytime! And the music never disappoints, I love you Soken! So after the Coronation Gulool Ja Ja says that there is a reason they cant open the gate at this moment and then got the new Dawnservants in private to give them the secret, but as we are not them or close neough to be let into this - we are free of our duty and can go explore aka be a normal adventurer so the "Intermission" as I call it, to Shaaloani actually made a lot of sense to me. And it fit into one of the reasons why I hated DT so much = We do not matter. We could not be in DT and nothing in the story would change. Thats why I loved my solo adventure with Erenville so much, I got to do what I wanted to do...even if just for one map before it became the Wul Lamat Show again lol.
Thats interesting I only found that one time with Bakool Ja Ja, but if there was another it completely went past me. And it also went past me that we got told a reason that the door couldn't be opened at that time but I still feel like Shaaloani needed more meaning behind it other that, hey Erenville is going there as well so might as well atick along and do adventure.
@@Bricktor_ I might have to go through all Bakool Ja Ja scenes but there are some xD And about the gate its right when we find it and Gulool Ja Ja appears behind us to gratualte he literally says "We currently cant open it" and then tells the Dawnservant (and on request Krile) in private the story about the two lala coming through after the gate appears out of thin air. And I suspect its because they had no fking clue how to open it. They gave them the baby and a weird looking relic, without explaination and then vanished...I would be weirded out if they knew how to open it. I personally thought Shaaloani was fine especially because it was a simple adventure questline - what made it weird/lacking was the fact that it was heartlessly pushed between such two big action packed storylines. If the Alxeandria Arc would have happened more subtle and slow, the transition from Texas to high tech wouldnt have been so weird. And no to be fair that was the whole reason. Remember, we arent the hero who saves the star anymore, we are a simple adventurer that has the chance to explore a mostly unexplored continent - the WoL would be stupid to go like "Nah i like it here, go alone" especially how often its mentioned (from ARR to EW) how curious and adventure hungry the WoL is supposed to be.
@@YvaiatheDemon Yeah that's it. I had no qualms about the actual story that was going on there just the timing of it was weird because of what you said. Honestly reading these comment I've discovered some points that I could have changed in the video but oh well, too late now. But it's very fun to discuss the story.
@@Bricktor_ It was a good Video and mostly I agree, just small things I disagree with :D Also it sounds fun hearing them in japanese as I myself played in english. And while I didnt hate Wuk Lamats english voice there were some parts that were really hard to listen to.
That our presence does not Matter is a Bit wrong. Without us helping Wuk and Koana no one whould become Dawnservant. They all would have failed at least one or 2 of the Trials. Zoraal at the Last one Bakool definetly the Yok Huy related ones cause freeing Valigarmanda destroyed the Seal Trial kinda. And Koana would not been able to defeat Gulool Ja Jas Phantom. Wuk would definetly fail the most especially in everything where she needs her brain a Bit more then usual. As Gulool Ja Ja sayed he would then just stay as king till he dies. Zoraal would then doing his shenanigans as usual and atacking Tulliyollal and killing his father. But now they Lack any Ruler and fall apart in despair. They would been harvested by Alexandria for the Endless needs of Souls and only encounter resistence when heading to Eorzea. I mean the second fight of Tural only went smooth especially because of Vtra and they only got him cause Alphinaud and the Scions asked him in Koanas Name.
I like probably everything except... the first part of area 4, the wild west area. It was such a shift into a slowed pace, it felt very tropey, and out of place, until you have to run back to town.
I heard since endwalker that the jp voice acting is so much better, but I still play it on my main in english. I created an alt character where I play the story again with jp vo, but am still in heavensward with that character. thanks for the examples and comparisons of the jp voice acting.
Besides Krile and Erenvile getting less time, Wuk Lamat's screen time was fine imo. The WoL at this point of the MSQ has unironically peaked in their story that having something like EW levels of focus wouldve been to much. If anything the entire dynamic between them and Wuk Lamat as a mentoring companion figure that makes the role of the WoL and the relationship with Wuk Lamat better.
i realy hope that the patch contend is again more the story of the wol since the 2 dawnservent surely has other things to do , and we have the literal key to the other worlds in our hand (and it showed a particular symbol)
I doubt Unlost is 12 shard Because all that dome-barrier thing, electropes and all that high-tech stuff started due to Lalafells that migrated from Source after 5 umbral calamity While Lightning one was 2nd Yes time flows strangely, but it shouldn't be backwards, i swear if it would be time shenanigans again...
Oh boy they write it in wiki Even tho in game was stated that we travel to Sphene world People hear "calamity" and instantly think that if something bears that name it's nothing else than rejoining...
I read Zoraal Ja as someone who had war trauma. As someone who had been to war and seen how horrible it was. When the people come up to him as they all four exit after talking to Gulool Ja Ja Zoraal Ja won't even talk to them, sending his servant instead. This can absolutely be read as arrogance, but it can also be read as him having so much contempt for these people that wants to go to war and expand. They haven't seen war themselves and they just want the spoils. Zoraal Ja wants to teach people of the horrors of war. I think he was probably fine until he himself went to war and changed so much his siblings couldn't even recognize him. This is my take. I wish they had spent a little time clarifying this or any other expalination. They had time to do plenty of "What we've learned so far" in the story, so they could have spent a bit more time flushing out Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja, so they were't so two dimentional and throw-away villany.
Lyse had way more development the Wuk. The issue with Wuk is she learns something then 5 minutes later it's like she never learned a lesson to begin with. Its just undone and in the end she is virtually the same minus she can fight.
I mean if when people start comparing her to a character that people already don't like, it doesn't look good for wuk lamat... even if she wins the comparison, she is still near the level to be compared to her in the first place.
One thing I really like about FFXIV is that the characters in the world, at least the ones we can interact with, are just absolutely okay and accepting adoption as a normal thing people do. “Oh you’re Raubhan’s adopted son? That’s dope I didn’t know he was a dad! Your dad’s a cool dude!” “Oh you’re the third promise? Gulool Ja Ja adopted you? That’s amazing, I need no further clarification, you are his children.” “Oh hey Galuf, who’s that? Your granddaughter? She’s adorable!” My mom’s adopted. And I’ve seen and experienced myself firsthand what the opposite of this sentiment is.
It's interesting to hear your thoughts. After the intro to Turiyollal - and me exploring there for like 2 hours - I chose to go to Komaku'uka. And by the Gods, was it a drag. I'm a very patient player. I've gone through ARR 4 times; HW 3 times and Endwalker 2 times, talking to every relevant NPC in between every MSQ step. And I mean _every_ in both cases. By the end of Komaku'uka, I felt like skipping the MSQ. Luckily, Urqopacha picked things back up for me, but I'd never felt this way before. The rite itself was something I seriously couldn't care less for. I groaned audibly when it was 7-parts in total. It wasn't until we talked to Gugool Ja Ja and his take on the 'candidates' that it started to make sense and I could get along with it a lot better. It also makes sense to me that it wasn't an actual competition vs the other scions. That wasn't the _point_ of the rite, for one. Having recently watched Veritasium's video on Game Theory, it made a lot of sense that they played out the rite as they did, and I appreciate it for it. I strongly encourage you watch the video. Once the rite was over, Shaaloani was a _breathe of fresh air to me._ I felt like the MSQ was _finally_ starting. With something small and typical like the stand-off in that little town leading to some grander adventure, perhaps. I loved travelling with Erenville and just taking in the sights. The BGM did an excellent job in setting the vibe there, too. I also really wish we'd spend more time with the tribe up north, I really digged their culture. What happened with the dome spawning and Turiyollal being bombarded completely came out of left field. It only made sense once Zoraal Ja entered the scene. Pretty much everything after was - yes - excellently crafted, but whiplash after whiplash emotionally. I felt physical pain when they described what the regulators were and the final zone was just not for me. It explored my deepest fear. And while I'm appreciative of learning more about it, I was _not_ in the mood for it, especially after the emotional Dempsey Roll of Endwalker. Interphos... oh man. This was my fasted and biggest disconnect from anything I'd experienced since Tokyo Ghoul Season 2. It made no sense to me. It held no place where it did. It completely fell flat for me. I went to do my Island Sanctuary as soon as it unlocked, then dragged my sorry ass out of the mental place I was in to just got it over with. I'd rate the music for the Zoraal Ja trial better, but the music in Interphos was okay enough. The arena visuals were impressive to me, but that's about all the praise I can give it. It was not Sphene. It was some mindless, destruction-thirsty atrocity that somehow became a threat to all existence. Come on, we just had the Endsinger, there was no reason to bring this up. It didn't work for me. All in all, my _biggest_ gripe with the expansion is that ALL the tribes felt far too _human._ Hell, even World of Warcraft does tribes better, like the savage yet honorable orcs. Every. Single. Tribe was far too human, bar maybe the Hanu? I felt like that was an immensely missed opportunity, for understanding people while being decidedly _non_ human has a far bigger impact. The expansion had its good points. Excellent ones, even. But I struggle to recall them, overshadowed as they are by the (negative) emotional jerking around it did.
I like your take on Shaaloani, that's for sure one way to look at it more positively. And I did enjoy the zone and the story, I just couldn't stop thinking about the golden city the whole time we were there and how I wanted to go figure that out. In my case I really enjoyed the emotional rollercoaster that the second half of the story is. And I loved living memory and all the trauma it gave me. Understandable that it must have been hard for you. I will check out the video you mentioned and see what it's all about, thanks for telling me about it 👍
I mostly agree with your points. I think Bakool Ja Ja was masterfully written to make us hate him, then turned around to being a lovable character. And watching back the tells were there. Zoraal Ja confused me during my playthrough because I was expecting him to get the FF14 sumpathetic villain treatment, but after looking at it outside the lens of my expectations, he makes for a good irredeemable villain. The Gulool Ja Ja fight I was ok with, he won the fight so there was no reason to interfere (as asked). And then suddenly Zoraal Ja comes back and strikes him down before anyone can react (though for storytelling reasons it plays slower in the scene). Trial 3 moment also grinded my gears, definitely screamed "Not Now Wuk Lamat!" when that happened! She was a decent protagonist over the rest of the story. Really liked DT overall, excited to see what the shard non-sense turns to in the patch content.
Personally what I wished for was that we as the WoL got to spend more time with the candidates and not just Wuk Lamat. We learn a lot about Koana and a bit of Bakool Ja Ja but Zoraal Ja is basically non existent besides krile every now and then saying "wow hes so evil" with her echo powers. I would have loved if we had gotten personal time with the 4 of them to actually learn more about them, maybe we're asked by the dad to tag along with each of them for one of the trials so that we can give him our opinion. But its just the fact that its set up that we are going with Wuk Lamat and we know shes gonna win it just really felt like a missed opportunity. Also why were the scions even involved in it? After the first dungeon Urianger and Thancred go from friendly competition to basically just being our second party. It would have been cool if they were bosses in a dungeon or a solo instance or something just put them to better use besides closing off a tunnel.
The thing about Bakool Ja Ja bringing the mamoolja to Tuliyollal... is that most of them are already there! Going there was always an option, and the holdouts in Mamook are just making themselves miserable for no good reason, so I find it kinda hard to sympathize with their plight. As for English voices, Sena Bryer is fine, some people are just mean. :P
Zuraal Ja had the exact same expectations as Bakool Ja Ja had weighting on his shoulders. Dude was the only biological son of the legendary figure, born out of a miracle as the two headed guys usually cannot reproduce, and was also a prodigy in fighting from an early age. Too many expectations kinda broke the man.
So I also initially thought that Alexandria came from the Twelfth (because of Lightning/Levin, i.e. the Second Umbral Calamity), but it's stated that the Lalafells came to Alexandria during the Fifth Calamity (Ice) which happens much later. It's possible that their dimensional gate also crosses times (or that the time flow was different enough that they could somehow leave during the Fifth Calamity and arrive in Alexandria *before* the Second Calamity), since we have precedent with the Crystarium, but it's hard to say.
My complaint with Zoraal Ja was that we kinda needed a "snap" scene. Just a short scene before stealing the tablets, to establish that he's thrown away pride and everything. Other than that, yeah, cool villain, and excellently juxtaposed to Bakool ja ja. Just missing that one cherry on top, imo.
I changed my mind on the timestamp idea because people could have been easily spoiled by hovering over them, there was also a pop-up on screen about that, sorry for any confusion
Ishikawa is the only writer so far that has managed to successfully bring in the scions and not sideline them because it was convinient to not have them there or because they didn't know what to do with them. It's one of my biggest writing pet peeves when the story only functions because a resource (here a scion) is conviniently missing, who would otherwise have done or said something to solve the issue much faster.
I hate to be that person, but I very much disagree with the wiki on the world Alexandria came from having participated in a lightening-based umbral calamity (remember that the wikis are written by ordinary people, and ordinary people can be wrong). When an umbral calamity happens, the reflection is absorbed wholesale into the Source. There would be no reflection world, there would be no Alexandria, there would be no any of it. The whole world would have been rejoined. Alexandria did not have the ability to fuse or hop dimensions at the time. All of that would happen later. Moreover, when Living Memory is liberated, we just see an ordinary sunrise, very much pointing out that that entire world was not consumed by lightning. I suspect what happened was very local to Alexandria (and other places where civilization exists, but not the entire world), and they just didn't want to let Alexandria go. So to sum up, the reflection Alexandria came from was not involved in an umbral calamity, because it still exists. If it was, it very simply wouldn't exist.
I think dawntrail's story had moments where it was fine at best, but overall it's been a massive disappointment to me. Not being the main character hurt my investment a lot, especially since I can't stand Wuk Lamat. The real problems though, are plentiful: - That every main character's motivations are just so wafer thin. Wuk Lamat wants everybody to be happy, Koana wants to bring Tuliyollal forward with tech, Zoraal Ja wants war for... some reason? Cause he's a baddie? Sphene wants to save her people at the cost of another's. I could list more but you get the idea. There's a severe lack of depth here that previous expansions had in abundance. Some of these could have worked, if given more time. - That no one who performs heinous crimes gets any kind of pushback or punishment for it. Sometimes you just need a villain to be stopped, but even after death threats, theft, extortion, attempted genocide and infanticide on an abysmal scale, Wuk Lamat either gets to, or wants to, forgive EVERYBODY. She even tells some of them that "your crimes cannot go unpunished" and then they do. You can do these things, but make those characters earn it! Lady Iceheart and Fordola are excellent examples of character who did terrible things but were redeemed. - It's very obvious that the new writing team tried to pick some ideas from previous expansions and rehash them here. Seeing Emet Selch's reconstituted version of Amaurot worked so well because we spent 8 years learning about his culture, firstly most of the bad, but some of the good along the way as well, and it hit like a truck to see, finally, what his world was like, and what he remembered from it after longing for it for 10000 years. Virtual Amusement Park City felt like an incredibly cheap knockoff, with some painfully obvious "cry here, audience" moments tacked on which felt so out of place there that is was cringeworthy. That whole zone had no idea what tone it wanted to go for. It flip-flopped between goofy, sad, quirky and melancholic on a dime. - The gameplay for this game hasn't changed in... well, ever. Dawntrail was such a great opportunity to add more ways to actually play in the story part of the game, but never goes beyond rehashed ancient concepts and ideas of: point the cursor to the correct spot and click, follow a guy without being noticed, walk, talk. This has been pretty much the setup for 10 years now, and this being an expansion with a vastly inferior story to anything that came before makes it painfully clear that FF14 hasn't innovated since ARR. - The pacing and lack of stakes for about half the story were incredibly offputting, almost as much as when they did try to bring in some of the grim realities of the new world, only to follow them up with either goofy or tedious unimportant quests minutes later. - There was a complete lack of mystery. At times it was there, but then gets explained ad nauseam at most 2 hours after you start wondering what on earth is going on. The zone in the barrier is the best example where my inner detective really perked up for a bit. Why is everyone so happy here? What on earth is the deal with Sphene unable to tell us certain things? How did everyone instantly forget a person after they've died? And then they explain it, in detail, just an hour or 2 later... why? Tell, don't show is NOT how you make an engaging story, and FF14 has proven to be capable of making engaging stories for a decade now. Very strange that suddenly they seem to be unable to. All in all DT had some moments. The dungeons, trials and solo duties were all great, as ever (especially Gulool Ja Ja's solo duty! Amazing fight!) but it drops the ball on so many occasions that in terms of the msq section of the expansion, best I can score it is a 4/10.
i'd have found bakool ja ja way more compelling and charming if he wasn't downright sadistic for absolutely no reason in a lot of the early scenes... i wish he was more of a headstrong, loud-mouthed, overconfident jackass that steps on wuk's tacos, cripples our boat, and releases valigarmanda becasue he thought he could fight it, without the unnecessary "kick people when they're down...repeatedly...and laugh about it the whole time" attitude.
The machines in the matrix were more redeemable for their motivations than sphene was. I absolutely could not empathize with her, as even just using souls as energy as an extra lives for the living was questionable, but committing genocide to keep what was akin to a photograph of the living from dissapearing was absolutely unforgivable. At least the matrix machines were only using living humans as a battery to keep themselves alive, but sphene wanted to consume your soul. Her character was probably more comparable to and as evil as shang tsung from mortal combat, but people will absolutely forgive her because she is a cute girl. I think this is why i hated the last half so much, because they built the story as if i was supposed to empathize with her, the stroyteller kept pushing for it and i just cant empathize with a character as evil as her. I really didnt enjoy living memory... and especially the story elements of the last msq raid. I think these two parts were the worst parts of the whole expansion, even though i thought living memory was the most gorgeous zone in the whole expansion. I think the hanuhanu and mamool suffered from really bad story writting, while sphene was the worst. Wuk lamat wouldve been a better character had she had ALOT less dialogue and presence around us. Every zone and every quest we were paired up with her, and wouldve been better had we been allowed to discover content with the other party members. The rivalry with thancred and urianger is especially underplayed, as there is only one insatnce in the whole expansion where they even come close to opposing us and that could be considered to be more of them playing a prank on us. Ive seen more rivalry playing monopoly than anything that was shown in DT.
It is mentioned that Sphene is forced to take all these souls because she is actally being forced to do it by her programming. Is it a cheap explanation? Maybe. But it is explained
@@Bricktor_ I don't characterize her as a person. I think the second half is the story of a rogue Ai, wanting to commit genocide against "humanity". I know the writers and many would take issue with that characterization probably, but that is what sphene and the residents are. As erenville's mom put it a facsimile of the living. The Ai became corrupted because they altered her to adhere to those rules of protection.
@@crashzone6600 So the part you didn't enjoy about Sphene was the fact that she wasn't motivated by human thoughts but because she was being controlled by her programming?
@@Bricktor_ no it is more that she wanted to treat humanity as if they are wheat to be harvested to sustain a memory that no one can value anymore. A motivation so weak that I think it is like trying to create a drama out of me extermination an ant hill in my backyard. I also think it was forced plot because the writers made it so that it could only be powered by souls for some inexplicable reason. It was extremely ham fisted, and nonsensical. But most of all, it is that the writers were expecting me to feel sorry for turning off the memory storages, when it hit me about as hard as if I was asked to burn an old year book. The people I felt for were erenville and krile, because they were the ones that were actually impacted by those memories of their loved ones, and I was glad that they got to say goodbye, even if the people were nto real.
Bakuul Ja was a big kid, an adult child, a child in the body of a very large adult. Ive met a lot of people like him. Typically they grow up tall and fast and are never checked by someone bigger so they get this false arrogance that they (and his parents) are the only ones that matter. He disregards his companion falling behind due to injury as justification for his arrogance and as long as he reaches his goal nothing else matters. But at the end of the day they are still just a child unsure of their place in the world and unknowingly overstepped. Its typically a fatherless behavior because the role of the father is to be the strength and teach the rules and why you shouldnt break them.
Like insaod story is ok like a 8 or 8.5 but overall Wuk Lamat should have like 10 or 20 % less screen time in exange of otehr character It missed some action. On Gabool Ja ja fight when he died we should had the option to attack him.... And the train sequence could have been a solo shooting duty like gold saucer.... And the bight fight to defend a solo duty were we control the scion ( keepeing th CD) And 100% right the WoL should kill the last boss alone so we are the hero afterall
Dawntrail was a bait and switch. They said. . . "you are going on an adventure!!" Instead, we got a series of trials for Wuk Lamat that were not really adventurous (we made Tacos, caught an Alpaca, crafted a float, and did some trading. . . NOT an adventure). They said. . . "this is going to be a vacation with the Scions!!" The trailer had every Scion in it! Instead, we got the Wuk Lamat anime. The story was not paced well. The trials dragged. The character of Wuk Lamat was horribly weak (even if you didn't hear the terrible English VA). The end of the MSQ is simply not good. It is an ascian re-hash. The ending where you shut everything down and make the last zone worse is just terrible. The MSQ was a pretty significant failure and I just hope Square Enix is willing to change course with the patches and go in a different direction.
An issue I've noticed with this and similar reviews is an absurd amount of hand waving regarding critical issues within the consistency of the story. Solution 9 may be aesthetically enticing, but how we arrive at the destination and why make it feel shallow and empty. Dawntrail is a hodgepodge of frayed, uninspired, and contradicting plot threads that do not present a problem the scions and the WoL haven't already have practical and proven answers to. We see only glimmers of rationality such as the hostage situation with Bakool Ja Ja and eventually the plan to import crops and agricultural knowledge for Mamook. Which is important for later as the parallels between the blessed children and the endless (sacrificing the many to preserve the few) is cut and dry proof there is always a solution through the combined strength and knowledge of cooperative people. Ironically a question posed to the WoL from Sphere we must remain completely silent upon as if there is any credence to the idea. And if you try to threaten the innocent to forward your evil plans, you /will/ be utterly annihilated by the WoL and their innumerable allies as we have done many expansions prior. This all something Sphene should be keenly aware of since their whole dilemma was triggered by war over their super-duper macguffin material. WHICH is the only thing that even allows either Zarool Ja or Sphene to even look in our general direction without getting the slap-of-light. Something that ultimately didn't help them very much as we still defeat them making the entire conflict and subsequent bloodshed utterly pointless and completely avoidable.
Living memory is the story of why you should never store your data in ram, and why not everything needs to be computerized. Optimize your servers! For crying out loud instead of painting a carousel or using different colored bricks for the roads, they build everything out of an LCD screen and projected images over it
In English, first two-thirds of the story was crap and entirely filler and basic (at best). The final third was decent. The rest of the expansion was great! Though, I worry the dungeon difficulty may drive casual players away.
So, the first half of this game shares some similarities to a favorite game of mine, Quest for Glory 5. Quest for Glory 5, like Dawntrail's first half, is about a rite of succession. It's also a game late into the series where you have YOUR character you made (you can import the clear save from older titles) Like in DT, it''s a beach episode kind of feeling immediately after your character ends a Eldritch Horror level event (in QFG4, you help prevent the completion of an interrupted summoning of a Cthulhu like eldritch god from another dimension and would have bathed the world in darkness and warped everyone into twisted abominations/made them go insane) In QFG5, you instead get called to help with the Rites of Rulership in a greece-inspired city-state called Silmaria, a popular tourist and vacation spot in-universe. The difference is that QFG5 does this story CORRECTLY. You COMPETE in the rites, not to rule, but to find out who assassinated the previous king and who has been breaking Dragon Pillars around the land designed to keep an elder-dragon (a continental level threat) sealed inside a local volcano caldera. You can participate seriously, or back Elsa, the former antagonist of the first game. When i compare how both of these handled a similar story, FF14 pales.
If what you are saying is that the Rite of Succession could have been more involved then yes, I agree. Also "Cthulhu like eldritch god from another dimension and would have bathed the world in darkness and warped everyone into twisted abominations/made them go insane" sounds like Endwalker a lot haha
I honestly wish the scions hadn't been involved at all. Give us time to miss them, let us have some new characters to spend time with. Why weren't we spending this time hanging out with anyone but the boring vanilla Wuk? Everyone around her was so much more interesting but got shoved to the side.
Honestly, the lack of meaningful interaction with the quests made production feel very rushed and sloppy. The story itself with the Dawn Throne felt meh.
I'm going to defend Wuk Lamat's part in the final fight. It's not that her showing up was bad, it was that she wasn't there from the start that was. The conflict with Sphene was personal between the two, and we were literally there just to be Wuk Lamat's muscle. This was just our job. I think it was jarring that she left us around instead of kicking us out with everyone else.
I gotta say I disagree that final trail was too copy and paste from ryne and Gaia and with how the boss was so wishy washy I just couldn't be invested to understand her motives for reasons I can't say
@@loomingdeath1758 That seems more like a problem with character writing than anything. Still, her showing up to help makes infinitely more sense than Zenos showing up against Meteion just to be a taxi.
These Japanese voices are so damn good. FFXIV overall has big anime vibes and imo the EN Dub doesn't do it justice overall, and I'm not even an English native speaker. It's just EN dubs in general for anime stuff since they tend to be either emotionless or weirdly over the top. If anyone plays mihoyo games they probably know. The voice directors apparently give insanely simple yet strict instructions like: Is the character a stacked, attractive woman older than 18? She NEEDS that breathy, moany mommydom voice. The character is not dominant at all? Squeaky loli voice no matter what. Or they mess up completely like with Wuk Lamat I wish people would check out the JP Dub more, it's absolute peak and imo how the story should be experienced. Even if you don't understand it, please give it a try everyone. I'm German and don't think it's that "you only think that your language is cringe, your opinion is invalid" thing. I like German anime dubs a lot, they're well-made and I worked as radio voice actor before. Voice directing in Germany is usually a bit more comfy and the studios are really chill, a creative outlet for creative people, lots of them are very young and open.
For the last fight... How much more differently is that from Thordan wildly flailing his sword around in a blind panic for us having survived his ultimate attack? Or the Endsinger just swooping the field and putting AoEs down repeatedly? This is the MSQ end fight, it's a fight up to a point until which the big hurrah finale takes over and we are just meant to win. As for it not being 'our' big victory, you put the finger on it there because we ARE the support character for Wuk Lamat, at least for the start of this new tale. We got about ten more years of roadmap to go here...
![ว้าว!ลุงบีมแบกทองมารับขวัญหลานกันยกบ้าน [cc] แดนแพทตี้ SS2 | EP.49 |](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Osihq1OAs-4/mqdefault.jpg)
Thank you all for all the interesting feedback on the video. I wanted to say that after reading some comments and opinions I have changed my opinion especially in regards to Bakool Ja Ja. There are a lot of subtle hints in the story that I simply didn't pick up on, on my first playthrough and it has been an interesting morning for me reading through all these, and facepalming myself thinking "damn how did I not notice that"
There is definitely some good foreshadowing this expansion!
L take, wrong take :D woke lmao get's way less hate than she deserves, and the writing team too, this expansions story is ass, anyone who likes that shit has a severe lack of taste and intelligence xD
its NUTS to me that the alpaca catching wasant a roleplaying solo instance
Its also crazy that the extent of Scion VS Scion teams was relegated to Urianger asking about if something happened to our boat and Thancred blocking a cave that we just walk around in the first dungeon. After that point, we team up with them for the rest of the story...
This is a remarkable piece about the rite of succession, actually. It shows that the players who felt similar were also not ready to succeed the rite.
As early as the 6.5 patch content, I was _not_ looking forward to a pointless competition. The fact _that_ it was one, in hindsight, shows great insight by Gulool Ja Ja. For all throughout the journey, and what people have come to be annoyed about (?!), Wuk Lamat wants to understand the people. To help them where she can. To foster a mutually beneficial relationship; something the modern day IRL world is keen to avoid at all cost, for some reason.
But that's the _point_ and message both of the rite: to cooperate. To mutually understand. Gods know IRL needs it, and it's _the_ key to success even in the wild. I strongly encourage you to check out Veritasium's Game theory video if this still sounds weird to you.
Alpaca catching, taco cooking minigame, speed boat racing minigame, zipline island minigame. The list is endless. Such laziness from CBU3.
For me it was the train sequence, it was a cool cutscene but that could've easily been a shooting minigame. There were so many moments that could've been playable to break up the cutscenes so it doesn't feel like watching a movie for most of the expansion.
@hypnotic13371337 the alpaca catching could have easily at least been a shitty stealth section. The egregious omissions are the play re-enactment ala FFIX and the train cutscene leading to Vanguard. Otherwise I think the vast majority of people forget that mandatory minigames aren't usually that fun, especially on repeat playthroughs.
Yeah, for how much it was hyped up at Fanfest I was disappointed they didn't do more with it, but it wasn't something I was super looking forward to either so I'm not that mad
I truly hated how krile was treated in this expansion, ive personally always loved this character and was happy to see that square finally giving her some much needed screen time, shes in the background most of the time, you barely interact with her at all even as her freaking friend and ally, most any story or development krile has gotten is through OPTIONAL content eureka and the endwalker alliance raid, a lot of people dont know kriles story because of that, even in dt when she gets back to the place she was born she showed no real interest in it and if it wasnt for the wol pointing her parents out i kinda feel she wouldnt have sought them out herself. While she does get her moment it does feel like the writers have just kinda once again forgot about her (which theyve admitted theyve done before btw), hell even getting into the golden city she wasnt allowed to do on her own, she had to have someone else do it for her, im like come on let this girl have SOMETHING. Sorry for the tangent but if i had any expectations of this expansions it was with kriles character and they just didnt deliver on that.
I def agree that she should have gotten more dialogue and attention, at least it was a little better than previous expansions
Dawntrail's MSQ was entertaining enough but it felt quite sloppy in spots. Mamook feels like a *serious* missed opportunity for an interesting cultural conflict with the long standing worship of blessed siblings (also feels like we should've seen 1 or 2 more of those guys in general) that we just quickly and unceremoniously resolve with "just find appropriate crops for your weird land, here's a connection to Sharlayan that'll set you up, k thx bye." Seriously feels like there should've been way more to narratively explore here, especially with Bakool Ja Ja's dad who just folds like laundry the moment we present a potential solution. If the expansion was more about the Mamool Ja tribes in general, this could've been GREATLY expanded, maybe even becoming the main conflict instead of the stuff with Alexandria imo.
Also Krile got done dirty in this expansion. She barely has any story presence even though it's set up for her but she doesn't really get a proper moment to call her own other than meeting her birth parents and seeing where she came from which...eh...it's fine but was kinda just handed to her, she didn't have a real journey getting there. I like Wuk Lamat well enough but we could've cut down on some of her screen time to give Krile a proper section to take the reigns like Erenville got in Shaaloani.
I really missed the solo instances this time around. I feel like this would have been a great way to give the other Scions some time to shine too, especially during phases like the second attack. The cutscene with the dragons was amazing but it could have been awesome to maybe ge tsome interaction from Alphi's perspective, let us add in the fight. While I quite enjoyed just being a mentor, sometimes it did feel a bit strange how we just "watched". I'd rather have preferred then we'd have been in the team that wasn't there and we just arrived when it was too late, adding some tension.
oh man yeah that would be cool, getting to play as Alphinoud or Estinien would be hella cool and a great way to give the scions some cool moments
The scions should of not even been there. Have say yshtola away the entire time and estinien maybe shows up briefly but leaves. They shouldn't of just been dragged around doing nothing. If you arent using them dont gave them there, and if you want some around make sure it makes sense.
I totally agree with this. They were just shoehorned in and I didn’t care for that. It’s ok to sit them out. They added no value to the narrative. The twins could’ve been replaced with anyone.
Yeah this was really my #1 issue with the story. Obviously I can't say for sure but I feel like marketing may have gotten their hands into the writing a little too much here bc "we can't sell an expansion without the scions!!!"
Ngl this issue concerns me a little for future expansions. Like, it's going to become an even more glaring problem as time passes.
@Asin24 I think the main issue was actually with the trust system and duty support for their inclusion. Otherwise it would need to rework those systems
Ridiculous. When you have a massive aetheric disturbance you call on the foremost expert on aether. To do otherwise would be a plot hole.
They were there almost exclusively because of trusts. Ironically, Alisaie was the healer half of the time because Alphinaud was left behind to heal people offscreen and such.
It wasn't only the pressure from Bakool Ja Ja's people but his father as well. When they met for the first time in the rite, not only was he very dissapointed that Bakool tried and fail to take the other stones. But also immidiatly disowned him for his failings. There was no hesitation in his actions because that was how he was raised. He was never taught that his actions, might makes right mindset was harmful to others. Cause that's what he was raised to believe and do.
The WoL's group are kind of the first people to tell him that there is another way. If you tell a child their hole life that they should kick dogs and they start doing that are rewarded for doing it and starts kicking every dog. It's the failing of the parent not the child. The child has no frame of reference to know any better.
Bakool was born to win the rite of succession. Failing was not an option because that was what he was born and raised to do.
Good point, still feel like he made a 180 a bit too fast but this is explaines why he was so pure evil before
Also, I don't think it's ever mentioned how old Bakool Ja Ja is. It's quite possible, considering how difficult it is to produce a blessed siblings, that he's the youngest of the candidates. That he was trained to fight from as young as possible. He might be 15 for all I know. That would fit with him going to the skydeep cenote to cry.
And this all the more proves that he couldn’t have such a drastic change of character if he grew up in such a toxic environment, especially when the character is so young. I remember the words of Elidibus in 5.2 when he laughed at Scions propousel and said something like why on earth would he now try to become friends with them. This is a different situation, but still, being an absolutely disgusting character in the first part of the plot, he simply couldn't change so quickly just because someone who is not his mother was nice to him.
Bakool Ja Ja and Zarool Ja were meant to be mirrors of one another.
Both of them were born through extreme adversity; Blessed Brothers birth rate versus the actual existance of a child OF a Blessed sibling.
Both of them got immense expecation heaped on: Bakool because his people and parents pushing him. Zarool because of the way everyone looked up to him; the people of Tullyolal and his brother and sister.
Though both of them react differently to what is finally their failure of living up to the expectations they perceived to have to live up to. The first eventually pulls himself through, the other completely loses himself into the belief that he has to be BETTER than his father.
Look closely even at the end of his life.
- He sits on a throne that is a copy of the Tullyolan one.
- He has a son, because his dad has one, but he has no idea how to care for him. Or actually treats him the way he THINKS his dad treated him.
- His transformed form has a 'dead' second head. His hands still have a vestigial finger on the ends. His feet are kindof three-toed. He even has a growth on his back that looks like the feathered adornment of his dad.
Only when his life is at an end do his true feelings finally push through the delusion and self-loathing. But it's too late.
While Bakool Ja Ja eventually joined the Landsguard and will most likely be the Captain of it soon.
The father changing 180 makes the least sense. He's the butcher not Bakool Ja Ja. I would expect him to stick to his ways until death.
The English VA for Wuk sounds ok in normal conversations but sounds flat when called to do emotional scenes or heavens forbid....shouting and yelling.
When she screams it sounds like someone running their throat over a cheese grater. Their natural voice is struggling to hold the tone and breaks... often.
SPHEEEEEEEEEENE
Heard some people saying the same thing. I only really compared the two scenes I had in the video and a couple more
@@MrMiQT Yeah... this scene in specifical was so atrocious that I'm shocked that that's the take they went with in the finished release, like what the hell? I've heard some people saying that SE changed their localization team, and that seems to be the case as the direction for voice actors is of a relatively poor standard across the whole expansion, Like when you go to Shaaloani and everyone has a thick southern drawl until they don't. Some characters have it for ONE line and then drop it for the rest of the sentence within the exact same scene at times. it's just poor work and I hope we get the old localization team back.
Yeah that final trail got me going wut!!
17:26
I actually disagree with you here. Think about how powerful that memory still was for Otis all those centuries later. He's been ruminating on it the whole time.
Keep in mind that his endless self is actually a different person. Yet even being in essentially paradise the whole time, he was still paralyzed by it. And he had people to talk to. Goals to achieve. Robo Otis had nothing but regrets.
Conversely I completely agree with you on Zoraal Ja. Very good ethos on that guy. They always communicate power and assurance with his presence, his walk. But at the end, he staggers into the ring. And frankly, any actual tension as to whether he would completely lose there or not died. I knew he was a dead man.
True, I did mention that because Otis had that huge regret might have been the reason for him being so desperate to save the queen there.
@@Bricktor_what always confused me with Gulol and Zoraal Ja is that no one ever mentioned who their mother is or whas.
I think the issue with Wuk Lamat stealing the spotlight is more the way it was done, rather than the fact it was done. Had she been the central character and actually have done all the work, rather than us doing all the real work and her taking all the credit, it would have been less irritating (for me at least).
Zero reason for taking the spotlight. The game forced all the Scions to take on the fighting challenge. It cheapens Wuk's fighting ability and right to be king.
For me it's the writing in general, like, the scions for starters, why are they even there? They barely add aniything of value, the twins are incredibly plain and become non-characters for most of the game, and Krile, who was done the dirtiest, it's even BARELY about her, if someone needed the spotlight it was her. Some people say "Well, we had enough of the scions already", yeah... it doesn't change the fact that they ARE here after all and they are almost blank slates, compare them to how they were in Shadowbringers and EW, and no, I don't mean the high stakes, just the regular dialogue, what they have to say and the 1 on 1's, the scene with G'raha in DT stands out SO much because it feels like it's the only legit scene in the game where you interact with one of them.
@rickydargence5948 I agree, Krile should have given the spotlight. The moment we found the golden city and seen WOL flashbacks, I expected she would be the next focus. But no :(
The Graha moment was nice, wish we could had for the others
@@rickydargence5948 I still can't believe Y'shtola, the person who is actually reasearching for ways to visit other reflections, passed on the opportunity to visit one
Yeah, the whole point was the WoL become a sort of mentor/role model for Wuk (she even offer us a spot in her royal council), but the execution was atrocious.
One correction, Alexandria isn't the 12th reflection. The lalafell fled to Alexandria after the 5th calamity, and the lightning was after that. It feels like another failed rejoining like the 1st or 13th. It's unknown which reflection it is, but it still exists since we can even visit it in the final zone. That would not be possible if it ACTUALLY rejoined like during the second calamity.
I am not wholly educated on how the rejoinings work and what happens if they fail or not, but what you said makes sense if true. I just read off the wiki that the calamity of lightning happened in the 12th reflection so it made sense to assume Alexandria existed there.
One person in the comments mentioned the thing where time flows differently in other reflections so that might explain the weird order of events.
It could very well be 12th, since concept of time between each of the Reflections not stable and thats why Alexander was needed so much to people who inherited Ironworks to send G'raha into the First
Honestly the 9th or the 13th make the most sense because of how funny it would be. The night because of the Final Fantasy 9 references, and the 13th because the protagonist was named lightning
@@steakdriven Except we already know what happened to the 13th, it became the Void
The rate time flows can vary between shards, but order of events should still remain same. So if the Milala left from the ice calamity, they couldn't have arrived before the lightning calamity, unless the key can also do time travel.
But all other clues point to Alexandria being the remnants of the lightning calamity reflection.
I don't know what to make of this, but I assume this will be elaborated on in the patch content.
I'll summarise Dawntrail in two words:
Character Whiplash
The development happened too abruptly and if there's an explanation it was so off handed and they expected us to go "Yeah that makes sense".
This felt like a fanfic tier of writing. Sorry.
Absolutely, and one character was the love child of the writers and they did everything they could to force that characters in our face 24/7.
I would not be surprised if they give Wuk the Lyse treatment where they only pop up from time to time here on out. While I think the character is meh the only real annoying part about them are the people that demand you love her and try to harass you if you don’t.
Funny, I've been seeing the opposite of that.People who vehemently dislike wuk are way more louder and volatile online from what I've seen on these discussions. Not denying that some wuk defenders are cancer, but the negativity around her character has arguably been worse imo. If you liked dawntrail and wuk they immediately categorize you as a se boot licker with no taste in quality story telling. This expansion launch is reminding me why I stick to guides when it comes to FFXIV YT.
I think she's okay as a character. Her voice actress's performance (in English) wasn't stellar but it was also just okay. I'm leaning towards her not being the right woman for the job.
I think the biggest problem with her is, that she gets too much time at the cost of everyone else. Krile and the twins don't get to do anything because we always have to accompany Wuk Lamat. If they didn't push her in our faces all the time, she would have been much more tolerable even to people who dislike her.
@@LontEnCaras The twins have done plenty at this point in the story tbh, heck a good chunk of the previous expansion is focused on their family situation. So I wasn't bothered by that. I definitely wanted more Krile time, considering she was teased as a focal point for this expac in the post ew quests.
I don't get the need some people are wanting for more erenville though, he had shaaloni, solution nine, and living memory. 3 zones which is honestly more than a lot of side characters in this game get.
As a Y'shtola fan though, I'm getting tired of her being only present at near the end of base expansions or not at all lately aside from SHB and EW. Feels like she's been mostly relegated to post patch stories. It happened with HW, SB, and now DT.
@@Mexu-k9e It's true, that the twins had enough time in previous expansions, which is why I wasn't exactly thrilled to have them acompany us again. But they were there. And it doesn't make sense, that they barely talk or do anything, if they are there!
It makes sense for Estinien, since he isn't really with us, but instead is on his own journey. But the twins are with us. And it's just not like them to be in the background all the time.
Also fully agree with Y'shtola. She's trying to find a way to get into other shards for almost two expansions now, and when we finally have some sort of portal in another one she does... almost nothing. Shouldn't that have been a moment for her?
I agree with this review. I wish Erenville and Krile got more screen time and i wish Wuk Lamut American voice actress sounded as lively as the Japanese voice actress. There were just way too many her lines were so flat sounding.
Also different topic, your male
miqo'te is most original i seen
The Japanese voice acting has never failed me since ARR, the English acting has gotten way better since then but now im too used to hearing Japanese and I can't go back. Also thank you for the compliment 🙏😄
That’s why I play in jp voice
Wuk lamut is the first character who's English Va I didn't really like. Everyone else in the main cast as well the new ones sounded great to me.
But I will definitely do a new game plus to hear the Japanese voices, I especially like how Koana sounds in Japanese
@@aw685I play in german and saw a lot of Englisch cutscenes on TH-cam. Voiceacting is always a hit and miss in FF over all the games. And thats fine. Not everyone has a perfect voice. I dont like Japanese cause I always have a feeling as If I heared a lot of similar voices a hundred Times already.
@@pascalheinrich3990 that's fair
I agree with pretty much all of this. Imo the scions felt unnecessary since all they do is stand there as decoration in the cutscenes without adding anything to the larger narrative. I think you're right about the writers feeling like they HAD to add them, probably for marketing's sake. I was also kinda disappointed with how Krile was handled bc I feel like she should've had more focus. For Wuk Lamat, there are quite a few flaws with her writing, but I still think she's over hated. I think my main problem with her was that she's basically the establishment candidate that we're forced to side with just bc she's the main character even though I didn't have any investment in her motivations. Still, I think the story had a lot of good points too and the endgame content has been great, so I'm looking forward to what they do in the patches.
I thought Krile should have had a ton more focus, the Milala lore alone blew me away and I hope we hear more later.
I hope the patches are centered on that, we now have the device afterall
Story wise Dawntrail was a huge disappointment gameplay was still top tier. I was thinking of ways I would have altered the story to make it more interesting and revolve less around WL. I would first make change the whole dungeon ever odd level and add more dungeons that made sense.
First add a mini game to tame an alpaca as WL. Only makes sense.
Trader area maybe make it a bit more open ended and less hand holdy.
Birds were honestly super stupid not realizing that their big festival was actually magic. I got no clue how they don’t notice that when they had their festival.
First dungeon, sure fine whatever maybe replace one of the bosses with Urianger and Thancred to make it feel like more of a competition.
Moblins, make WL recruiting the goldsmith cause Bakool Ja Ja to kidnap WL and the gold smith. This leads to the finding who kidnapped her, have a metal gear Thancred stealth mission. Then a dungeon to go find Bakool Ja Ja and beat him at the end.
Hell’s Kitchen needed some sort of story mini game this section was just so boring it needed something.
Blue area totally fine but I’d suggest having WL realize that her simple mindset on just wanting peace wasn’t enough for a true leader and needed to be able to create plans and solutions to issues and just just want peace. She destroys her tablets and fights with her brother Koana to help defeat the shade of her father considering Koana overcame his issues with not respecting tradition and only wanting to bring tech to the world.
Koana becomes Dawn Servant and gets WL to become co-Dawnservant with him.
We go to Texas and maybe have a dungeon to find the bandit leader. We bring that MCH kid and some other folks, maybe our Dragoon friend for example? Before we leave dome shows up as usual.
We have a solo instance of the invasion ending in the palace seeing the Zoraal Ja vs Gabool Ja Ja. We intercept the revival and fight alongside the ex Dawn servant but ultimately fail to stop him. Make him seem strong.
Koana and WL decide they need to stay in the capital and help rebuild. WL says though once that is over she’ll join the scions to help kill her brother.
Go through the dome, everything goes as normal but with us actively hostile towards Sphene since we literally saw her and it is never brought up. We realize that WL’s mother is there and on death’s bed. She dies and everything proceeds as usual with people forgetting her and us trying to figure out why.
Solution nine same as normal, we hear about the impending raid on the capital and inform WL and Koana about the raid. We try and stop the invasion and ultimately fail to prevent the green light on the attack. Raid ensues as usual.
We tell Sphene during the assault to stay with the survivors since she wasn’t bringing anything to the table for combat and was a liability. We manage to convert Otis back to our side and he survives due to not dying in vane on Sphene who we all know is an endless.
After the whole invasion WL comes to S9 and we inform her of the situation including the thing with her mother. All the other scions meet back up in S9 and we have the invasion on the tower. Our group lead by WL as a frontal invasion force. Otis is also alive here too which could make for a cool duty support character. The rest of the scions sneaking in and assisting. Would make the scions all being there making sense instead of the whole “Oh the trial needs to happen shit.” We fight WL’s brother as normal.
Sphene retreats to LM and we go there as normal. Instead of Sphene pushing the doomsday machine button instantly she becomes more and more desperate harassing us with every terminal we disable. This gets rid of the major urgency issue that happens with knowing the world is about to be destroyed and we are just screwing around with dead people wasting time. With WL not seeing her mother die it makes their reunion more impactful since she wasn’t there for her death. After aero terminal Sphene pushes the button and the world fusion process begins. We continue as normal. Remove WL’s interruption or make it something more along the line of the Endsinger fight. The WoL defeats Sphene and WL and others are able to enter the area afterwards.
Expansion over.
I personally thought it was hilarious that Estinien was truly just there for shits and giggles and just falls into buddying up with leaders.😂
I was hoping for side quest(s) with Estinien
Yeah I do wish we saw him more
I was practically screaming at the game to let me be the WOL when Zaruul Ja killed his father. I was so mad. We could've stopped that
It honestly feel less like we are the world saving, gd killing vet WoL but the fresh green adventurer we were at the start of ARR, hell the plot makes more sense as an AU set during that era
That scene was beyond stupid. Have a room of capable fighters (also why was explorer roe there? So random). Then Lamat's dad is like nah, does the dumbass honor pride bullshit 1v1 nonsense most shounen anime crap. Instead just all gang up on zooraal ja, he auto-rezzes they see the device glow. Smash it and kill them again, there done. Instead they all watch 1v1 as her dad gets murdered, nobody intervenes at all. Why do anime/JRPGs do this shit? It's so frustrating as an awful writing trope.
I did like Wuk Lamat - but I don't think she has main character energy. She's more of a goofy sidekick. There was a time and place for the story to dump the sidekick schtick - and it didn't. She's naive, outspoken and clumsy to the point that Erenville feels like a babysitter at the start, and she's exactly the same at the end. I think they really did her dirty.
Thank you, reading this helped me figure out what my main issue with her was, I liked her character, fun and cute, but I would of preferred for the focus on her to lessen after she’s named dawnservant, a lot of my issues with her and dawntrail are similar to my issues with Lyse and stormblood.
I agree with no character growth. Wuk Lamat starts out just wanting everyone to be happy and ends with the same sentiment but still has no way to actually procure their happiness. She only won because the WoL did all the hard work and Koana gave up.
I disagree that she had no character growth - she did finally accept that if she is going to protect the peace, she is going to have to sometimes fight, even if it's merely in self defense. Talk-no-jutsu and coming together over Tasting History style lessons and meals can only get you so far.
I felt like this was one of the most fair reviews of the DT expansion! Loved the video and eagerly awaiting your thoughts on more to come!
First of all, love your catboy!
This may be the expansion with the most diverse opinions, I rarely see a community consensus on anything.
I agree with most of the points (happy that you mentioned Otis' death, I was really mad about it too) but there is a major disagreement.
I think none of the villains is well written, and that's a huge problem for me. As I couldn't understand the rationale of the villains' actions, I couldn't fully enjoy the part of the story that involved conflict with them, and that's pretty much all of the MSQ save Shaaloani. Bakool Ja Ja won't try the easy way first, he even made multiple moves that would possibly result in his disqualification, which is bizarre given how much he wanted to win. Zorrol Ja's objectives are inconsistent from start to finish, like do you want to educate your people about peace or not? If it's bad parenting or trauma, why not elaborate further? Sphene's villain arc is kinda forced and could be easily turned into a 'help find other ways to preserve the endless without killing everyone else', she even suggested that with Zorrol Ja!
I agree on the point with Bakool jaja and I agree that him and Zoraal ja needed some more explanation for their reasons. In my head, Zoraal ja, in the beginning was bent on conquest because he wanted to prove himself. And when that doesnt work out he becomed mad and does all the things he did until he goes too far and loses himself. But I was also confused where he got that idea from because he needed more explanation that was never given for that 😢 cuz I really liked him as a villain its a shame.
A good point there with Sphene trying to reason with Zoraal Ja but not with us. Interesting. I'm guessing she was just still delulu when she did that and later realized there was no other way
Yeah I do like Wuk Lamar, no real complaints…but when she did The Thing in The Fight I finally soured on her and said out loud ‘we fucking get it’
Exactly, she's fine alot of the time. But she's just so one dimensional it makes you roll your eyes.
Same my problem are the last trial scene and that she repeats herself a lot “I am Wuk Lamat the Vow of Resolve…” I think we heard that lines like 5 times or more on zone 5 and 6.
The writing definitely needed some improvement and localization direction too for the english VA. I love this game, so I am ready to see where this all leads up to.
I LOVED Zoraal Ja with both English and Japanese voices and though I personally would like they took different approach with his character, overall I enjoyed his story arc a lot! See, not gonna lie here, some of his moments in MSQ should be explored more but still I think he was a better villian then, say, Zenos back in Stormblood... And to be honest, I hope we uncover more of his story in future.
I wanted to know more of his back story, like why he felt such rage towards his siblings (and not just their speculation after the fact) and how he decided that in order to usher in peace he had to put the fear of war into his people. It would have given a bigger impact on how you (WoL) felt at the end.
@@annameme1834 Yeah, my thoughts exactly. What still bothers me is that why we were not allowed to communicate with him at all? I kinda understand they wanted to make his story the one which needs to be figured out by the players through other stuff and thus make it more personal for interpretation, but like that's not Dark Souls or Elden Ring, why writers couldn't just write down what they wanted through more dialogue as usual?
I really started to think at one point that Daisuke Ono was too expensive VA probably lol
Jp Zoraal Ja is basically Jotaro
I found Wuk to be fine doing the sucsession part of the story, and i enjoyed learning about the different people making up the country.
HOWEVER. I felt she overstayed her welcome in the second part of the story. I was all for visiting Erenville's village and do some old classic 'Heroing'. Then the flyingbiker nation attacked and Wuk was tossed back into the story taking the spot light from Krille and Erenville who barely had any story made for them (apart from Erenville being shown having changed his name). Also this would have been a nice place to give the Scions their time to show their expetice in saving the world, but no, we had to escort the MC (Wuk) around.
I felt Zoraal Ja was done dirty. i wish he had been the final boss of DT. there could have been so much more done with him and i didnt feel that he was given much time to be a villain. Also i partly expected him to be with Kiana and Wuk, perhaps learning a lesson doing the trials, but no, he's a homicidal lizard.
Sphene... i wish i liked her. i felt that she was rushed to be a baddie and her story was very 'meh' to me. She felt like the End singer combined with an Ascian as a villain, wanting to take the souls of those living outside of Alexandria, to keep Living Memory ''alive''.
Living Memory also felt like 'Ultima Thule' + 'Amaurot' light. It somewhat anoyed me that Wuk said we had to hurry (which i agreed on form a story perspective) but then we started being tourists in the zone...
Sorry for ranting. I wish i liked the DT story, but atleast the dungeons are fun. the difficulty is good and i'll be hoping that we get some more story about how they travel between worlds with their technology.
Same, I think she could have took a side seat a bit on the back half. I also thought Xak Tural was perfect for bringing back in more Thancrad, Urianger, Estinien, Raha, Shtola and Krile. Not sure if they were going for the vibe of friends who move away and barely talk to you anymore but it sure came off like suddenly they were just old work acquaintances...
We don’t exactly know that Alexandria is on the 12th. I thought this was the case too, but if it was indeed the 12th it would’ve been rejoined with the source, and we know it isn’t because we went to living memory, a physical location on that shard.
Also, the Milala escaped the calamity of ice, which was the fifth calamity, and ended up on the Alexandrian shard. The shard they escaped to being the 12th is impossible, since calamity of the 12th, the calamity of lightning, was the second calamity.
It's all so confusing
I believe they said that they managed to avoid rejoining by making the bubble. And so it would be the 12th but just a small fragment of it. I might be wrong on that though. The other thing is it is possible that there is some wibbly-wobbly-timey-whimey stuff going on that caused them to technically go back in time. But I feel like this will be extrapolated on later.
@Strider1321 while they don't say it outright, this is my belief. The bubble saved them from rejoining then they had 30 years to conduct a bridge once Alexandria landed. It can't be a whole shard on the other side, Living Memory is too small
There was other instances with Bakool Ja ja before it that hinted at other stuff going on, he always put a show on, but Thancred and a few other instances also mention that he had the opportunity to kill people/go harder on them, but always held back at the last moment or pulled away. Even with Wuk Lamat he had ample opportunity to kill her but never actually committed.
There is also the Duel with Wuk where he is on the ropes and the other Mamool ja are getting involved, he gets very upset about it and tells them to stop getting involved.
I think a big part that is missing in the undertone of all this is others peoples pressure during the rites. Be in Sareel ja, Zarool ja or his own flunkies pushing him in certain directions and having to keep the show up for them and maintain face. (And in Sareel ja's case its hinted that he was manipulating him)
I still wish he at least shown more Empathy on screen, but off screen interactions did quite a bit of hinting that he wasn't fully prepared to cross certain lines. His 180 did seem quick, but don't underestimate the power of peer pressure. His 180 came when the expectant people were away from him, every scene he's being a dick he had people breathing down his neck on screen. Having toxic people removed from the picture does often induce drastic changes in peoples personality.
The Interphos fight was what kinda killed me at the end. I was all vibed up after doing Alexandria and then I got into the fight and I was like FINALLY I GET TO BE AZEM DOING MY AZEM THING AND SAVING PEOPLE.
And then Wuk Lamat shows up. And I love her, by all means, but it felt it cheapened the fight SO MUCH while also left me going how this character, who I've BARELY seen any growth with for the entire story (as opposed to expansions worth for the Scions) was able to just unga bunga her way into an Azem level fight. It really dampened the mood for the final fight. She could have shown up afterwards, once we beat Sphene, and had the little heart to heart. They could have brought in some of Living Memories NPCs to appear next to Wuk Lamat while she did this. But like, please. Just leave the fight to us. You kept telling me SOOOOO much how you don't understand anything we're talking about. Souces, Shards, Reflections, Souls, etc. So leave the interdimensional robot slaying to us.
It didn't help that by the end of this arc, I was wishing Wuk Lamat to please, PLEASE stop trying to reason with the murder robot that wants to suck the Source dry of aether. Ya'll aren't going to see eye to eye, so please, just shut up.
Heritage, Solution 9, Living Memory. That should have been the time for the Scions to do their thing with Wuk Lamat somewhere in the background.
-----
I loved Dawntrail. Cried a bunch, laughed a bunch. It was worth it, but the ending just fell really REALLY short for me cause I had to suspend my disbelief that Wuk Lamat was somehow on par with the WOL & Scions for destiny defying situations.
I guess the whole idea bahind Wuk Lamat was that by the end she would be way stronger but they might have buffed her too much XD I also wish she didn't take over the Interphos that way, kinda ruined it for me
@@Bricktor_ Well, if it was with the help of the others it would have been fine. The whole message of Dawntrail is "do things together", yet for the Interphos Wuk Lamat does it all alone. But you don't see Krile or G'raha Tia helping her join the fight. Also it's a cheap reskin of Gaia coming to help Ryne.
I've often seen people compare Wuk Lamat with Lyse and I'll just say: Lyse from the beginning of 6.0 to the end of 6.0 is not the same Lyse. I can't say the same about Wuk Lamat.
My biggest problem is extremely small Wuk lamat's voice range.
She has a great voice and played happy and neutral scenes well but there's no emotion in more tense or sad situations.
I don't think the story was bad at all, in fact I think it beats ARR and Stormblood. The expectations set by previous expansions did people dirty imo.
Active content is peak and aside from not letting me pull the entire dungeon I have no complaints here.
My only gripe with Zoraal Ja is that his "peace by war" methodology was very rudimentary and didn't really have much reasoning. If we are to take the Naruto example for DT's journey, and take Pain's ideology and reasoning, you can see that Zoraal Ja's lacks a lot of substance. I would've loved to have Zoraal Ja's reasoning more fleshed out during his fight with the shade of Gulool Ja Ja or something like that. Having him be too stoic and silent was honestly a detriment to him as a character and I feel was the catalyst to holding him back.
I also agree that I wish they explined that better, it made me interested in him when I heard his motivation but my questions never got answered
I think Zoraal Ja's plan to make everyone sick of war was an excuse. It seemed obvious to me at the end it was justification to expand more than his father did. He wanted to be better than his father in every way, but it would be hard to convince everyone to go to war with the rest of the world without a "good" reason.
Wuk Lamat's fixation on smiles doesn't seem to make sense on first playthrough, but I feel that it is much more sensible in the context of the whole story and Sphene's obsession with her people's smiles. Without Sphene to compare to, Wuk Lamat just seems to be droning on about smiles out of context. That said, I would NOT be surprised if Wuk Lamat was a version of Sphene's soul from the source. They both make several allusions to the idea that they're almost eerily similar in goals and demeanor. In a work that makes blatant references to alternate reflections of the same people, it makes perfect sense in the story.
That is a really interesting theory
Yeah, I also feel like Sphene and Wuk Lamat are two shards of the same person, someway Wol/Ardbert coded
i actually prefer the english VA even though it has its weakness bc they kinda try to atleast give each region its own accent which makes it easier to immerse instead of having everyone sound like a normal anime va japanese person
That is one thing that is a shame about the Japanese voice acting, there are some variations in dialecs and accents but when all the VA's are Japanese there is only that much variety that you can do xd
Crazy, I agree 100% with everything. I wasn’t sure how to articulate my opinion on Wuk Lamat since I felt as if I liked her character but she had small issues that my brain couldn’t quite register. Excellent video.
Yeah I had to think on it myself for a while, after doing the story the first time I also didn't know what it was
I loved the last third of the expansion. Ive always been a big fan of Final Fantasy 9, and stepping into Heritage Found to see ~the Ilfa Tree~ Everkeep was astounding.
But taken as a whole, it feels, shoehorned in. I liked meeting all the new people, and that could have easily been written out to be an entire expansion in and of itself - and, perhaps, should have been?
As cool as Zoraal Ja-as-Kuja was, nothing about the story would have been that hard to reframe to let him stay the 98 trial, with Gulool Ja Ja as the 100 and the True Final Test. Then Zoraal Ja can come back with Sphene and lead to a lot more breathing room for everyone.
One thing people keep mentioning is the expectation that the Shard that Alexandria is from had been part of a rejoining - I dont think thats the case. I think it is straight up the Ninth shard (not just because its ff9, but not not that), and the gates and overlaying abilities Preservation was able to figure out was what let Sphene drop the Tower and Terra all over the citizens of Yak Tal.
The lowest point for me was Fantasy Texas, personally, although I dont like Westerns all that much, and it didnt feel like it had anything to really say about the people who lived there, when we know there are a handful of other neat cultures, and they could have played up the settled/nomad schism a lot of communities end up getting. Missed opportunities.
I agree with the most of what you said.
The thing that i could add, is that the nature of msq in the living memory felt a bit slow. I get what was intended from the team, but i feel like it was not a wise decision to slow down the "hype" just before the finale.
Also too much following "stealth" quests. I didn't like them that much
There is an explanation to Bakool's behaviour. He legit lived his life thinking he was the one, he was the best. His father cultivated this behaviour and pandered to him to be like this. It was an all or nothing for him and he was of the same mindset as Zoraal Ja's... Moreover, the moment he changes it is because he was faced with his own shame and the shame of his people. I get it is at a breakneck pace but it's not out of nowhere. There was build up with his father yelling at him and the reminder of the millions of siblings that were sacrificed for him to live... It was there. It was explained
I get why he needed to win it so badly and that he was raised to think that he was better than everyone. But still feel like they went way too hard on making him as evil as possible. doing things that should have gotten him disqualified when he needed to win so badly.
@@Bricktor_ I mean... Bakool serves as a narrative foil for Zoraal lmao. The only reason anyone got disqualified (Zoraal Ja was self serving until the end, and even if he got disqualified, he still got to go on his merry mword spree) was because Bakool's father wanted to prove his own point. The point of "well it was too fast" doesn't work when everything has been explained and shown in completion, and the "well they made him evil!!" Doesn't work because he had a reason to be evil and, in equal parts, serve as a narrative bridge (Skydeep Cenote wouldn't have opened without him) and a narrative foil for Zoraal Ja. Should have he been disqualified? Maybe. Would the story have ended up in Alexandria as soon as he had been disqualified? Nope. We wouldn't even have the option to go and see the endless. Or are we complaining about Emet-Selch who *also* did horrible things and should have been kept under the rug and not brought back as Hades to, again, further up the narrative?
Literally every single main NPC that carries story has had some sort of plot point for narrative purposes...
@@Astorhorns Maybe you're right. If I had a chance to remake the video I would definately reword some parts of the script because there were many things I wasn't aware of. Don't get me wrong I think Bakool jaja was an interesting villain I just dont agree with some actions he made before we learned more about him. Like when he released valigarmanda he didn't seem to care if thousands would die, including children. But later he also says that he doesn't want any more children to die for the purpose of birthing blessed twins. So he only cares about mamool children?? It might have been necessary to further the narrative, sure. But they could have shown him at least attempting the feat normally, then somehow failing and THEN being forced to release her because he was so desperate.
@@Bricktor_ Again, he was taught not to care about anyone else but himself. He was supposed to be top dog, ergo, no one else/nothing else matters. It is 1:1 to his character and his actions were never exaggerated. He released valigarmanda to slow/m*rder the other contestants and, perhaps very naively, slay Valigarmanda himself to take other ppls stones.
You don't need to agree, imo. But Bakool's narrative is incredibly streamlined and very emotionally driven, which is something I think your opinion/analysis of Dawntrail casts aside way too much. (IE: your complaint about Otis' end and a couple more).
I don't mean that as a dig or me being snarky/mean, btw. It was something that surprised me.
Also, another short critic: we were never the main character in this expac. Wuk Lamat was. She didn't do a "talk no jutsu", she didn't cut out with an inspiring speech just to get Sphene to turn. She ultimately helped us disconnect it. Just like Emet helped us in SoS, just like the Scions helped us with the Endsinger... I could grab so, oh so many parallels from previous expansions that it isn't even funny. She helped us defeat it. Yes, we are the warrior of light... But you're a stranger in a strange land. People can tell that you are strong, but they don't know you... Have you ever thought about why every calamity that affected eorzea has not affected any other continent? (Aka, Tural has no Abominations.) Wild to see how many people are having so many people are having issues grasping this concept.
The fight is about 15-20 minutes long. 18 minutes is the wol fighting and about 30 seconds is the duration of Wuk Lamat's cutscene...
I said short but I over extended myself.
@@Astorhorns Thank you for your comments, this is my first time doing a review of sorts and you've definately changed my opinion on some things even though I might not 100% agree with everything you said. These were my thoughts after going through the story once and there were clearly a lot of things I missed that I have now had a chance to rethink on.
The worst line of wuk lamat in english is by far the one where she calla to sphene during the interphos, she sounds so casual that her dialogue box has more emotion put into the lines
I felt it was after you finished MSQ (so spoilers)
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When Wuk Lamat shows up at the Inn Room and nonchalantly talks about how tired she's been with getting the city back in order and her attending father's funeral (I can't remember the actual wording but I was just shocked by how unemotional she was when mentioning the funeral). I would liked to have my WoL attend the funeral and I was probably more emotional about his loss than WL was. Whether is was just bad VA (english), bad directing or both, I bothered me.
@@annameme1834after getting through the MSQ, everyone feels off. I don't know who was the voice director for this expansion, but they really fumbled it. I had to go listen to some of the actors previous cutscenes because I felt like I was going crazy.
@@annameme1834 I disagree. It's days later by this point: she's been busy and is finally getting a chance to relax. You'd be amazed how well people can pick themselves up and get on with life after a traumatic experience like that, especially if they're rushed off their feet afterwards. She's probably talked about the funeral a million times by this point.
I can see why people say they found it boring. I found it perfectly fine, but that is because I went into the expansion with the expectation that it was gonna be kinda boring. Beginnings of new stories usually are. There aren't many reveals or relatable characters you have known (or that have had a connection to the story) for years. People just went into it expecting to be hit with something on the level of endwalker, which was obviously not what we were gonna get. Be patient and wait for the new story arc to grow. This is like ARR. A boring, but important beginning.
I can't say I agree with people comparing this to ARR as the foundation they have build with the Zodiark Hydellin saga is still there for them to work with. But I also went into this with a positive and patient mindset that really helped me see things in a better light and yeah expecting something on the level of Endwalker is not a realistic expectation to have, true.
I don't believe people were expecting an epic saga comparable to Shadowbringer/Endwalker. The problem was this was a mediocre at best story with bad execution. Expecting the foundation of a new story to be boring is a bad mindset. This is a full release expansion and players shouldn't have to rely on two more years of patches to make up for it. Dawntrail is like what, 30-40 hours long? That's the first four seasons of Game of Thrones. That is more than enough time to have a fleshed out story contained in the expansion that also plants seeds for future adventures. Dawntrail had a concept with a lot of potential but really was badly carried out.
Most people who did not enjoy the story did so not because they expected another Endwalker. Everyone was clear from the start that this was going to be slow. People have problems with the blatantly bad writing that seem obvious to them. One of the more commonly cited reasons is how Erenville was treated by the writer concerning the death of his mom. People who recently lost loved ones found it to be incredibly insulting that no time was given to Erenville to process the loss and Clearly-not-a-self-insert was focused on again instead.
@@Bricktor_tru but starting with Action without Settings a foundation gets us only A FF13 experience where you constantly asking what is going on and who is who. Tural is a complete new Continent most of the characters know shit about
@@inekd Yea and we are like 10 minutes in now. Is the stuff that happened in the first 10 minutes of the movie THAT epic? No. We are not even 5% into the next story arc.
Yes dude! That transition music just as p2 starts is soooooooooo gooood! :D
To me Dawntrail felt like a Prologue the actual first chapter of the storyline! I think we will get the real storyline in November hopefully! I ended up liking the story in the end! I want the full story of the people of the Source teleporting to another Shard with the Key Artifact! To me the people of the Source teleported through space/time to the 12th Shard during the Lightening Calamity! Then Sphene used the Key & teleported to the Source in the current timeline for us! I also want the storyline of how we Azem are connected to the Key! I think Ancient Azem before the Sundering could travel to other dimensions with the Key, but we will see! Sphene will be back because her Crown activated in the credits! Hopefully the Endless ended up going into the Lifestream! Great vid, keep up the good work! Liked & Subbed!!!
The Living Memory can be restored through NG+. Just select something like Heavensward or Shadowbringers and it will be back to its usual happy self.
I love this trick so much(i wanna try and see if I can restore lights in SB zones), sadly you can't do the sidequests while in NG+, so it's still a shame for us who leave the sidequest till the last.
That's pretty smart! What I REALLY want is a canon way to restore it though
Weird cause I keep seeing constant glowing lights
@@Bricktor_this is something that is very annoying to me as well, if we are gonna be doing stuff in this zone for 2 years+ I want it pretty again 🥲
@@Bricktor_ While it would kind of ruin the message of Living Memory as well as the liminal space and haunting beauty of its emptiness, I do agree that we need to find a way to bring it all back.
ff14 community: we're sick of the scions, we want other characters
Also ff14 community: where are the scions?? we want more scions!
I'm one of the people that wants more Scions hehe
Honestly, more characters that make sense in the setting is what I want personally. If we have to bench like half the scions for that - I dont care anymore. Its better then just dragging them around for 0 reason.
Great video. I agree with almost every point you made. I really do wish the Scions had a larger role; their time was so brief and many of their lines felt...off to me. It reminded me of Leonard Nimoy explaining why he didn't want to participate in Star Trek: Generations:
"There was a character called Spock who had a dozen lines you could easily assign to anyone else, which they did."
The Scions popped up, said a few words that didn't really feel like they were in-character, and then disappeared. Oh well...they'll be back.
My favorite bit of "subtle hints" in the MSQ was when Sphene described her first encounter with Zoraal Ja and their relationship and I thought "Wait, that's not how it went..."
The English voice actor for Wuk Lamat isn't terrible. She's actually quite good when just talking in normal conversation. It's when she's required to do anything emotional that you begin to see the issue
I've been told the same as well, hopefully she is able to improve those parts about her acting in the future
@@Bricktor_ or she'll be shoved into the far background and forgotten like Lyse 😅
11:04 The way I process this is to treat the story more like a stage play. While this make the story as a whole has some little mismatch in style, it in fact explain and makes a lot of weird cut scences way more sensical. It's pretty typical for East Asian country to have more Stage Play *Director* than actual Film Directors.
A fair point, I guess it was also neseccary for him to die for narrative purposes
If taken in a vacuum, the story is honestly good. The main problem is that Wuks VA is painfully amateur-ish. Her line deliveries gives the player no idea how the scene is to be taken. I recently saw a TH-cam video, with very few views, comparing all of Wuks languages from the llama spit scene. Color me surprised to see how much the non english VAs give a wonderful performance. I plan to do a 2nd run of DT after I lvl up my jobs to see how I would feel if the English VA did a good job.
I'm definitely glad I played the JP voices
I find the part where Wuk Lamat popped in at the end was jarring, but I preferred it. This expansion feels way more like we and the scions are more mentors to help guide the next generation, NOT be the center of attention. We've been that for a decade now. So it makes more sense for us to pass the torch (metaphorically speaking) to the new kids on the block.
I genuinely prefer that we are more of a mentor role. All throughout the questing, you HEAR the other characters talk about how they can tell, just by looking at us, "Yeah, YOU are strong". Which is something that wasn't happening before. I expect that some time soon, we'll go back to being our stereotypical central protagonist selves, but I prefer that the game is essentially saying, "You've done it all. You're not what's most important in the story right now."
Honestly I've played till the end I didn't expect to be the centre of attention. I didn't expect to be Wuk Lamat babysitter too.
I expected that we and the Scions are on an adventure competing to find the Golden City. Meeting new people and helping others. As it were in ARR.
I genuinely don't like the bait and switch that is going on.
I generally didn't mind that as well, from a lore perspective it also makes sense. Just didn't like it happening during the last fight cuz I barely got any cool moments in the story until that point and then that one got taken away from me as well. But I enjoyed going along for the new adventures and being the mentor figure for Wuk Lamat. Just think some things could have gone differently is all
So...I thought Daisuke Ono voiced Zereek Ja too, and I clip the end credit after I finished the MSQ to find out if it really was him.
And it turns out to be Kenji Hamada's work. But he still did a great job anyway.
Maybe this is just my bias against Wuk Lamat speaking but the whole story (with its potential and failed execution) was only interesting to me when we explored the new world and its lore/people without the rite stuff. Or let's say I enjoyed everyone's story Arc (yes even Zoraal Ja's) except Wuk Lamats...cus it was literally non-existent. She started the story with an inferiorty complex and after 1-2 talks she became an invinceable Mary Sue, yeah no thank you.
I love every side character tho (I can't even believe I say this but Bakool Ja Ja became one of my fav sat the end xD) But I do have to correct you on one part: It is shown at least once or twice how desperate Bakool Ja Ja is to win....I would have to check for myself.
And I am a bit salty cus the story had such big potential with Alexandria...it was like free on a silver platter but they decided to make a shit show out of it...i was so sad.
I mean I do understand it can't be the "next Endwalker" but this? But vexes me most is that I enjoyed everything else immensely. They stepped up their Dungeon/Trial game so hard, I was in awe everytime! And the music never disappoints, I love you Soken!
So after the Coronation Gulool Ja Ja says that there is a reason they cant open the gate at this moment and then got the new Dawnservants in private to give them the secret, but as we are not them or close neough to be let into this - we are free of our duty and can go explore aka be a normal adventurer so the "Intermission" as I call it, to Shaaloani actually made a lot of sense to me. And it fit into one of the reasons why I hated DT so much = We do not matter. We could not be in DT and nothing in the story would change. Thats why I loved my solo adventure with Erenville so much, I got to do what I wanted to do...even if just for one map before it became the Wul Lamat Show again lol.
Thats interesting I only found that one time with Bakool Ja Ja, but if there was another it completely went past me. And it also went past me that we got told a reason that the door couldn't be opened at that time but I still feel like Shaaloani needed more meaning behind it other that, hey Erenville is going there as well so might as well atick along and do adventure.
@@Bricktor_ I might have to go through all Bakool Ja Ja scenes but there are some xD And about the gate its right when we find it and Gulool Ja Ja appears behind us to gratualte he literally says "We currently cant open it" and then tells the Dawnservant (and on request Krile) in private the story about the two lala coming through after the gate appears out of thin air. And I suspect its because they had no fking clue how to open it. They gave them the baby and a weird looking relic, without explaination and then vanished...I would be weirded out if they knew how to open it.
I personally thought Shaaloani was fine especially because it was a simple adventure questline - what made it weird/lacking was the fact that it was heartlessly pushed between such two big action packed storylines. If the Alxeandria Arc would have happened more subtle and slow, the transition from Texas to high tech wouldnt have been so weird.
And no to be fair that was the whole reason. Remember, we arent the hero who saves the star anymore, we are a simple adventurer that has the chance to explore a mostly unexplored continent - the WoL would be stupid to go like "Nah i like it here, go alone" especially how often its mentioned (from ARR to EW) how curious and adventure hungry the WoL is supposed to be.
@@YvaiatheDemon Yeah that's it. I had no qualms about the actual story that was going on there just the timing of it was weird because of what you said. Honestly reading these comment I've discovered some points that I could have changed in the video but oh well, too late now. But it's very fun to discuss the story.
@@Bricktor_ It was a good Video and mostly I agree, just small things I disagree with :D Also it sounds fun hearing them in japanese as I myself played in english. And while I didnt hate Wuk Lamats english voice there were some parts that were really hard to listen to.
That our presence does not Matter is a Bit wrong. Without us helping Wuk and Koana no one whould become Dawnservant. They all would have failed at least one or 2 of the Trials. Zoraal at the Last one Bakool definetly the Yok Huy related ones cause freeing Valigarmanda destroyed the Seal Trial kinda. And Koana would not been able to defeat Gulool Ja Jas Phantom. Wuk would definetly fail the most especially in everything where she needs her brain a Bit more then usual. As Gulool Ja Ja sayed he would then just stay as king till he dies. Zoraal would then doing his shenanigans as usual and atacking Tulliyollal and killing his father. But now they Lack any Ruler and fall apart in despair. They would been harvested by Alexandria for the Endless needs of Souls and only encounter resistence when heading to Eorzea. I mean the second fight of Tural only went smooth especially because of Vtra and they only got him cause Alphinaud and the Scions asked him in Koanas Name.
Just how mucht time and effort did you put in this video holy shit, its so good
Prolly a good 48h of work, hope u like it😂
I like probably everything except... the first part of area 4, the wild west area. It was such a shift into a slowed pace, it felt very tropey, and out of place, until you have to run back to town.
Really good video, thanks. I think this is the fairest review I've seen so far. Subscribed.
Happy to hear that!
I heard since endwalker that the jp voice acting is so much better, but I still play it on my main in english. I created an alt character where I play the story again with jp vo, but am still in heavensward with that character. thanks for the examples and comparisons of the jp voice acting.
Besides Krile and Erenvile getting less time, Wuk Lamat's screen time was fine imo. The WoL at this point of the MSQ has unironically peaked in their story that having something like EW levels of focus wouldve been to much. If anything the entire dynamic between them and Wuk Lamat as a mentoring companion figure that makes the role of the WoL and the relationship with Wuk Lamat better.
i realy hope that the patch contend is again more the story of the wol since the 2 dawnservent surely has other things to do , and we have the literal key to the other worlds in our hand (and it showed a particular symbol)
They did the same with the apartments in the Chrystarium. Although at least one of them had people living in it, so it felt weird to hang out lol.
I doubt Unlost is 12 shard
Because all that dome-barrier thing, electropes and all that high-tech stuff started due to Lalafells that migrated from Source after 5 umbral calamity
While Lightning one was 2nd
Yes time flows strangely, but it shouldn't be backwards, i swear if it would be time shenanigans again...
It's either time shenanigans or the wiki is wrong XD
Oh boy they write it in wiki
Even tho in game was stated that we travel to Sphene world
People hear "calamity" and instantly think that if something bears that name it's nothing else than rejoining...
I feel like a couple of cutscenes could have just been duties or mini games. Gosh, the fake duel was originally a mini game in ff9!
The story pacing in this expansion sucks, and Wuk is insufferable
Dawntrail msq 3/10
I read Zoraal Ja as someone who had war trauma. As someone who had been to war and seen how horrible it was. When the people come up to him as they all four exit after talking to Gulool Ja Ja Zoraal Ja won't even talk to them, sending his servant instead. This can absolutely be read as arrogance, but it can also be read as him having so much contempt for these people that wants to go to war and expand. They haven't seen war themselves and they just want the spoils. Zoraal Ja wants to teach people of the horrors of war. I think he was probably fine until he himself went to war and changed so much his siblings couldn't even recognize him. This is my take. I wish they had spent a little time clarifying this or any other expalination. They had time to do plenty of "What we've learned so far" in the story, so they could have spent a bit more time flushing out Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja, so they were't so two dimentional and throw-away villany.
Lyse had way more development the Wuk. The issue with Wuk is she learns something then 5 minutes later it's like she never learned a lesson to begin with. Its just undone and in the end she is virtually the same minus she can fight.
I mean if when people start comparing her to a character that people already don't like, it doesn't look good for wuk lamat... even if she wins the comparison, she is still near the level to be compared to her in the first place.
I wonder if we'll never see / hear from her again like Lyse or Hien. Seems like to become a leader is to out grow the WoL's companionship
One thing I really like about FFXIV is that the characters in the world, at least the ones we can interact with, are just absolutely okay and accepting adoption as a normal thing people do.
“Oh you’re Raubhan’s adopted son? That’s dope I didn’t know he was a dad! Your dad’s a cool dude!”
“Oh you’re the third promise? Gulool Ja Ja adopted you? That’s amazing, I need no further clarification, you are his children.”
“Oh hey Galuf, who’s that? Your granddaughter? She’s adorable!”
My mom’s adopted. And I’ve seen and experienced myself firsthand what the opposite of this sentiment is.
Alexandria can't be on the 12th reflection because the 12th reflection was rejoined with the source every person living there died
It's interesting to hear your thoughts.
After the intro to Turiyollal - and me exploring there for like 2 hours - I chose to go to Komaku'uka. And by the Gods, was it a drag. I'm a very patient player. I've gone through ARR 4 times; HW 3 times and Endwalker 2 times, talking to every relevant NPC in between every MSQ step. And I mean _every_ in both cases. By the end of Komaku'uka, I felt like skipping the MSQ. Luckily, Urqopacha picked things back up for me, but I'd never felt this way before.
The rite itself was something I seriously couldn't care less for. I groaned audibly when it was 7-parts in total. It wasn't until we talked to Gugool Ja Ja and his take on the 'candidates' that it started to make sense and I could get along with it a lot better. It also makes sense to me that it wasn't an actual competition vs the other scions. That wasn't the _point_ of the rite, for one. Having recently watched Veritasium's video on Game Theory, it made a lot of sense that they played out the rite as they did, and I appreciate it for it. I strongly encourage you watch the video.
Once the rite was over, Shaaloani was a _breathe of fresh air to me._ I felt like the MSQ was _finally_ starting. With something small and typical like the stand-off in that little town leading to some grander adventure, perhaps. I loved travelling with Erenville and just taking in the sights. The BGM did an excellent job in setting the vibe there, too. I also really wish we'd spend more time with the tribe up north, I really digged their culture.
What happened with the dome spawning and Turiyollal being bombarded completely came out of left field. It only made sense once Zoraal Ja entered the scene. Pretty much everything after was - yes - excellently crafted, but whiplash after whiplash emotionally. I felt physical pain when they described what the regulators were and the final zone was just not for me. It explored my deepest fear. And while I'm appreciative of learning more about it, I was _not_ in the mood for it, especially after the emotional Dempsey Roll of Endwalker.
Interphos... oh man. This was my fasted and biggest disconnect from anything I'd experienced since Tokyo Ghoul Season 2. It made no sense to me. It held no place where it did. It completely fell flat for me. I went to do my Island Sanctuary as soon as it unlocked, then dragged my sorry ass out of the mental place I was in to just got it over with. I'd rate the music for the Zoraal Ja trial better, but the music in Interphos was okay enough. The arena visuals were impressive to me, but that's about all the praise I can give it. It was not Sphene. It was some mindless, destruction-thirsty atrocity that somehow became a threat to all existence. Come on, we just had the Endsinger, there was no reason to bring this up. It didn't work for me.
All in all, my _biggest_ gripe with the expansion is that ALL the tribes felt far too _human._ Hell, even World of Warcraft does tribes better, like the savage yet honorable orcs. Every. Single. Tribe was far too human, bar maybe the Hanu? I felt like that was an immensely missed opportunity, for understanding people while being decidedly _non_ human has a far bigger impact.
The expansion had its good points. Excellent ones, even. But I struggle to recall them, overshadowed as they are by the (negative) emotional jerking around it did.
I like your take on Shaaloani, that's for sure one way to look at it more positively. And I did enjoy the zone and the story, I just couldn't stop thinking about the golden city the whole time we were there and how I wanted to go figure that out.
In my case I really enjoyed the emotional rollercoaster that the second half of the story is. And I loved living memory and all the trauma it gave me. Understandable that it must have been hard for you.
I will check out the video you mentioned and see what it's all about, thanks for telling me about it
👍
I just came for the thumbnail the tabby as wuklamat made my day lol
I mostly agree with your points.
I think Bakool Ja Ja was masterfully written to make us hate him, then turned around to being a lovable character. And watching back the tells were there.
Zoraal Ja confused me during my playthrough because I was expecting him to get the FF14 sumpathetic villain treatment, but after looking at it outside the lens of my expectations, he makes for a good irredeemable villain.
The Gulool Ja Ja fight I was ok with, he won the fight so there was no reason to interfere (as asked). And then suddenly Zoraal Ja comes back and strikes him down before anyone can react (though for storytelling reasons it plays slower in the scene).
Trial 3 moment also grinded my gears, definitely screamed "Not Now Wuk Lamat!" when that happened! She was a decent protagonist over the rest of the story.
Really liked DT overall, excited to see what the shard non-sense turns to in the patch content.
Personally what I wished for was that we as the WoL got to spend more time with the candidates and not just Wuk Lamat. We learn a lot about Koana and a bit of Bakool Ja Ja but Zoraal Ja is basically non existent besides krile every now and then saying "wow hes so evil" with her echo powers. I would have loved if we had gotten personal time with the 4 of them to actually learn more about them, maybe we're asked by the dad to tag along with each of them for one of the trials so that we can give him our opinion.
But its just the fact that its set up that we are going with Wuk Lamat and we know shes gonna win it just really felt like a missed opportunity.
Also why were the scions even involved in it? After the first dungeon Urianger and Thancred go from friendly competition to basically just being our second party. It would have been cool if they were bosses in a dungeon or a solo instance or something just put them to better use besides closing off a tunnel.
The thing about Bakool Ja Ja bringing the mamoolja to Tuliyollal... is that most of them are already there! Going there was always an option, and the holdouts in Mamook are just making themselves miserable for no good reason, so I find it kinda hard to sympathize with their plight. As for English voices, Sena Bryer is fine, some people are just mean. :P
Wuk lamat and zarool ja should have team up on the cooking rite, that way they could flesh out more of back story or understanding of his character.
I would have really loved to see that
The zoraal-ja theme always makes me tear up ToT
Zuraal Ja had the exact same expectations as Bakool Ja Ja had weighting on his shoulders.
Dude was the only biological son of the legendary figure, born out of a miracle as the two headed guys usually cannot reproduce, and was also a prodigy in fighting from an early age.
Too many expectations kinda broke the man.
So I also initially thought that Alexandria came from the Twelfth (because of Lightning/Levin, i.e. the Second Umbral Calamity), but it's stated that the Lalafells came to Alexandria during the Fifth Calamity (Ice) which happens much later. It's possible that their dimensional gate also crosses times (or that the time flow was different enough that they could somehow leave during the Fifth Calamity and arrive in Alexandria *before* the Second Calamity), since we have precedent with the Crystarium, but it's hard to say.
My complaint with Zoraal Ja was that we kinda needed a "snap" scene. Just a short scene before stealing the tablets, to establish that he's thrown away pride and everything. Other than that, yeah, cool villain, and excellently juxtaposed to Bakool ja ja. Just missing that one cherry on top, imo.
What Timestamps?
I changed my mind on the timestamp idea because people could have been easily spoiled by hovering over them, there was also a pop-up on screen about that, sorry for any confusion
Ishikawa is the only writer so far that has managed to successfully bring in the scions and not sideline them because it was convinient to not have them there or because they didn't know what to do with them. It's one of my biggest writing pet peeves when the story only functions because a resource (here a scion) is conviniently missing, who would otherwise have done or said something to solve the issue much faster.
I hate to be that person, but I very much disagree with the wiki on the world Alexandria came from having participated in a lightening-based umbral calamity (remember that the wikis are written by ordinary people, and ordinary people can be wrong). When an umbral calamity happens, the reflection is absorbed wholesale into the Source. There would be no reflection world, there would be no Alexandria, there would be no any of it. The whole world would have been rejoined. Alexandria did not have the ability to fuse or hop dimensions at the time. All of that would happen later. Moreover, when Living Memory is liberated, we just see an ordinary sunrise, very much pointing out that that entire world was not consumed by lightning. I suspect what happened was very local to Alexandria (and other places where civilization exists, but not the entire world), and they just didn't want to let Alexandria go. So to sum up, the reflection Alexandria came from was not involved in an umbral calamity, because it still exists. If it was, it very simply wouldn't exist.
I think dawntrail's story had moments where it was fine at best, but overall it's been a massive disappointment to me. Not being the main character hurt my investment a lot, especially since I can't stand Wuk Lamat. The real problems though, are plentiful:
- That every main character's motivations are just so wafer thin. Wuk Lamat wants everybody to be happy, Koana wants to bring Tuliyollal forward with tech, Zoraal Ja wants war for... some reason? Cause he's a baddie? Sphene wants to save her people at the cost of another's. I could list more but you get the idea. There's a severe lack of depth here that previous expansions had in abundance. Some of these could have worked, if given more time.
- That no one who performs heinous crimes gets any kind of pushback or punishment for it. Sometimes you just need a villain to be stopped, but even after death threats, theft, extortion, attempted genocide and infanticide on an abysmal scale, Wuk Lamat either gets to, or wants to, forgive EVERYBODY. She even tells some of them that "your crimes cannot go unpunished" and then they do. You can do these things, but make those characters earn it! Lady Iceheart and Fordola are excellent examples of character who did terrible things but were redeemed.
- It's very obvious that the new writing team tried to pick some ideas from previous expansions and rehash them here. Seeing Emet Selch's reconstituted version of Amaurot worked so well because we spent 8 years learning about his culture, firstly most of the bad, but some of the good along the way as well, and it hit like a truck to see, finally, what his world was like, and what he remembered from it after longing for it for 10000 years. Virtual Amusement Park City felt like an incredibly cheap knockoff, with some painfully obvious "cry here, audience" moments tacked on which felt so out of place there that is was cringeworthy. That whole zone had no idea what tone it wanted to go for. It flip-flopped between goofy, sad, quirky and melancholic on a dime.
- The gameplay for this game hasn't changed in... well, ever. Dawntrail was such a great opportunity to add more ways to actually play in the story part of the game, but never goes beyond rehashed ancient concepts and ideas of: point the cursor to the correct spot and click, follow a guy without being noticed, walk, talk. This has been pretty much the setup for 10 years now, and this being an expansion with a vastly inferior story to anything that came before makes it painfully clear that FF14 hasn't innovated since ARR.
- The pacing and lack of stakes for about half the story were incredibly offputting, almost as much as when they did try to bring in some of the grim realities of the new world, only to follow them up with either goofy or tedious unimportant quests minutes later.
- There was a complete lack of mystery. At times it was there, but then gets explained ad nauseam at most 2 hours after you start wondering what on earth is going on. The zone in the barrier is the best example where my inner detective really perked up for a bit. Why is everyone so happy here? What on earth is the deal with Sphene unable to tell us certain things? How did everyone instantly forget a person after they've died? And then they explain it, in detail, just an hour or 2 later... why? Tell, don't show is NOT how you make an engaging story, and FF14 has proven to be capable of making engaging stories for a decade now. Very strange that suddenly they seem to be unable to.
All in all DT had some moments. The dungeons, trials and solo duties were all great, as ever (especially Gulool Ja Ja's solo duty! Amazing fight!) but it drops the ball on so many occasions that in terms of the msq section of the expansion, best I can score it is a 4/10.
DAMNIT!! I should have played in Japanese. Changing this now. 😂
lmao!!
i'd have found bakool ja ja way more compelling and charming if he wasn't downright sadistic for absolutely no reason in a lot of the early scenes... i wish he was more of a headstrong, loud-mouthed, overconfident jackass that steps on wuk's tacos, cripples our boat, and releases valigarmanda becasue he thought he could fight it, without the unnecessary "kick people when they're down...repeatedly...and laugh about it the whole time" attitude.
The machines in the matrix were more redeemable for their motivations than sphene was. I absolutely could not empathize with her, as even just using souls as energy as an extra lives for the living was questionable, but committing genocide to keep what was akin to a photograph of the living from dissapearing was absolutely unforgivable. At least the matrix machines were only using living humans as a battery to keep themselves alive, but sphene wanted to consume your soul.
Her character was probably more comparable to and as evil as shang tsung from mortal combat, but people will absolutely forgive her because she is a cute girl. I think this is why i hated the last half so much, because they built the story as if i was supposed to empathize with her, the stroyteller kept pushing for it and i just cant empathize with a character as evil as her. I really didnt enjoy living memory... and especially the story elements of the last msq raid. I think these two parts were the worst parts of the whole expansion, even though i thought living memory was the most gorgeous zone in the whole expansion.
I think the hanuhanu and mamool suffered from really bad story writting, while sphene was the worst. Wuk lamat wouldve been a better character had she had ALOT less dialogue and presence around us. Every zone and every quest we were paired up with her, and wouldve been better had we been allowed to discover content with the other party members.
The rivalry with thancred and urianger is especially underplayed, as there is only one insatnce in the whole expansion where they even come close to opposing us and that could be considered to be more of them playing a prank on us. Ive seen more rivalry playing monopoly than anything that was shown in DT.
It is mentioned that Sphene is forced to take all these souls because she is actally being forced to do it by her programming. Is it a cheap explanation? Maybe. But it is explained
@@Bricktor_ I don't characterize her as a person. I think the second half is the story of a rogue Ai, wanting to commit genocide against "humanity". I know the writers and many would take issue with that characterization probably, but that is what sphene and the residents are. As erenville's mom put it a facsimile of the living.
The Ai became corrupted because they altered her to adhere to those rules of protection.
@@crashzone6600 So the part you didn't enjoy about Sphene was the fact that she wasn't motivated by human thoughts but because she was being controlled by her programming?
@@Bricktor_ no it is more that she wanted to treat humanity as if they are wheat to be harvested to sustain a memory that no one can value anymore. A motivation so weak that I think it is like trying to create a drama out of me extermination an ant hill in my backyard. I also think it was forced plot because the writers made it so that it could only be powered by souls for some inexplicable reason. It was extremely ham fisted, and nonsensical.
But most of all, it is that the writers were expecting me to feel sorry for turning off the memory storages, when it hit me about as hard as if I was asked to burn an old year book. The people I felt for were erenville and krile, because they were the ones that were actually impacted by those memories of their loved ones, and I was glad that they got to say goodbye, even if the people were nto real.
Really like your editing!
Thank u❤
overall i rate the xpac base form a slightly better Stormblood. Lets see if post patches can hold up with post Stormblood
Bakuul Ja was a big kid, an adult child, a child in the body of a very large adult.
Ive met a lot of people like him. Typically they grow up tall and fast and are never checked by someone bigger so they get this false arrogance that they (and his parents) are the only ones that matter. He disregards his companion falling behind due to injury as justification for his arrogance and as long as he reaches his goal nothing else matters. But at the end of the day they are still just a child unsure of their place in the world and unknowingly overstepped.
Its typically a fatherless behavior because the role of the father is to be the strength and teach the rules and why you shouldnt break them.
Like insaod story is ok like a 8 or 8.5 but overall Wuk Lamat should have like 10 or 20 % less screen time in exange of otehr character
It missed some action. On Gabool Ja ja fight when he died we should had the option to attack him.... And the train sequence could have been a solo shooting duty like gold saucer.... And the bight fight to defend a solo duty were we control the scion ( keepeing th CD)
And 100% right the WoL should kill the last boss alone so we are the hero afterall
Dawntrail was a bait and switch. They said. . . "you are going on an adventure!!" Instead, we got a series of trials for Wuk Lamat that were not really adventurous (we made Tacos, caught an Alpaca, crafted a float, and did some trading. . . NOT an adventure). They said. . . "this is going to be a vacation with the Scions!!" The trailer had every Scion in it! Instead, we got the Wuk Lamat anime.
The story was not paced well. The trials dragged. The character of Wuk Lamat was horribly weak (even if you didn't hear the terrible English VA). The end of the MSQ is simply not good. It is an ascian re-hash. The ending where you shut everything down and make the last zone worse is just terrible. The MSQ was a pretty significant failure and I just hope Square Enix is willing to change course with the patches and go in a different direction.
That's understandable, it doesn't take as much to entertain me so I really enjoyed this expansion aside from the parts I mentioned
This is honestly one of the most fairest reviews Ive heard regarding the expansion
An issue I've noticed with this and similar reviews is an absurd amount of hand waving regarding critical issues within the consistency of the story. Solution 9 may be aesthetically enticing, but how we arrive at the destination and why make it feel shallow and empty.
Dawntrail is a hodgepodge of frayed, uninspired, and contradicting plot threads that do not present a problem the scions and the WoL haven't already have practical and proven answers to. We see only glimmers of rationality such as the hostage situation with Bakool Ja Ja and eventually the plan to import crops and agricultural knowledge for Mamook. Which is important for later as the parallels between the blessed children and the endless (sacrificing the many to preserve the few) is cut and dry proof there is always a solution through the combined strength and knowledge of cooperative people. Ironically a question posed to the WoL from Sphere we must remain completely silent upon as if there is any credence to the idea. And if you try to threaten the innocent to forward your evil plans, you /will/ be utterly annihilated by the WoL and their innumerable allies as we have done many expansions prior. This all something Sphene should be keenly aware of since their whole dilemma was triggered by war over their super-duper macguffin material. WHICH is the only thing that even allows either Zarool Ja or Sphene to even look in our general direction without getting the slap-of-light. Something that ultimately didn't help them very much as we still defeat them making the entire conflict and subsequent bloodshed utterly pointless and completely avoidable.
Living memory is the story of why you should never store your data in ram, and why not everything needs to be computerized. Optimize your servers! For crying out loud instead of painting a carousel or using different colored bricks for the roads, they build everything out of an LCD screen and projected images over it
In English, first two-thirds of the story was crap and entirely filler and basic (at best). The final third was decent. The rest of the expansion was great! Though, I worry the dungeon difficulty may drive casual players away.
So, the first half of this game shares some similarities to a favorite game of mine, Quest for Glory 5.
Quest for Glory 5, like Dawntrail's first half, is about a rite of succession.
It's also a game late into the series where you have YOUR character you made (you can import the clear save from older titles)
Like in DT, it''s a beach episode kind of feeling immediately after your character ends a Eldritch Horror level event (in QFG4, you help prevent the completion of an interrupted summoning of a Cthulhu like eldritch god from another dimension and would have bathed the world in darkness and warped everyone into twisted abominations/made them go insane)
In QFG5, you instead get called to help with the Rites of Rulership in a greece-inspired city-state called Silmaria, a popular tourist and vacation spot in-universe.
The difference is that QFG5 does this story CORRECTLY. You COMPETE in the rites, not to rule, but to find out who assassinated the previous king and who has been breaking Dragon Pillars around the land designed to keep an elder-dragon (a continental level threat) sealed inside a local volcano caldera.
You can participate seriously, or back Elsa, the former antagonist of the first game.
When i compare how both of these handled a similar story, FF14 pales.
If what you are saying is that the Rite of Succession could have been more involved then yes, I agree. Also "Cthulhu like eldritch god from another dimension and would have bathed the world in darkness and warped everyone into twisted abominations/made them go insane" sounds like Endwalker a lot haha
Alpaca spits on jarjar. Dumb and dumber sequel. How did they get yoshi to rubber stamp this pos msq storyline?
I honestly wish the scions hadn't been involved at all. Give us time to miss them, let us have some new characters to spend time with. Why weren't we spending this time hanging out with anyone but the boring vanilla Wuk? Everyone around her was so much more interesting but got shoved to the side.
Honestly, the lack of meaningful interaction with the quests made production feel very rushed and sloppy. The story itself with the Dawn Throne felt meh.
I'm going to defend Wuk Lamat's part in the final fight. It's not that her showing up was bad, it was that she wasn't there from the start that was. The conflict with Sphene was personal between the two, and we were literally there just to be Wuk Lamat's muscle. This was just our job. I think it was jarring that she left us around instead of kicking us out with everyone else.
Interesting point, I think things might honestly have been better if she was there from the start 👍
I gotta say I disagree that final trail was too copy and paste from ryne and Gaia and with how the boss was so wishy washy I just couldn't be invested to understand her motives for reasons I can't say
@@loomingdeath1758 That seems more like a problem with character writing than anything.
Still, her showing up to help makes infinitely more sense than Zenos showing up against Meteion just to be a taxi.
meh
She was only able to take out the final boss because we weakened it for her she got carried
I cant believe that I have to skip your cutscenes too after I skipped mine.
Sphene should have been Pasharot. the fact she wasnt shows they are weak story writers who are trying to ignore 10 years of preestablished lore.
Gulool ja would have been a better expansion lead character rather than wuk lamat 🙄
These Japanese voices are so damn good. FFXIV overall has big anime vibes and imo the EN Dub doesn't do it justice overall, and I'm not even an English native speaker. It's just EN dubs in general for anime stuff since they tend to be either emotionless or weirdly over the top. If anyone plays mihoyo games they probably know. The voice directors apparently give insanely simple yet strict instructions like: Is the character a stacked, attractive woman older than 18? She NEEDS that breathy, moany mommydom voice. The character is not dominant at all? Squeaky loli voice no matter what. Or they mess up completely like with Wuk Lamat
I wish people would check out the JP Dub more, it's absolute peak and imo how the story should be experienced. Even if you don't understand it, please give it a try everyone.
I'm German and don't think it's that "you only think that your language is cringe, your opinion is invalid" thing. I like German anime dubs a lot, they're well-made and I worked as radio voice actor before. Voice directing in Germany is usually a bit more comfy and the studios are really chill, a creative outlet for creative people, lots of them are very young and open.
For the last fight... How much more differently is that from Thordan wildly flailing his sword around in a blind panic for us having survived his ultimate attack? Or the Endsinger just swooping the field and putting AoEs down repeatedly?
This is the MSQ end fight, it's a fight up to a point until which the big hurrah finale takes over and we are just meant to win.
As for it not being 'our' big victory, you put the finger on it there because we ARE the support character for Wuk Lamat, at least for the start of this new tale. We got about ten more years of roadmap to go here...