The point raised around 29:00 about Wuk Lamat only wanting peace because it was what her father wanted is something that we've seen before - in the Coils of Bahamut story. With Alphinaud pushing Alisaie about her reasons for wanting to protect Eorzea, and how it seems to him that she only wants to help Eorzea because that's what Louisoix wanted. And he winds up saying something like, "A borrowed reason is never as strong as one that you come to yourself; in time, it may falter and fail."
Its something she observed heavily as a child and wanted to embrace personally. Its something that became her reason though she had trouble with the cause. The journey is about her figuring out what it takes and if she has it. Idk if this is part of it, but some latino people I know feel very strongly about roots and heritage. They like to appreciate the past and fit into the mold. I think wuk lamat explaining she wanted to be a king like her father makes sense because she always knew what she wanted, but not how she fits into it.
Yet another example of how the scions could have used their endless wisdom to help Wuk Lamat grow and develop from a naive princess into a proper leader, instead of blindly supporting and reaffirming her every step of the way. Fantastic comment.
@@Icycrits thats the kind of development she needed to experience herself. Theres a reason why people sometimes weigh experience over education. Besides, wuk lamat being from a very different culture can make this kind of thing tricky to navigate. Especially with politics involved. Sometimes you cant really apply your own experiences even if it make sense if it happened to you.
Even as early as 6.55 we already saw that Wuk Lamat's motivations are quite short sighted. She wants the throne just purely to deny Zoraal Ja from being able to get it. Her wanting 'peace' is kind of just like finding an excuse to embody some sort of ideal, due to the whole resolve and reason thing. Ironically the setting of Tural could have offered plenty of opportunities for Wuk Lamat to be thrust into that sort of situation where she struggles with achieving peace. The extremists in Mamook, and the Chirwagur and so on could have been a huge reality check to show just how Tural's peace and unity was in fact a delicate powder keg that could blow anytime and throw the whole nation into civil strife, but they were all brushed aside and dealt with like minor inconveniences because the story would rather defer to the 'old reliable' trope of a big world ending threat with ultra-high stakes.
With how different the scions are behaving in this expansion, I'm starting to think they really did die in Endwalker, and the ones we got now are aliens disguised as our friends.
I mean we brought em back w/ Azem Crystal, they're already just ghosts or whatever, I knew something was up in the 6.X quests & the WHAM will probably hit forreal in 8.0 or whenever
What's funny is they could have told a more interesting story in the "past tense" like have it where the opening scene is you in "The Rising Stone" and every is relieved to see you again asking you where you have been all this time. And you just start the story. After deciding to head to a new land the ship you were on was shipwrecked and you lost all access to communications and because of the current change in aetherial flow from Endwalker you were unable to use any means of teleportation to arrive back at a previous destination. So all you could do was explore the land you had landed on and see if you could make contact with any other people. As you continue walking you hear cries for help and a battle going on, apparantly creatures are attacking a village and as you go to help a familar dragoon leaps down slays the foes, they look back at you witha grin as you realize that Estinien is here. But then basically the whole story could just be told through the WoL perspective and any time you stop doing a "quest" would just be a moment where you decided to pause telling the story. A fun dynamic way to tell the story and heck the story doesn't have to end at 100, it could end at 96 and as you finish explaining everything that has happened maybe something of note would strike their interest and you would then return to explore what you had discovered while "missing" But man, I wish they would stop copy-pasta the content flow of an MSQ, like you can't even be excited for a trial because it's like oh "X" I saw "X" earlier I guess it will happen after this dungeon, oh I've been level X6 for a while now, must be getting close to another dungeon. It's just takes the sail out of the story when the content flow is so predictable. I wish they would have used Dawntrail to experiment with MSQ content, like give us something that unlocks "Field Exploration" content, have 2 levels of MSQ take place in said Field exploration, give us endgame content at the start that involved Field exploration, something like that could have heavily leaned on expanding the idea of exploring an unknown land.
Once again Krile got shafted. I'm sick of SE breezing over characters stories. A 45 min story and that wraps up Krile's and her parents arc? I understand that they were under time constraints shutting down the terminal but still it felt so rushed imo.
@@arcalas The problem is this was worse than ARR, and let's not even talk about Heavensward, this doesn't even come close. The pacing was just awful. In the 2nd part they kept talking about unimportant things instead of focusing on what really matters, like how about talking which shard the enemy is coming from? Imagine if they talked about how you can farm in Azyss Lla.
Bruh Erenville didn't get a goodbye. His mom dapped him up, high fived him and said GOOD LUCK MY SON. You get one split second of her treating the dude like a son then she's gone.
God that pissed me off so damned much! While yes, it is exactly in character for her to do so, the actual play, the right decision for that would have been to force her to remain alive and address her neglect of her son while also carving out time amidst her rebellion to spend WITH him. Not an "Oh I have a bucket list we're going to go through" before eventually fading away forever. And you know what nettles me? Viera are EXCEPTIONALLY LONG LIVED. She either got herself killed in an accident or by directly opposing Sphene, and that's NEVER ADDRESSED.
now compare that to the urianger / moenbrydas parents scene in endwalker. i know its not really meant to be compared but you would think there would have been a LITTLE BIT MORE for our man Erenville
@@Qesheniirc he only ever wanted to go on adventures with her as a child and then she gave him the impossible task of finding the Golden City for her to bring him along. It took him so long that he gave up and whoop here's the golden city as a reward for babysitting a princess. That's like 20 years or something at least and then a further 30 at least in his mom's perspective considering the time gap in Xak Tural after the emergence of solution 9. The way she just brushed off her concerns about her own death and leaving him felt so tone deaf like what the hell. This is your son. Your "Fussy Bun Bun". Why are you not more concerned for him after more than 30 years of not seeing him while Namika has worried for Wuk Lamat in the entire time she remained in Heritage Found and then in Living Memory
The point you bring up about NPCs having bland corporate speak felt like that got applied to ALL the characters I was so excited when I saw the twins were going to be part of our team joining us. But when there was literally no fun bickering it banter between them, I felt so cheated. It really felt like they were there to fill out trust spots and could have just as easily been Uriangier and Y’Shtola for all the contributions they had to the plot
This was my biggest takeaway from my initial playthrough of the MSQ... the Twins contributed literally nothing to the story. Alisaie has some snarky dialogue if you talk to her on the side, but in actual cutscenes had zero personality.
Yeah, it's so funny how you can count these moments on one hand. Says a lot that one of the most memorable scenes was Thancred in the dungeon blocking our path and playfully mocking us with a one-liner in good spirit.
Agreed - if they're not even going to be truly themselves then what's the point? If they were only going to treat the old characters as familiarity goodwill tokens it would have been better to have completely new characters. Also wouldn't it have been better for sheltered little Wuk Lamat to go forth on her journey of discovery and growth with people from her own goddamn country rather than sourcing clueless foreigners without intimate knowledge of her countries woes and nuances?
Koana's story arc is pretty much just a better version of Wuk Lamat's, and Dawntrail would've been a lot better if they either cut Wuk Lamat or turned her into a side character in Koana's retinue a la Erenville. She didn't need to be in the rite of succession, she needed to be the down-to-earth friend for head-in-the-clouds Koana.
It felt like Wuk Lamat was the comic relief character you run into every so often and Koana was supposed to be the main character but... we make the comic relief the main character?
They could've almost entirely fixed Bakool JaJa by just making him release Valigarmanda because he was so sure of himself, he thought he could beat it by himself, and then when he obviously can't, he flees, leaving you to deal with it.
So many moments like this one could have been fixed with minor adjustments. The whole of Dawntrail feels like it was a first rough draft, which never got any reworks.
@@kevintruong9135They could've easily taken a page from DBZA. Wuk Lamat: "You released Valigarmanda? What were you thinking?!" Bakool Ja Ja: "I thought.... I thought I could beat him." Wuk Lamat: "Great. The thing that Papa was able to trap has been freed. The two idiots who could help stop him are flat on their back, in a puddle of their own piss. How can this get any worse?!" Bakool Ja Ja: "I'm... I'm sorry." Wuk Lamat: "Oh, we really *are* fucked."
I was waiting for a moment where he'd say something like "I knew you could handle him anyways and if not I would" and he thought of it only as a delay for you considering he does/should know WoL's crew are strong regardless of his arrogance + not take Valigarmanda as seriously as people make him out to be, but nothing like that ever came. 😔
Zoraal Ja was impossible to take seriously from the moment he stated his motivations. He's literally a Reddit armchair general and would have gotten bodied instantly going into a war-hardened, post-EW rest of the world. Hell, he gets bodied instantly on his own turf. His only successful move was his surprise attack on the capital, but he doesn't really do anything strategically except posture. Then his forces he spent 30 years building get annihilated in an afternoon by an extremely small contingent of specialists from the East, dragons, cowboys and his countries' own original military. He couldn't even beat his own father with that bonus 30 years without his regulator crutch. He was pathetic and lame and every time I saw him on screen I wanted to alt-f4. He really should have been the one with the mid-story heel turn into a regretful good guy, after seeing that the rest of the world was well and truly already familiar with war, death and tyrants.
Hard agree, I was annoyed with Wuk Lamat for how overbearing she was and I was expecting to be annoyed with Zoraal Ja for being a stupid villain. But, no. Everything about Zoraal Ja was so stupid in the extreme that I couldn't even be annoyed, it just became funny, in a pathetic, embarrassing and very much unintentional sort of way.
Zoraal Ja: 'With this immensely powerful technology, and my soldiers that can swap bodies, my tiny island nation will conquer the world!' Me: "Your list of 'accomplishments' doesn't even equate to a quarter of the things I did in the last two years, and your military isn't even equal to one of the nations in the alliance of nations across the sea. Even if you miraculously defeat me, you're getting bodied the minute they hear about you being the one to kill me, considering all I've done for them. You're getting Navy Copypasta'd, boi."
Bro all of this is facts. His motivations make no sense at all. He wants war for the sake of peace??????? Like dude is easily the WORST villain in this game. No real motivation, no reason to care about his story or villain arc.
When I was doing the MSQ with a friend I was like this for Zoraal Ja too (and Sphene)... there is zero logic here, their plan is moronic and short sighted, and "can we please just body this guy and get on with out supposed holiday? He isn't even a threat..." But nah, we just stand back and watch as the situation gets worse and worse. ARgh!
This is the first FFXIV expansion where I felt the writers were writing to the lowest common denominator. It was so dumbed down and held our hands far too much. Story was so shallow and writing was just not up to par. Not to mention how insufferable and one dimensional Wuk Lamat is.
"Turn off your brain" A classic argument in "defense" of bad writing. My breacking point was when nobody jumped to Gulool Ja Ja's help because of "muh honor duel". Especialy when Alisaie was present, the one character who would not adhere to it, especialy when Zoraal Ja gets back up from death. Gulool Ja Ja's death was the most telegraphed thing ever but the way he died was stupid and did damage to everyone present. The scions were just not allowed to be characters this whole expansion. Meat puppets who nods to everything Wuk said.
Forgot about the whole soul system of Solution Nine. We enever get to know how it works (we likely will know). Is the soul consumed, breaking the reincarnation cycle? Again the scions just don't get to be characters and even though some of them finds the practice disgusting, they go "it's how they live, we don't judge". After knowing how souls and the aetherial sea works, I feel like the way Solution Nine treats souls as comodities would go as far as trigger wars if the knowledge spread in Eorzea.
@@tarotxiii9830 My exact thinking. I was like" So are we going to even try diplomacy and ban this technology or are we uniting all nations of the world and razing this place to the ground?" And we do not even have to talk about reincarnation, the technology itself is insanly dangerous. Just imagine some evil groups would get access to this technology. Taking souls from people so your soldiers and leaders are immortal would start so many wars.
@@tarotxiii9830 "it's how they live, we don't judge" I mean that is actually true. You do not judge for this, you start holly wars and total wars over stuff like this. Either to steal this technology for yourself or burn the knowledge of it from the world. But I am sure everything is going to be all right, they are lead by experienced and competent rules... oh actually no, I forgot. They are lead by child with daddy issues.
That was my limit as well, I decided I was done with the story and started skipping all the cutscenes. And what's maddening is it's such an easy thing to fix... have the fight happen while the group is not there so that everyone can arrive just in time to witness Zoraal Ja revive and kill Gulool Ja Ja from a distance. Wuk Lamat runs in and attacks Zoraal Ja. Job done.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.. the quality of the MSQ in a game like FFXIV can absolutely have an impact on the enjoyment of the rest of the game, whether they're directly related or not. It's why I think a lot of us have been pretty lenient about the game's shortcomings, so I think it's no coincidence that there seems to be an uptick of more critical, negative or apathetic sentiments about the game as of late.. and that's frustrating. I know you mentioned how you were depressed for a little while after first finishing Dawntrail's MSQ. I'm still kind of there. I still do care about XIV, which is why I keep reading and watching stuff like this, I suppose in the hope that things can improve from a writing standpoint if enough people raise their concerns. Great video overall, really lays out a lot of the reasons why the story didn't work, in a constructive way. I hope they really take this stuff to heart. Thank you for posting it, probably was not easy to make given what's been happening lately. Stay well.
I agree with this. Personally, the great story kept me around as I felt very immersed in the game. I didn’t mind doing repetitive or more “boring” content because I’d read up on characters I loved on the side, and would often go to my favourite areas and reminisce on the story. This time I tried for a bit… but I’ve decided to take a long hiatus from playing, only logging in to do seasonal events and keeping my house. I just don’t feel engaged anymore.
My investment in everything with this game has been stifled because of this story. If I survive this expansion and continue on, I won't give a good god damn about Tural, its people, its places ever again. We're not even six months out from expansion and I'm already ready to move on to the next expansion in total.
I do share this hopeful sentiment that with a bit of humility and openness to criticism the current MSQ writers can improve their writing process towards better storytelling, more showing and less telling, and reflecting previously established character traits for the entire present cast. However, this recent display of mediocre writing, as well as the increasingly formulaic nature of the major MSQ storybeats, not to mention the obvious language barrier between the japanese devs and the wider community, make me skeptical that any of the concerns raised in this video or others like it will have any meaningful impact on the writing going forward. I do think we should confront the very real possibility that this is the new standard for writing in FF14 and it is not going to change anytime soon. Does that suck? Yes. Would I blame anyone for abandoning the game or at least unsubscribing for longer periods of time in an effort to vote with their wallet? Absolutely not.
Absolutely, I have a casual friend who considers Dawntrail a wash until next expansion. I was hopeful for the content and have been enjoying it, seeing the story as a "bad start" but enjoyed the more relaxed and fun raids/ultimate/chaotic as a hardcore fan. The bozja equivalent needs to be in the game NOW though.
300%. I stopped playing the game everyday as I used to because of this damn expansion. Even the fights which are admittedly good could not even keep me hooked in more than necessary. In perspective, I used to gear 3/4 alt jobs via savage... This expansion I only bothered with my main and I have zero desire to return so much so that for the first time in 5 years I'll let my sub run out till most likely 8.0. Even the FFXI ally raid could not let me retain my sub. The gear sucks, I never played xi so I don't get any of the references and I had rather much more them teaching me about jeuno during the quest (especially post instance) than having fucking tacos again with wuk lmao. Not to mention the usual bs trope of "if you don't see their dead body they are not dead". Cuz hey, here we go again with sphene, and in the same patch too. It's ridiculous.
I really wish Wuk Lamat had stayed behind in the second half to protect the city since she's literally the supposed warrior, while Koana joined us to Shalooni and Heritage Found since he's the technological guy, and would understand better what things do, and even understand the nature of Sphene better. It felt very awkward.
He did study tech in sharlaya. The scions mostly studied magic. So north party shouldve been: koana, krile, graha (graha is the scion with most tech experience)[healer], thancred [tank] the inflitrator. and WoL
It really made no sense. The whole first part, we have Wuk Lamat telling us every single time how much she loves her people and how much she wants to protect them as Dawnservant. Zoraal Ja's invasion should have been her moment in the spotlight, the moment where she should have taken up the mantle of Dawnservant, rallied her people and shown what she learned in our journey by capitalizing on each race's strengths and outside help, leading Tural to victory. But that was what Koana did. For no reason at all, everyone agrees that only she can take revenge and her first act as Dawnservant in a moment of crisis was to leave the burden of ruling to her brother to go kill her other brother. She cares only on a superficial level but can't keep her head straight when it should have counted.
Right? I thought for sure after he became Dawnservant as well that we'd get the other half of the expansion with him. It felt like there was 0 reason for Wuk Lamat to still be tagging along at that point
Wuk Lamat's also meant to be the people person, making her probably better for diplomacy and gaining allies. Meanwhile, Koana still felt like he needed that reverse colonialism bullshit to get beaten out of him, which visiting Yyasulani/Heritage Found would've probably helped with.
I dont get why she came back so suddenly, even with the DT MSQ continuing shes back, it makes sense she has to be here now because she and Sphene have a connection but Koana couldve done so much more in the area and even despite loving her the first half of DT, I am feeling fatigued of her presence.
The expectation was we were going on vacation and we didn’t get any of that. Babysitting an incompetent was not what I considered fun and the first part was wayyyyy to long. The scions constantly going on their own and my character stuck w Wuk was torture
I loathe wuk lamat, that character made me quit ffxiv, after 4 years of constant playing, the MSQ is so unbearable, i enjoy more playing WOW, fcking wow? can you believe wow being more enjoyable that ffxiv?
I feel like we went on vacation but from the POV of a mother and father with a hyper child. We wanted relaxing but someone.. got into the candy and started bouncing off the walls. I also feel like Wok was someone's .. self insert or pride and joy character, maybe and that's why everything bended to her being so awesome. IDK, she is odd.
@@ThePlayplay64Wuk Lamat IS an activist self-insert 100% and I am 100% convinced of it. I've watched many of these cases. Wuk is the protagonist here, we are just servants. "Wuk" sounds close "Woke" and "Lamat" means 'break' Tho 'woke break' could be a coincidence, the rumors around the voice actors adds more evidence to what IS than what isn't. People can deny it all they want because they want to be 'fair' or rational or fear repercussions of disliking something they are not allowed to. That's why channels even delete my comments about it with 'labeling excuses' that I don't buy. (yes I tested it that isn't youtube) We can dislike what we want, not just what we are 'allowed.' It's in the constitution yo. Enough with the nonsense. Enough with the repression. I'm sick of this mafia...
@@andresangel8641 I liked Wuk character introduction but also came to loathe it and also quit ff14 cuz of the rotten story. (visuals and new picto class were amazing tho) I gradually came to dislike Wuk personality, then her voice sounded like a guy forcing it by lev 97...and I read why. My only problem with 'voldemorts' is when they force on me what they aren't. Otherwise, I like them.
As I was playing Dawntrail, the character writing for the scions gave me the feeling that it had been written by someone who had not played nor cared about any of the previous expansions. Seeing the breakdown of how WuK Lamat's journey contradicts important themes of previous expansions makes me feel that even moreso.
I wholeheartedly believe the writers did not play the game. Everything is so far disconnected from events of Eorzea even the scions felt like strangers. I'm starting to believe that we either died or slipped into an alternate timeline during that sea storm in the intro.
I feel like Koana would've been a much more natural story focus after the last expansion literally took place in Sharlayan. _He_ was the character with the potential to be a great leader with a little nudging in the right direction. Then fact Wuk Lamat needed an entire party of baby sitters and he only needed 2 companions says it all. She could've been a great loveable sister to him if she wasn't the main focus
Its made worse by his part of the story in 7.1, where we get a little look into his history and realize that his thought of being abandoned by his parents partially led to his disregard of the traditions of Tural. Which would have been much better if it was in the MSQ proper not some random post story thing that is back to back parental issues.
I really don't agree. Koana's whole arc is realizing his path forward, while well intentioned, was not the way if it sacrificed the unique cultures of Tural. It's like we didn't spend the whole last expansion learning that Sharlayan was willing to let all of the other cultures of the world die so long as they were left to remember them.
Dawntrail should've been a vacation arc that had extended epilogue where all the scions get their time to reflect on the events of the previous expansions. For example, Thancred talks to the WoL about what he said to Meteion as his cutscene never got dialogue in EW. He reflects on his past failures of unable to protect Minfilia's parents, Minfilia herself, his lost ability to use magic. He felt like a failure, but despite that he fought and took back Ryne's life and gave her her freedom. Y'Shtola reflects on her mortality and her relationship with her family. She has nearly died the most times by nearly getting cut down by Zenos, sacrificing her life to give the scions time to escape, sacrificing herself again in the 1st, and losing her sight to where she can only see ether. She promises to talk to her family more like Matoya who is her mentor/mother figure and her sister who lives in Gridania. Urianger reflects on his friendship with Moenbryda and how she inspired him from being a loner bookworm who only researches knowledge through books and actually goes out into the world to explore. Experience is a better teacher than through someone else's experience. Graha Tia, thought that for a century he would be trapped in a foreign land for the rest of his life, never seeing his friends again in the source. He reflects on how it feels to readjust to familiar settings all over again. I could probably go on, but it is tiny details like this is what makes me disappointed in the story direction Dawntrail did.
This is a great idea! I actually had very similar thoughts for the role quests, which didn't quite click with me this expansion either, unfortunately: Since G'raha at the end of EW promised to go on an adventure with us so that we could regale him with our tales of what he had missed, I thought each role quest could've recapped on different prior expansions, meeting other key characters and checking in on them post-EW. Alas, he was not allowed to fulfill his own promise and we instead went back to familiar places seemingly not caring about how they're holding up because of newly introduced plots that seem somewhat disjointed to me (haven't finished all of them just yet, though, tbf). But I do understand that this approach would've been tricky to implement with the scions all making at least brief appearances later on and it would've probably placed too much focus on one single NPC, too (not unlike Wuk).
Something along those lines is precisely what I had hoped for instead of whacky adventures in the third world. My main man Urianger got shafted so far in this expansion.
Your final point about the lack of nuance is what really got me as well. The way Nanamo's reckless idealistic reforms almost got her killed. The way you trying to make things better was met by opposition, not by enemies (which are a given), but by the same people you were trying to help, like it happened in Ishgard or Garlemald. The way Endwalker tried to establish a message about finding what makes life worth living, yet at the same time presented Zenos as a twisted version of it's own message by becoming single-mindedly consumed by his own obsession, not being afraid to show how finding the spark to beat despair can also go totally wrong. These "devil's advocate" moments are what made me fall in love with FFXIV, and are sorely lacking in Dawntrail. Tural itself is presented as this melting pot of diverse cultures living in perfect harmony, which is a beautiful thought but also very unbelievable, lacking in nuance, and anathema to actually interesting storytelling. Any inkling of conflict in the tribes is easily steamrolled by Wuk Lamat's bright-eyed idealism, which goes through the whole story pretty much unopposed, and the constant repeat of the "peace and happiness" mantra feels tiring at best, infantilized and patronizing at worst. I guess the way they tried to put the idealism to the test was with the idea that Wuk Lamat inevitably had to go to war against her brother in order to maintain peace, which is indeed a contradiction. But Zoraal Ja was portrayed in such a villanous way that in the end the whole thing just feels like a typical conflict with the bad guy rather than a highlight of the inevitable problems of her idealism. Remove Zoraal Ja, who is an over the top and exceptional anomaly, and everything is swell. It just misses the mark, IMO.
I still love that they did the second ballsiest thing they could have with that Nanamo storyline: Ul'dah is still a sultanate. Despite the conspirator's death, his plan to end Nanamo's reforms succeeded. Mind, I still think they should have let Nanamo stay dead. Nothing against her, but once she was in that position (mostly dead) I'd prefer that the writers had sealed that deal.
Zoraal Ja is an over the top and exceptional anomaly until the MOMENT you kill him. Then he's all sads because because he just wanted to be as important as his super cool daddy!
Probably the bit most emblematic of this is the Pelupelu tribe quests. Not even MSQ, but the scenes are all so boring because there's nothing to do because Tural is too perfect - there's even one part where they introduce a baddie and some genuine social problems and then go "oh yeah no we fixed that offscreen years ago." ARGH!
Even Alphinaud in ARR, and Lyse in SB, for all the flak they got, were never as constantly, omnipresently, overbearingly clingy as Wuk. And the former had dire and real consequences for his naivete. So many were sucking up to him not because he was such a upliftingly charismatic ray of sunshine like a certain black hole cat, but because they were taking advantage of him. and then when the time for the big betrayal came, they pretty much took EVERYTHING, cueing our flight to Ishgard. While the latter couldn't just suddenly fill the gap in the resistance leadership, and slammed into how Ala Mhigo's people might not have the will to rebel anymore after having their spirits crushed and indoctrinated under Garlean occupation. Thank god for the Skip button or I would've logged on patch day when they showed we wouldn't get even a single bloody quest point of reprieve from that mary sue.
@@Dracounguis No, I got your point. She was forced into our party. I just wanted to bring up that her actions will make more senses if she is a kid instead of someone who lived there years till adulthood. And she knew nothing about the people she lived years with.
@@Dracounguisyou’re the one that clearly misunderstood their comment, not the other way around. They were agreeing with you, and expounded further by mentioning it’s even worse as she’s an actual adult. Chill and also why does this need explained lol
In a way, Wuk Lamat feels like sort of a mascot for toxic positivity. She is dumb, shallow, mindlessly positive in a very superficial way - and gets nothing but affirmation for it, isn't questioned, doesn't fail, just succeeds by being shallowly positive nonstop. Call me crazy... but I think this might actually have been what the writers were going for? If so, that makes it worse.
@@HiddenEvilStudios Dawntrail feels more like it was written by the Square-Enix employees who made that horrible Avengers game than CBU3. And I strongly suspect that, internally, that is not far from the case. Big SE making demands and "consulting" a lot I'm sure.
I think the problems started in the post-Endwalker patch cycle. More of the patch content for Endwalker should've gone towards Dawntrail's world building. Probably would've helped the pacing in the beginning instead of being bombarded with all of it in the first three hours of the expansion. And conversely, the Void subplot should've been given a whole expansion instead of being relegated to post-MSQ patch content, given how much of that story had been sitting on a back burner to the point of boiling over for years. But Krile (46:22) being shoved aside for all but a couple of moments in the back half of the plot is probably the greatest sin committed in Dawntrail out of the rest of that mess.
@@dylansetright3359 True. But regardless of reference overdosing or anything unique, it needed more than a patch content subplot that was clearly only meant to tie up loose ends.
I think we have to agree that square enix decided to just milk ff14 to support other projects while producing minimum viable product due to budget cuts. The board of directors don't give a damn about games. They're not interested in their own product, only the client's money.
Glad you waited on a REAL review.. Not a "Rushed" review for clicks, clout and content. You let your opinion simmer and actually did your due diligence in writing your review. Thank you for an actually detailed review no one will get from any other media source.
@@xaviernaruto I think if someone "reviews" a major expansion right after they complete it they're doing a disservice to their opinion and the review itself. I think Zepla taking her time with it even if doesn't get as many views allows for a more elaborative point by point review process. Yeah this expansion was some highs and a lot of lows..
Her review amounted to the same as everyone else's and the months of online discourse. We knew hos she felt about it, because we SAW her livestream her playthrough.
@@Mr.Genesis The expansion was poorly received in july, and it's still poorly received in December. The time didn't change her feelings, it just gave her more editing time to show side by side examples of why past expansions handled similar topics better. Same thing other reviewers talked about in july, they just didn't edit it in, assuming you've played everything before 7.0
Lyna's short scene you showed in the video gave me goosebumps. I remember the moment, it still moves me. I don't think Wuk Lamat managed that in all of DT.
Shadowbringers is chock full of these bite-sized moments that just made you fall in love with these characters. Lyna's lament, Tesleen's view on mortality, Ardbert's intangibility making it impossible for him to save the soldiers from the sin eaters, a quick chat at the DMV with a new old friend, Elidibus monologue descending into dementia. The Ishikawa special. These are the moments that made FF14 truly special. I almost tear up just recalling them.
I took a week off of work to play Dawntrail.I thought the story was so bad that about three days into my vacation I was wishing I was at work. This was the first expansion that I just wanted to get it over with instead of wanting to see what happens next.
Same. After i fnished a MSQ I was usually a bit emotional, in awe, happy, sad, you name it, mixed with looking forward to things. Not with DT. I was just glad it was over, disappointed and annoyed.
tbh same, was not feeling it with DT and stuff but got peer pressured because my circle was buying it. then i played it then i was hella annoyed. some part isoke but majority are like meh, even with stormblood i feel smtg in the middle of the msq (not the post) but thank God anything beside the MSQ is hella fun
My friend, please stop torchuring yourself. There are people in your life who love you and care about your well being. You do not need to do this to yourself. Nobody does!
I'm convinced wuk is one of the main writers' pet character. She gets more spotlight than any character despite being just introduced one minor patch before. Hell, alphinaud's smug ass in ARR had way less.
The WoL and Estinien getting up to hijinks together and watching the trials happen sort of tangentially would have actually been fun. It could have even wound up with the same latter half, once Alexandria shows up, and it would have been alright. Because then we wouldn't have been inundated with Wuk Lamat, and she'd simply be sort of our vector into getting into the endgame.
I would have far preferred it if we were just allowed to drift from one place to the next, as a kind of neutral 3rd party while we get a lay of the land, meeting people in a more organic way, instead of how hamfisted the introductions to each of the places and cultures we get to know. You know, LIKE A PROPER ADVENTURE AGAIN? XD
Krile being sidelined is so freaking meta. Fun Fact, for the Endwalker key art, Krile was notably absent because Yoshi P forgot to tell his artists to add her. Like EW, Krile in DT was essentially given one zone where she was imperative to plot.
I like this video alot. Unbiased and genuine analysis and constructive critique of the story and characters. I'd like to see more of these videos in previous or future expansions
I was legit so disappointed we didn't actually get to clash with the Scions 'cause that's how the expansion was _advertised_ Felt like we were basically on the same side the whole time :/
The story was so bad I stopped playing the game. Not even joking. My headcanon is the WoL and company defeated the existential threat at the end of Endwalker and society slowly rebuilt itself. The End. There is no threat that can top what we faced at the end of Endwalker without it being ridiculous.
"Wuk Lamat seems to have no limitations that affect her in any meaningful way, and she isn't so much a well-developed character as she is an omnipresent force who smothers the rest of the story, not giving others a chance to breathe." I agree with this UTTERLY. This sentence perfectly encapsulates what I feel about Lamaty'i along with her Default Writing™ script
どなたかこのビデオエッセイを日本語に翻訳してください This is the most well presented critique of the issues with Dawntrail story. It's what I felt the enitre time playing the MSQ. I wish YoshiP, the writing team, and the english translation team would see this. From what I've seen in the media interviews after DT, I think they've taken the wrong feedback.
No sadly they Took the only Reasons Square Enix will Allow. This isn't the only Game Square Enix messed up they have 6 Games in Total they really messed up on (The Quite Man, Forspoken, Murder, Soul Suspect, Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail, Life is Strange Double Exposure. Yes there is another one but right now you get the idea).
@@bebekkurus unlikely if the company worked on this game at all. Plus the company isn't the writer, the writing is entirely done by a Japanese team at Square Enix. Furthermore, Square only really works with in-house localization employees (i.e. Koji and Kate) and Sweet Baby doesn't work for Square Enix.
@@Blahblah-oo7lk It feels like Yoshi P outsource the writing of this game to other company. So badly written, so unlikely feels like FF 14. I thought this was made by Sweet Baby Inc.
@bebekkurus again nothing to do with SBI, which is a consulting company. The problem is multifold and Square Enix rarely contracts with outsourcing due to their own shaky history with outsourcing (to other Japanese companies) to the point they are scared to outsource which is a different problem entirely. The biggest issue is that they had new a head writer who isn't suited for the 50+ hour MSQ format and that they had three writers for DT. And too many writers in the room can create inconsistencies. The thing with DT is that the concepts, motifs, and themes (legacy) are all there and can resonate with many people, especially Asians who struggle with it. The problem is the inconsistent writing and execution falling flat. There are good moments in DT but it is sloppily put together you would think each scene was written in isolation and then whoops they have to link them together somehow.
She feels like Naruto. She wants to be Hokage despite knowing little about the job, knowing nothing about the town, the people, or what any of it would even mean. She like Naruto is written to be an incompetent clown, but given way less time both in game and in world to 180 into a leader.
@@doctorcis3510the funny thing is that Naruto does not actually become Hokage in Naruto. Dawntrail is like if Naruto got his life goal in the first season, before he even did everything in all the other seasons. It's like a Hokage Speedrun.
@@DNAdoc1748 Maybe that's it, Naruto's ignorance was in part to be an audience stand-in and give an info dump. But we already have an audience stand-in that is ignorant, the WOL. When you think about it from that perspective, the writing makes more sense because it means they wrote the story without the WOL, and then inserted the WOL afterwards. Dawntrail certainly feels at times like a Self-Insert fanfiction. The kind where the Author put himself in but then proceeded to not change the canon and instead just be there, turning the whole story into just a narrated recap of the actual story.
I think a large part of what makes dawntrail so frustrating is that it completely contradicts and undermines the moral complexity of the previous expansions, to the point that it feels like the writers only skimmed the cliffnotes of the story from a wiki and never actually engaged with the deeper meaning. Garlemald's whole story is about how you cannot just end a war on good vibes, and especially not as a member of one of the warring factions. But here's comes Gulool Ja Ja and his friggin' tacos, and look! The war is over (except for the part where a significant part of the Mamool Ja will continue to live in a shithole for 80 years, but, y'know, details). Nanamo Ul Namo learned the hard way that she couldn't simply throw money at the displaced ala mhigans to solve the problem, and that just because the monetarists opposed her didn't mean that they were opposed to helping them categorically - only that it had to be in a way that was mutually beneficial for everyone involved and sustainable long-term. Do you know how hard it is sometimes to find a story that doesn't portray a firm capitalist faction as exclusively made up of 70-year-old obese bastards who'd kick puppies if it got them an extra dollar (and would, in fact, kick the puppies even if it cost them a million dollars to do so), regardless of whatever other factions are involved or how they're acting? In fact, more than a few stories in FFXIV's main quest up to this point have been, in one way or another, about undermining the idea of a wide-eyed idealistic kid hero solving everything and just telling everyone to get along. Alisaie and Alphinaud both started getting well-deserved serves of humble pie as early as ARR, the backstory of the first and it's warriors of light is basically that writ large, and you could even make the case meteion is an example of how badly an actual kid could take if faced with the hopelessness of it all. Even in places where characters skirted by at first (hien comes to mind), later stories show that there's still aftershocks of their actions. Like the conflict between doma loyalists and defectors by choice and necessity, with Izanami at the epicenter. And then Wuk Lamat comes in and plays every single note of stock shonen protag without a SINGLE moment of criticism on any part of her actions is just infuriating. there's some acknowledgement that she's not ready at first, but that never manifests as any major mistake or cock-up, she just powers through every problem with no major missteps. even when she falls behind because of some choice or other she made, it just so happens that the next task everyone is going for (and they all go together) requires them all to be there, so there's never a point where it even gets punished. Nor does she ever get significantly inconvenienced - even during the cooking part, they pair her with the one person she can get along with flawlessly, and her way is the only way that'd work. never mind two mamool ja not knowing what their own culture's signature dish was. (seriously, imagine a version of that story where she gets paired with bakool ja ja, and he's being super specific about the dish because he loves it while she's initially dismissive of him for his valigarmanda stunt.) Side note, as much as people like Gulool Ja Ja, if he was the actual focus of the expansion people would've absolutely hated him. Like, imagine actually being with him at his taco party peace talk. His actions when it comes to raising his children to be leaders are only really comprehendable if he popped into existence about five minutes before he came on screen, because he's a good father to all of them during dawntrail, but by that point it's far too late for Zoraal Ja's complexes to be addressed, and frankly it's ridiculous that Wuk is simultaneously supposed to be a kind, brave warrior princess... but doesn't know the first thing about any of her people. Koana is the only one who'e complexes are understandable in the context of the story, because he spent a lot of time in a fairly sheltered nation getting the best education he could. A very understandable direction he was taken in results in a fairly predictable, but not insurmountable, character flaw, and Gulool Ja Ja hasn't addressed it fully yet because it required him to be a whole ocean away. But he still could have done SOMETHING.
Further to your point in the paragraph about Nanamo and UlDah, I still remember how striking it was that they gave the underplayed, background, "wait, who's that?" character Dulala a fleshed out role as a sort of mediator ON the Syndacite between the Royalists and Monatarists, giving voice to, essentially, your critique of Nanamo's inexperience, that her role was to lovingly, as a cleric, guide her naive monarch to a more realistic policy position and cultivate a relationship that has endured in the expansions since.
My largest problem with Dawntrail was Wuk Lamat (and her weird narrative treatment), no contest. She's literally Naruto; a bright-eyed, naive youth who wants to occupy a seat of power for shallow, poorly considered reasons, without actually understanding anything about the position she wants to occupy or the people she would rule over. FFXIV is a lot of things, but a shonen isn't one of them, and without significant character development, the shonen protagonist that Wuk Lamat is was easily the weakest part of the story for me. I remember when I got to Ok'Hanu and she suggested holding the festival. The game _gives you the option_ to ask what the heck a festival has to do with helping the crops, and when you select it basically every character says "well we're here to support Wuk Lamat, so we should do it her way". Like ??? Doesn't supporting someone mean making sure they don't make stupid mistakes??? I was looking at the twins/G'raha/Krile like "C'mon you guys are _scholars_ aren't you smarter than this???" Like Alphinaud has leadership experience and WoL understands the burden of responsibility, shouldn't the game be tapping into that to teach this new, naive character about the ways of the world and the burden of leadership? That the narrative works so _hard_ to discount all the experience WoL and the Scions have in favour of justifying Wuk Lamat's idiocy made me _so_ mad. And I had exactly the same response to leaving Wuk Lamat behind to go to Shaaloani. At first it was "Yes! Freedom!" and then when she decided to follow along after the invasion, I was like "WAIT NO!" There was no _reason_ for Wuk Lamat to go to Alexandria with us. She should have been back in her city, shoring up defences, or maybe sticking back in Shaaloani to defend her people from anything that escaped the dome. After all, it's not like the Scions are an unknown entity to her and Koana now. They just spent _weeks_ with us. We've already stepped up to defend Tural when Valigarmanda was set loose. They _know_ how competent we are and how committed we are to defending the world from evil/invasion. And the kinship that she shares with Sphene is just... I didn't understand it. There's no _way_ that Wuk Lamat can understand _anything_ from Sphene's perspective. She's never been the queen of a dying world. She's never faced the sort of odds Sphene has. And then when it's revealed that Sphene isn't real and is programmed to behave a certain way, she doesn't _stop_ her naive attempts to bulldoze her way to changing Sphene's mind. Like, god, the final battle was _so good_ until Wuk Lamat burst her way into the arena. How did she get there? _Why_ is she there? What did she think she was going to achieve? Especially when Sphene's consciousness has been deleted and she's not there anymore; you are _not_ going to reach her. But of course, she does anyway. Because the narrative can't allow Wuk Lamat to be wrong. Ever. The whole game up until Dawntrail has been about WoL and the situations they find themselves in, the conflicts they champion and throw themselves into in service of the people of Eorzea, and later, the Star. Dawntrail makes WoL take a backseat, ignores the experience and wisdom of established characters, and forces us to play second fiddle to the single least developed companion character in the entire game. God, someone save me.
That's the thing. Almost all Shonen MC typically grows out of it. Naruto is a good example of show not tell. He wants to be in a position of power because at the start everyone looks down on him or sees him as a blight. Then the chuunin arc he starts to mature a little bit vs Gaara. Then the mystery around his mistreatment starts to come into focus. Bit by bit his character and drive shifts. Eventually the Pain Arc is where Nauto achieves his goal. He becomes a hero and is reconize by the village as such. Wuk...not so much. Even the reveal of she was Given up as a means of protection due to one of the tribes wanting to rebel...just came off forced.
@Naoto-kun1085 It would probably make more sense with the context that Naruto is one of my most hated characters of all time. I find him obnoxious and irritating. 🤷♀️
@@Naoto-kun1085 Naruto is loved because he actually grows. He learns, he changes. I despised him at first, but he grew on me because he changed. Wuk Lamat, as I mentioned in a previous post, is Naruto on steroids. She's Naruto without the growth. Or an over-caffeinated Asta (Black Clover) without a Yami there to yeet her sorry ass into the sky whenever she's being stupid. Which is always. She's ALWAYS being stupid. If the game had allowed me to be the Yami to Wuk Lamat's Asta it would have been more bearable. But they didn't do that. Cause their precious widdle kitty pwincess can never ever be wrong and punting her into the farthest mountainside is too meanie weanie for their widdle feefees. 😿
@@Naoto-kun1085 It's because Wuk Lamat is very similar to early Naruto. However Naruto grows and understands the world he lives in very early on [as shown when he encounters Zabuza and Haku] while Wuk Lamat legit doesn't change.
The scene at the end, in which after the final bossfight you're shown chilling in your room, and Wuk Lamat comes in and immediately hits you with "Hey, it's a shame we didn't have a chance to SPEAK PROPERLY" is still the funnies joke xiv has ever made.
Wuk should have NEVER jumped in to fight Sphene, someone she knew for 2 days and we are forced to believe they are besties with nicknames for each other. That honor should have gone to Otis, he should have joined the fight to try and protect his Queen, realized she's too far gone, then made the noble sacrifice then and there to take himself out alongside Sphene. Then we could have had a very touching cutscene with them together, as they were seen in the past in their human forms with "You're Not Alone" playing in the background. I think that would have actually made me cry. Smile made me cry, but only because I had to listen to it 3 different times and I couldn't discard the Orchestrion roll.
Yup that would've made A LOT more sense then what happened. Last nit pick I had was that Wuk was War LBing like it was nothing through HER power of peace, friendship or whatever. WoL is by far the most potent, powerful character in the current moment and he was a side line character in many moments where WoL could've done something his agency was taken away.
Except Otis is dead because he sacrificed himself to save Sphene, who could have told him at any time she was in a temporary body and in no actual peril.
I thought I was the only one realizing that the "MSQ Package" as you call it, is actually a thing. The patches in this game have a 100% scriped formula, the dungeon have, and to a big extend high end raids as well, even ultimates. I feel like they've done everything that the engine is capable of and storywise they can't decide on a direction.
I feel the team is bad for being formulaic. FFXVIs biggest issue was that it's story started strong but massively falls off the more and more it becomes a typical FF, worlds ending god story. I feel DT had this issue too and the storytelling takes a nosedive with Sphenes predictable ass
Why does it have to be "trial one at x3, trial 2 at x9, trial 3 as final boss?" I get the dungeons every 2 levels for XP grinding reasons, but trials should occur naturally over the course of the story. Especially now that we can use duty support with them. With the way the writing has been over the past 2 years, I'm really starting to wonder if they don't have a new FF MMO in the works that's sucking all the talent away from 14. Like, EVERYTHING is feeling phoned in lately. Except maybe the raid series. But that's 4 fights over 8 months worth of content.
@@TheAsj97 EW itself felt rushed to me. The story was amazing, but it really should have been 2 expansions. The moon as the final area for one, and Ultima Thule for the other. Ancient Etherys should have been it's own entire expansion zone. We're there trying to figure out the root cause of the final days while the scions are in the source dealing with the fallout.
This "heavy affirmations" in writing is a new trend I've seen in a lot of movies, especially Disney remakes. There is no natural growth through hardship and true introspection of necessary character development, instead the main character finds that the heavy affirmations leading to "Believe in yourself!" is sufficient to power you up and defeat the big bad. Yas queen slay. It's boring, poor and insulting.
Incredibly well made video that thoroughly and digestibly addresses most of the errors in Dawntrail. I'm surprised you didn't mention the best example of god awful pacing and patronizing over explaining in the entire expansion which was learning about regulators. -Zoraal Ja shows up in the surprise attack, the regulator is given a ton of visual focus via the camera angles. -Zoraal ja dies and is very visibly resurrected by the regulator -The regulator then turns red, and he goes beast mode and easily overpowers and kills Gulool Ja Ja -The boss of the next dungeon then overtunes his regulator to take on a super beast form -Namikka gets taken away to the cloud, and everyone forgets her because of the regulators -We have now seen every single major function of the regulators in person at least once -We go to the rebels to get an explanation on the regulators -They stop the explanation because "No! No! You have to SEE it to understand it!" despite the fact that we have literally viewed all of the major functions in person. -We completely break the pacing to go meet this random nobody monk and waste 5 minutes in a long cutscene watching her die, come back to life, and go beast mode like we've already seen Zoraal Ja do. -After we see this, we go back to the rebels in the exact same spot. -We pick the explanation up exactly where they left off, and they explain it to us with words anyway. I wanted to tear my hair out. Overall, I think Dawntrail is a genuinely good story in theory that is so completely and utterly bogged down by a complete lack of technical writing skill. This is a first draft of what would've been a great expansion. The worldbuilding is fantastic, the emotional character beats and setup are all present and mapped out, the stakes get raised to a level that feels worthy of our accolades, Alexandria genuinely made my skin crawl in such a cool way, etc. All of that is held back by amateur hour stuff like bland characterization, contradicting details, a ton of bloat that could be trimmed down (like I showed above), a ton of balance problems with characters and narrative figures. The writers had great ideas but just couldn't execute them properly. Honestly, though the manner of the issues such as overexplaining for the lowest common denominator, bland dialogue, and the oversaturation of the expansion mascot in everything genuinely all sounds like textbook things that happen when the corporate suits start getting involved with a game and start meddling in the team's processes with asinine demands. Given how popular FFXIV got between ShB and EW, and how it has been shown to be a major pillar keeping Squeenix afloat, I genuinely wonder if this was what was happening. It's as likely as an explanation as "writers are amateur". Personally, I think 7.X is going to be really good. In so many ways, this expansion has been a perfect mirror to Stormblood. Poorly recieved story, Annoying female lead, Absolutely bangin' battle content, came right after a peak FFXIV expansion and felt like it under-delivered by the fandom, Estinien shows up every once in awhile for 2 minutes to do something cool and then fucks off again. One defining thing of Stormblood for me is that the MSQ in the post game was incredibly well made, and fixed a ton of my grievances with the base MSQ, so we're do for the same thing in Dawntrail. 7.1 has already piqued my interest by answering a question that bothered me so much while playing, and also leaving us on a bunch of super interesting cliffhangers. I think it's off to a great start, and with all of the heat Dawntrail got, and how much Yoshi P. personally takes every stumble of the game, they're going to be calling in the big guns to get shit back on track and as good as possible.
There was hardly even a beach. The "beach" in Tuliyolal is extremely tiny and you can't even swim in the ocean, there's huge rocks lining the edge of the beach and an invisible wall behind them. And this is despite the fact that the game has had swimming for years now.
@@Chadric14 Danger was too high players would get a cool spot for G-Posing. Also why we were forced to ruin the last zone into ugly greenish-brown ruins.
How much I would have loved, for example, a story bit where we just chill on a beach, cocktail in hand, before a monster attacks the beach and we have to fend it off and save the day. Or this party we've seen in the trailer, where Krile was painting. I was so looking forward to see the stuff in the trailer, just to have a cheap and quick reference to the Scions eating stuff after the MSQ and nothing else from the trailer making it in the actual game (Edit: Forgot about the boat scene at the beginning, which was actually cool). It was straight up false advertising, and I feel betrayed, and I'm surely not the only one who feels like this.
Oh you thought you were free of Wuk Lamat in Zone 4? Nope. You now have to go retrieve her bracelet that her handmaiden lost. You literally cannot go through one zone of DT without Wuk Lamat having a presence in it. I'm almost 45 years old. Been playing FF since 1987 on NES, and FFXIV since Heavensward's release. This is the worst MSQ I've ever seen in an FF game. Dawntrail has shredded my love of this game. I haven't even finished the latest patch. When Wuk Lamat chewed us and her adopted father, the Dawnservant out, for dueling behind her back and hanging out without her, then sent us on an errand so she could go back to her tacos, I literally yelled out loud in anger. Beyond anger. The only time my character would ever commit an evil act in the story, would have been right then and there. Then they made her interrupt our fight with Sphene... I'm ready for my WoL to take up Emet's mission to bring about the rejoining.
A fellow old-school FF player! My parents would rent FF1 on NES and play "properly" and I'd mess around in between and play with a full White Mage party as they'd watch, puzzled at my choice. FFXIV since North American beta, FFXIV since it's 1.0 (Collectors Ed.!). Took a long break since Stormblood but just catching up now and ... not looking forward to this MSQ "speed bump" as I'm enraptured by ShadowBringers and Endwalker.
@@Proxenos_zh Shadowbringers was peak FFXIV story and characters. Endwalker had some amazing moments, and some rushed moments, but was a fine conclusion to the 10 year story arc. It also, in my opinion has a couple of the most badass cutscenes in the game. Dawntrail was such a stepdown, I don't know how the people in charge approved it. I haven't even finished the latest patch MSQ as my enjoyment of the game took such a massive hit. I still log on and play with a friend here and there, but I just feel so disconnected with the world and characters now.
word for word same but only 35, i can't bring myself to finish the 7.1 msq even though i've been done with the MSQ since like 2 weeks after release(what a long dreadful 4 months for MSQ THIS low quality), even moreso now after seeing the words "buffalo romance" used repeatedly in reference to the 7.1 quests, sounds awful and NOT like something i want to stop playing space marine 2/dead island 2/literally anything else for lol
@@zeening Dawntrail broke every rule in the book for writing a story, that you can do. There's even a comic/meme out about Krile getting herself drunk and someone else telling her that Square enix will give her more screentime next expansion and won't ignore her next time... It's just so sad that this is what we got. This is what we paid for.
What a video... Well done Zepla. Genuinely extremely well thought out and detailed critique. Goodness willing the team looks at this from start to finish, and takes notes. Not a singular miss on the takes and thoughts. Bravo.
My biggest gripe of dawntrails storyline, which I didn't enjoy thaaat much either but tolerated for long time.. Was the utter massacre it did to FF9. FF9 was all about return to pure fantasy after multiple magitech worlds and stories.. and despite using FF9s music and names.. It's put into the most futuristic aesthetic possible just screwed over and trampled to the nostalgia it was trying to evoke by just making me annoyed about it. Also Wuk invading the final boss killed the character for me. Besides just smothering us with "friend friend friend" talk.
Omg finally someone who thought magi tech is played out. That’s what I loved about ff9 the most the return to good princess, castles, and dragons. I was upset with how they “techified” Alexandria.
Good point.... I actually personally love the ff12/Garlean style tech that still feels quite unique and fantasy, but this neon cyberpunk razor accessory stuff is a terrible fit for 14
Yeah, I've seen a similar comment on twitter that I agreed with. Why did they do this to final fantasy 9 when they could've modeled it after FF10's Zanarkand? It was right there.
@@caldera1134 Not just that but the first half of the expansion already had a feel closer to FF10. Wuk Lamat as naive Yuna travelling to different people (temples) on pilgrimage to become a worthy successor (summoner) to protect the peace (calm) of her people. They just completely wasted FF9 tie ins.
This Video is actually really well made and I hope devs will see that and make sure that the next expansion will not suck as this one does. Pity people dismiss your opinion because ffxiv fanboys are coping that you're hating on the game for views. Really pathetic community.
Happens when the head writers worked on the tribal quests. Granted they also did almost every single raid, trial and alliance raid story. Eden, Pandemonium, Void Ark, Ivalice, The Four Lords, The Triad, assisted on Nier and Bozja, and Omega.
And Yanxia, and Ala Mhigo, and Bozja... Literally everyone is more schooled in war than Zoraal Ja. He's a glorified cop come mountee... Not transferable skills!
@@SusSpooder Trueeee! Every time I saw one of these people in a cutscene talking about how bad they are, I kept saying “I saved the fucking universe from people way better than you”, and they did nothing to disprove that
I actually liked Koana in 7.0, and they had to go ahead and destroy him in 7.1. For some reason I didn't feel too bad after 7.0, but 7.1 just made me realize how bad everything actually was...
I haven't seen a lot of people mention this, but I really do think it was a huge mistake for FFXIV to reveal Solution Nine before the game came out. It ruined so much of the discovery for me. As soon as the "Golden City" was mentioned, I knew Solution Nine was going to either be what they were referring to, or at least part of the puzzle (which we now know is Living Memory) Imagine if we never knew Solution Nine was going to exist going into this expansion. Now on the flip side, imagine if they had spoiled Amaurot when teasing Shadowbringers. The magic of seeing the underwater city woven by an ancient ascian would not have hit nearly as hard. Also, Sphene's character is essentially Meteion on the opposite side of the spectrum. She wanted to create a world where people live forever, and Meteion created a world where people would die and never be reincarnated through the aetherial sea. At first, I thought this parallel was a neat way to show how both sides on the extreme end can lead to bad things, but Dawntrail didnt earn the emotional investment the same way Endwalker did. The way they forced Living Memory into the story just felt so cheap and contrived, especially because you are constantly reminded how "these aren't real people so its okay to just delete them".
I mean I get why Because amaurot and solution nine aren't the same thing Amaurot is within the same ballpark as living memory And I suppose they need to reveal S9 because of some forms of tradition when it comes to showing the endgame city, solution nine is more like Eulmore or Radz, Rhalgrs, idyllshire or mor dhona to them But yes, the reveal of S9 should have been kept under better wraps, like show the southside of heritage found more or something.
There is a theory that DT wasn't being pre-ordered enough so Solution 9 was revealed to increase discussion around the expansion to get more players back after so many left after EW.
Yoshi P himself did admit at the Korean fanfest that revealing Solution Nine early was a mistake. It felt like the devs had no real confidence in the first half (to be fair they were right) and had to put in the "hook" to keep people interested.
Remember when the ShB gameplay trailer straight up revealed that a certain duo were primals? Pepperidge Farm remembers. The marketing team honestly need their heads looking at.
I wish I didn’t know about it either. Because I spent the majority of the expansion asking when i was going get to the cyberpunk city, and got increasingly annoyed as the game went on and we weren’t there yet.
That last boss fight was what did it for me. I was unhappy with my character's lack of agency and the 'guided tour' feel of the first part, annoyed by the fight between the Third Promise and his father and our lack of action and really wished Wuk Lamat had stayed home while we were exploring the final zones, but Wuk Lamat breaking in during the final boss fight I was actually yelling at the screen "No. No. FFS, I *finally* get to do something in this entire expac and this happens?" I was so mad and it actively soured the entire experience for me.
This should be an object lesson to everyone: Companies don't make games. PEOPLE make games. Natsuko Ishikawa has been writing for FFXIV since ARR, and was a main scenario writer starting in late Heavensward onward. The quality, moral depth, and nuance of FFXIV's narrative increased practically in lockstep with how Ishikawa's influence and contributions grew. Then, between EW and DT, Ishikawa suddenly takes on a background supervisory role, and IMMEDIATELY the narrative craters. There is a zero percent chance that these events are not correlated. People make games, and as it turns out, the person who was substantially responsible for how beloved FFXIV's story has been is no longer the one making it.
True things were better when Ishikawa was the main writer, but she was also the writing supervisor for DT. At some point she was handed a script for DT MSQ and said "yup that's good enough, ship it".
@X1OProductions I have my doubts about how much actual control she has in her new position. She may also not be temperamentally suited to tell other people that their writing is garbage and needs to be rewritten. Being an editor takes a different kind of willingness to be confrontational that being a mere writer entails, and the two skill sets are not identical.
@@MattrexDeux All plausible, I just take issue with certain fans kneejerk reaction to blame the new writer as the sole person responsible. Games are made and written by a team. Fan favorites Ishikawa and Yoshi P are partially responsible given their supervising roles. Delaying DT to rewrite MSQ would have been the correct call.
Ah this is Peter Principle at play, Ishikawa is a great writer but once promoted to a manager her work just falls apart. In the end she is still responsible for the mess DT is
16:15 that's not an "adventure" that's a guided tour. an adventure always has a sense of danger or threat from the unknown. walking around a foreign area, not being able to speak the local language. that's adventure. this is feels like a japanese salaryman's vacation to south america where the tour group always sticks to the guide.
You're absolutely spot on about Wuk Lamat. I've never felt less enthusiastic about following the story, because for the first time my character is forced to have opinions and make choices that in my head, they never would. Whenever she pops up in a scene my enjoyment of the story plummets, and I spent the first half of the MSQ being upset because Koana always seemed the better choice. She's immature, short-sighted and naive, and her saturday morning cartoon attitude only succeeds because she warps the story around herself and *forces* it. The moment I went from disliking her to loathing her was the fight against Bakool. VERY shortly before, she tried, in her own words, "putting everything she had" in a blow against him and his simple act of parrying her left her on the verge of defeat. And suddenly she dominates not only him, but also his whole squad of minions? HOW? I had a similar reaction to the WoL vs Ran'Jit fight, but where that was one inconsistency in an otherwise great story, this was just another slap in the face after a dozen prior ones. And then she barged in on my only chance to shine in the entire MSQ in the end. That was the moment I started hating her.
I started LOATHING her after our duel with the Dawnservant. We were chilling, having a discussion with him in the throne room just the two of us, about the trials, the country, and she barges in all mad at us for dueling behind her back, and hanging out. She treated both us and her adopted Father the Dawnservant, as children. Then she sends us off to run some errand, so she can go back to eating her tacos that we somehow interrupted. At that point, I started wishing to kill her at some point in the story. I'm even willing my Warrior of Light to become an Ascian against the entire world to make it happen.
So that "suddenly" is three to four of the main trials previous, during which you all fight one of the strongest giants alive and Valigarmanda, a literal country level threat. The WoL could have beaten Bakool Ja Ja for Wuk Lamat and she would have gained absolutely nothing. Just like Thancred's whole arc in Shadowbringers was accepting his responsibility as Ryne's father figure and learning to see her as a different person from Minfilia, something Ran'Jit couldn't do because he just saw ever other girl he'd trained and sent to die. And you still get to beat Ran'Jit yourself in the end. Plus, you can say the same damn thing about the WoL vs Zenos in Stormblood. Zenos wasn't even supercharged at the point you originally fight him, and comparing him to Nidhogg or Estenien feels cheap.
Beating Ran'jit made perfect sense. Tons happens between our first defeat and our victory over him. We've literally absorbed MASSIVE MASSIVE amounts of aether from the Light Wardens, it makes perfect sense that we're stronger than him by the time we beat him. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat didn't actually do anything to warrant her getting stronger, especially not by that degree.
At least during the fight with Ran'jit, we lose near the start of the expansion and defeat him MUCH later when we're canonically a few levels stronger, similar to what we did against Zenos.
I might not agree with every statement you’ve made about the game in other videos, but holy shit if you aren’t literally spot on with everything in this one. Best critique of the story I’ve heard to date by a mile
This whole video beat for beat. Hit every nail I have had since beating the msq 7 days after release. And constantly being told by others " why play the game if you don't like it." Or " Why are you even here if you hate the game so much." Just made it worse. No room to express criticism. No room speak freely about issues or inconsistent story. Just completely just down at times. The depression was real. Thought about quitting even though I have a medium house and a large FC house. Getting others to understand that I have been playing since 1.0 and I love this game primarily for story and that DT was a whiplash that hurt my brain. Just couldn't seem to get others to understand.
I got kicked out of a Discord I'd been very active in for almost four years for criticizing DT. Toxic positivity has killed this game. I absolutely HATE the playerbase at large now. I also have a personal medium and a large FC house and just play the bare minimum weekly these days.
I teared up ONCE during the DT story, it was when Vrtra/the dragons came in to help save Tuli during the fight and the Endwalker music started playing. I didn't tear up because of anything that DT directly did, it was because of how powerful the music and characters from EW were, and hearing the EW music made it all come flooding back. I realised then just how much I missed the powerful storytelling of the last two expansions, and how badly it fell flat during DT, the contrast in that moment was stark. I didn't come close to crying during anything else, not even the Erenville scenes at the end with his mother, I think it was because I simply didn't feel connected or care about what was happening. At the end It all just felt so...rushed? A detail that bothered me was that Erenville and his mother had such different accents, it actually ended up making them feel less organic (if that makes any sense??). I hate to be a hater, but DTs good parts were so sparse it's hard not to feel extremely disappointed
@@emmaemma4807 the accent thing made sense if you read the dialogue, though it is easy to forget. Erenville mentions twice that he got a lot of flak and weird looks because of his birth name and accent. So over time as he worked in Sharlayan he changed his name and accent to fit what Eorzeans thought the Viera sounded like (since their exposure to Viera are from Orthgard which have an Icelandic). One of the crafter quest lines in DT is about cultural and accent differences between Viera tribes as a male Viera from Orthgard comes to Tuliyollal to learn about the culture of the land and their Viera. I think his mother mentions once that Erenville was a bit embarrassed by his accent and sought to hide it in the Old World too but is a bit disappointed in that he didn't use his birth name. The real reason is that Viera were designated to have an Icelandic accent to reflect Fran's voice actress's performance from FFXII as a nice nod. But also they wanted to differentiate the Viera in Tural so they gave the Turali Viera different accents. Erenville was conceptualized an entire expansion before that choice so they created the reason that he changed his accent when he went overseas which does happen.
@@Chaoskoch Aww, I actually liked little brother. I can see how he's less scary than Nidhogg or Midgardsomir, but just thinking of him as the youngest even in dragon form made me accept his soft side i guess.
Amen, sister, I felt the game! I cried ugly tears during Vritras Rescue mission, but every other CS in DT left me blank of emotion, except for maybe annoyance. The train scene - boring. The "coronation" - wow, I don't care for this, just let us go exploring the golden city already! Krile and her parents - atrocious german VA. It was horrible til the very last second. Erenville and his mum - I expected a bit more than stony faces and a few nice words. I wanted to sob and whine but I felt nothing. Only so much disappointment. After Shb and Ew this expansion really felt like a slap in the face 😢
Bro same the entire time Thancred Urianger and the rest held their own I'm like "Nice cool." *Footfalls guitar solo bridge* "LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Something that still bothers me to this day is how dynamis wasn't even once suggested as a means of sustaining the souls in Living Memory. We have verifiable evidence that it's enough to not only sustain a form of life/afterlife through Ultima Thule, but that it's *so powerful* it can even reshape elements of reality and build new land based on things that were lost. There is *so much* emotion wrapped up in Living Memory. It's the driving force behind its creation and sustainment. So why, at no point, didn't someone come forward to Sphene and say like 'Hey we actually have a *really* good alternative for the power crisis you're going through and a veritable army of scholars, mages, and engineers on call that could put their heads together with yours and figure out how to make this place ethically sustainable'?
The power of Dynamis is greatly diminished on our planet due to aether. Hermes explains in Elpis that "[...] Dynamis is far weaker than aether. Under normal circumstances, its effects are drowned out by the latter." Usually (barring the Final Days where Meteion was blasting us with torrential amounts of Dynamis fueled over eons by sorrow and suffering of entire worlds, way more Dynamis juju than naturally exists on the planet) the effects of Dynamis on Etheirys have been shown to be either slow to accumulate, or shown in smaller interactions, such as being able to push beyond usual limits. Ultima Thule is different because it's in space where Dynamis is more present and also not impeded by the dominance of aether. Also even in space, without the help of an entelechy (a being more readily able to interact with dynamis and convert emotions into tangible phenomenon) like Meteion, it might be rather difficult to guide the effects of Dynamis to achieve some specific goal. What Dynamis manifests is not very predictable. We couldn't just be like "Dynamis go!" is what I'm saying. TLDR Dynamis is not strong enough or consistent enough on Etheirys to be a viable energy source we can make great use of.
Dawntrail is the first Retail WoW treatment I've gotten from FFXIV and it practically slapped the rose-tinted glasses off my face. Returned to FFXIV in full swing when Shadowlands dropped; that expansion was where the development team went hard on gaslighting its fans and being outright disrespectful to its community while stepping on the established lore and creating nonsensical, unappealing plot-points for their 'new lore' and dumping on established characters while giving disrespectful conclusions to aforementioned established characters. Blah blah blah -- loved FFXIV, breath of fresh air, MSQ was something to look forward to. It was my 'new home' and what helped me break my 18-year-addiction to WoW. Characters both annoying and endearing I enjoyed in FFXIV; they all grew as we moved along, and I got to help them through their troubles. I cried in main-EW at Ultima Thule when I caught up to everyone. It was magical. And then I reach Dawntrail, ready for another beautiful enriching story where I get to help Krile seek out her established grandfather and her parentage while getting quality time with Erenville and being introduced to his childhood friend Wuk Lamat. We go to a tropical paradise with mountains, valleys and all sorts of different zones to explore. I'm ready for a beach party, mini-games, and all sorts of adventure while focusing on my beloved companions and their need for answers and closure. And what do I get instead of that? Instead of adventure and closure for Krile I get stuck babysitting a preachy Mary Sue, dragged all over the hills by said-Mary Sue, and all the while bearing the most braindead attitude that my character has ever exhibited. And during my attempts to TRY to enjoy Dawntrail, Square Enix and staff members from the FFXIV team both are saying "thank you for your time, we care about you, we love our jobs" [and a certain someone dumping on me for disliking a certain song and a certain character AND being protected by Square]. I sure don't feel appreciated, being fed barely anything each four months [or so] and spending over half of the expansion watching cutscenes of a character I cannot enjoy in any context other than the GIF memes I see of shutting doors. In a word, I am heartbroken but I am wiser for it.
I was in the same boat as you my friend :( I actually left to FFXIV during SL (so mid SHB) and I loved it. I loved the characters, the story, the fights, everything. I praised it. EW came, made amazing friends, still loved the story...but...when I saw the DT trailer, I didn't feel hyped. Something felt off putting. During this time, Ive met terrible toxicity in FFXIV (mostly the rp side) and I just felt like it wasn't the same game :( I went back to WoW for mid DF and goodness, I had fun again. It's sad that I tried DT regardless with my best friend who is an advent FFXIV player and I timed us. We played four hours the first day and we didn't battle ANYTHING for an hour and a half. It took us nearly two hours to even see an enemy. We killed like 3 things then back to cutscenes we went. After that first session, I had to go outside just to breathe. We finished it...and I told her with a sad heart, I LOVED the game. Past tense. I loved the characters but I just...can't go on and will be going over to TWW. She wanted to try WoW...and unsubbed from FF. I was shocked. Its sad that yes theres a soft spot still for the game but to me it feels the devs are out of tune with us. Even their own game perhaps. You dont hear updates, you dont hear anything from them. It's just...silence. Where is our road map? Where are trailers to get us hyped? It's just...oh here's content in five months...please don't leave. I just hope it truly does get better, maybe will give it another try but until then, they need to do better. Hope you have an amazing day friend and enjoy whatever game comes your way
When the FF14 expansion feels so Retail WoW'd that you look at 2024, and look at actual Retail WoW, and have to admit the latter is less painful because it's simply less jarring. I saw it coming with how freaking awful Zero was, so I didn't burn any money on this trainwreck. I got 10 great years from FF14, that's more than most media can say.
@@Aukaisihir Maybe not $80 worth but hey, at least the actual fights, the raid tier, and other elements were bound to have provided a bit of positive value. We may be roasting story and that's a huge deal for a game like 14, but the actual gameplay instances look like they still had the good polish and engagement they usually have.
@@jaeusa160 Sadly even the gameplay didn't keep me. The whole fate grinding/dungeon grinding of the same two dungeons that popped up got boring. Id just sign on and sit there, not knowing what to do. I started leveling my third class and just threw in the towel. To me its just the same. Nothing new to spark my interest. And I'm probably the only person but I hated the raid with a passion. I did it once and never touched it again
Unfortunately, the lack of a good, engaging story, just showed off how little gameplay there often is in the MSQ, especially the case in DT. Fighting like 10 total enemies through the entire MSQ outside of dungeons. Nothing going on in the game's zones has been a problem since Heavensward, but the lack of good narrative really puts a magnifying glass on the flaws during the leveling experience, when every bit of engaging gameplay is instanced, segregated from the game's world. DT was the first expac I stopped playing almost immediately after finishing the initial story and have not gone back. Didn't level other jobs, didn't do end game, wasn't even kept around by my FC. Fell off and haven't had a twinge of remorse.
Hi, Zepla, I want to thank you for providing this critique as only you could. I was there to watch your reaction streams to DT and empathized so much with your struggles. As a writer, we can learn so much more from evaluating poor writing because we can see the consequences more explicitly. I think this video could be a good thing to revisit before starting up any new creative writing project.
At this point I’m not sure I’m going to be coming back for 8.0. Was subbed since HW, I gave up my house willingly after waiting 4 years to finally get one. I genuinely hated Dawntrail, unapologetically, it’s one of the worst expansions I’ve ever played.
I feel your frustration. I would do the same wouldn’t it be for my friends who refuse to play anything else that I like…so I keep my house and play once a week. I used to play every day and loved it.
Same man, abandoned my house after so much struggle to get it... it was right next to my RL brothers too, and I had it decorated like I was preparing to attack his... But I just lost all interest in the game.
someone needs to force pander.p, erm yoshi.p to read all of these comments under threat of pain, this cannot happen again or the game is done for. it's already damaged my desire to play it which is.... insane as someone with almost 30k hours playtime according to steam, as someone that regularly preached for 2 yrs about how shadowbringers was the single best piece of content i've ever consumed in any form. DT was literal hot garbage. that and the god damn patch cycle is ridiculous, might sound harsh but i don't care about the dev's mental health that much if it means they're literally going to kill the damn game over it, they need to get some tougher freaking devs then. 5-6 months FOR A MINI PATCH is DISGUSTING, even LOTRO.... even... even SWTOR freaking does it faster than that like what are we even doing here.... i'm SERIOUSLY debating losing the house i tried for 4 YEARS to get myself, before they changed the system had 3 separate days where i spent 16-18 HOURS clicking the placard only for some **** to come up and seemingly click it once and buy it
I think none of us were expecting DT to be better than ShB + EW story-wise and the fact that most of us still found ourselves either mildly or severely disappointed says a lot about a lack of direction. I might he talking out of my butt but I think SE needs to stop pulling Yoshida and other key members off the MMO
I gave DT soooooo much leeway. I knew it was restarting a story and it was coming in after both ShB and EW. I *knew* it couldn't possibly be perfect from the get-go and I tried so hard to give it a chance. Far more than I gave any other expansion. But every single point it seemed like it might get better, it just slapped me in the face again with the same repeated message about how Wuk Lamat loves her people and all I could do was enable that. Not one single comment about the hardships of leading. Not one single conflict where her perspective was challenged or that the greatest difficulties comes after being elected. Everything is sunshine daisies for Wuk Lamat and Koana with some mild inconvenience of regicide and mass murder. It was a political plot with the most kindergarten take on politics. I don't think Ishikawa should write *everything* because that's so much work and stress but I def think she should have input.
This is what happens when you take someone truly gifted like Natsuko Ishikawa and promote them out of their element. It's clear that she was either too busy to properly supervise the writing or is just not great in the role. Just pay her more and keep her WRITING. I know she's not a workhorse to be exploited, but if the alternative was THIS mess of a story, then she should have been a lot more in the weeds. I really, really hope that Yoshi-P really absorbs this kind of long form video essay feedback and takes it to heart so we get a return to form for 8.0. It hurts so much to see this level of quality from a game I love.
Uematsu was sent on vacation to cultivate the inspiration that gave us the FF9 soundtrack and Melodies of Life, the greatest game theme of all time (BURY me at my funeral to that, just UNFFF!!) Square should give her the same: money and a zen-as-fuk retreat to get her creative juices flowing.❤
someone needs to force pander.p, erm yoshi.p to read all of these comments under threat of pain, this cannot happen again or the game is done for. it's already damaged my desire to play it which is.... insane as someone with almost 30k hours playtime according to steam, as someone that regularly preached for 2 yrs about how shadowbringers was the single best piece of content i've ever consumed in any form. DT was literal hot garbage. that and the god damn patch cycle is ridiculous, might sound harsh but i don't care about the dev's mental health that much if it means they're literally going to kill the damn game over it, they need to get some tougher freaking devs then. 5-6 months FOR A MINI PATCH is DISGUSTING, even LOTRO.... even... even SWTOR freaking does it faster than that like what are we even doing here....
@@Proxenos_zh expecting square... who unironically tried to shove NFTs into ff14 and STILL want them in ALL of their projects after losing over 98% of their trading value... and is located in japan, that historically treats their employees like canned meat.... is on the scale of expecting a black hole to politely decline to swallow all matter in it's vicinity. edit: but for the record i agree 1000% she's a god-tier writer and should be treated as such.
The Zoraal Ja betrayal scene isn't voiced, yet right afterward when you leave for Shaaloani it is voiced for Erenville saying "Let's head out" or something similar. The amount of blunders are many and so strange like they had a different person for each zone or maybe 4 or each zone, I really really hope they do better in the coming patches and next expansion.
the “MSQ package” is so depressing…. they’re definitely going by this formula, and i really hope and pray this won’t be the case next expansion… if it is i don’t know how seriously i can take the story anymore.
8.0 last dungeon will be us going through Allagna during the 4th's calamity. Xande will be narrating in the background about how the dragons attacked first and brought the calamity. Also Xande was actually a good guy and tried to stop the 13th from invading by sacrificing himself to made a pact with Cloud of Darkness.
@@bigfoxki not going to lie but that sounds a fuck load better than baby sit lion girl for 50 hours with peace and smiles every other line and no character development.
I think the story would have been better if along the way she realized that she was in fact not worthy and fully backs her brother to become his sword and Shield and support his dreams. After she realized that this dream of hers isn't actually hers. But her fathers
Zepla, I was wondering why you were quiet about this subject. Quietly I hoped to myself "I hope Zepla is the one content creator who will take her time to submit a full detailed review in the future"... so I waited and hoped patiently. And you do NOT disappoint!!!! THANKYOU!!! You even added details I felt, but I did not feel like expressing it. Not only that you went step by step and your feelings showed even during the live stream footage. I wanted to thank you for taking your time releasing this!
Imagine if they let us choose which Dawn servant we wanted to support and give us a slightly different storyline for each playthrough. That would have been a great way to kick off the new era of FFXIV.
Especially since they easily could have wrote it in such a way where the end state wouldn't have mattered- we could have Wul Koana and Bakool Ja Ja as our leaders and still get betrayed by Zoraal Ja, with only some dialogue and cut scene changes during the process with different Scions siding with different leaders.
@@autumneagle Yet they were even too lazy to implement different cutscene for healers like they did in Stormblood. "Oh the king is about to die, I better just watch the Redmage trying to heal him lol"
Square Enix is (sadly) not Larian Studios. If they would be this expansion would have been epic and repayable with choices you make. During my playthrough I felt in every corner that Square just wasn’t willing to go the extra mile. They just pushed something out that had to be cheap because we’ll buy it anyway. Firing the great VA’s of Thancred and Y’shtola (in German but I think the same happened in English) was the first clue. They cost too much money so they were replaced with cheaper ones. And it just kept going since Endwalker 6.1 😢
@@Nickrauhl No, english VA's were the same. Although Y'shtolas voice quality was shit, it sounded like the VA herself recorded it in her home with a shitty headset mic.
@@rainerziehtkatapultenachgo9001 then I really have to think about changing my language to English. I have every other game in English only FF is in German but I really hate the absurdly low quality of the VA’s since 6.1. it’s so bad even the horrible story and VA performance in Wuthering Waves seems amazing in comparison 🙁
It's really quite simple why the game's quality has declined. The team has gotten comfortable. You see it everywhere. They're unwilling to take feedback, classes feel homogenized, the writing feels like fanfiction, the events are little more than dialogue boxes for housing items, and the dungeon and raid scene is repetitive. There's basically no spice to be had in how one progresses. It's become extremely predictable, so it's hard to get excited. And they'll keep doing it. They'll keep to the status quo, continue to butcher the skillsets and identities of classes, and keep shoving the next shiny thing in our face for the expansion so everyone hops on board and tries the new classes for a few months, then quit and do it all over again. I have talked to countless others who only continue to pay their sub because they don't want to lose their house. And you can bet that the team is very well aware of that. It's how they make their money. I had high hopes for this game way back when ARR released, but I quit after Endwalker, and I have no intention to return. Watching Dawntrail's abysmal story has only emboldened my decision. It really is a shame.
The pacing was ATROCIOUS and the character development was nonexistent. Highly agree with 99.99% of what is said. The 0.01% is about Zoraal Ja. I understood is feelings about feeling slighted about feelings of jealousy with his adoptive siblings. It's something I've heard happen in families with biological and adopted children. The bio children feel jealous because the adopted children were "picked" by the parents while the adopted children feel less than because of not being biologically related. But yes, the character development was truly, this needs to happen NOW because we are running out of MSQ content. Wuk... being thrust upon us EVERY WAKING MOMENT... entirely maddening.
I think the Dora, Blues Clues line around 35min in or so is spot on for this expansion. Dawntrail felt like SE didn't trust the players to understand what was happening. Felt like I was a kid being explained something painfully obvious by an adult. There is a moment before fighting Zoraal Ja were Wuk Lamat is like "I am Wuk Lamat, and you are Zoraal ja" and I'm just like.. did they think we forgot? I get she was explaining it to Zoraal Ja who is sort of losing his mind, but the wording felt so childish and odd to me personally..
I know right, I thought it might have been wuk lamat’s accent, but it felt like watching Dora. “Hola, me llamo wuk lamat, I love peace!!! Can you say…. Peace” *pause* “Muy bien, I’m glad you also love peace”
@@akkiko ''ILL GIVE MY LIVE PROTECTING THIS RONNEK THING THAT HAS ZERO SENSE OF SELF PRESERVATION OR SURVIVAL INSTINCTS!!''...........really? it would have been more emotional if it was a child not a walking beef sirloine
@@CommandoRickLVLike I get it. They’re like family. But for a Dawnservant to decide to use his body to shield it instead of AAAANYTHING ELSE, especially with Wuk Lamat RIGHT there… god. Not a single ounce of logic, just the same headstrong bs his sister banks on.
i posted similar thoughts on the ffxiv subreddit and got torn apart lol. thank you for sharing your thoughts, it's nice to know there are others who felt the same.
i dare not argue this in my fc either.. like my fcmates are nice people but the way some of them defends wuk and the story is just crazy.. trust me i forced myself to try and like wuk and the story.. tried to resub a few times but its just not for me at this time...
@@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773 Her name *is* Palpatine. Rey is as much a Skywalker as Wuk would be WoL, if she ever decided she likes our nickname and wants to use it...
Reminder that in Wuk Lamat's backstory, why she's sent to Gulool Ja Ja in the first place is because of an assassination attempt with her being pushed into and half-drowning in the bottom of a cenote. Thus... it's reasonable to assume she's got some kind of brain damage.
I want the flashback cutscene where the support characters all get together and talk, sadly, about her "condition" as she sits drooling in the background, trying to fit a square block in a round hole. They nod. They exchange glances, filled with pity. Wuk hiccups and belches, eyes wide. Vacant. So very vacant.
Honestly, I think the game needed to take a major L like this. It's been riding high for too long; the amazing story has carried mediocre job, world, and dungeon design, as well as boring loot and zero player choice. I hope we can get a refresh in a big way
You've pointed out so many things I missed that was wrong with the writing of DT, like the inconsistency of Koana's characterization, thank you! One thing I want to also point out with the problematic writing is that this is the first time in any RPG ever where I've felt like an audience member rather than a participant in the story. And this realization came from the touring of Solution Nine where Wuk Lamat and Sphene went on a date together and for some reason the WoL had to act like a taxi driver, taking them to places where they talked to each other and ignored you completely. The world doesn't move on until you do, and yet you contribute nothing to the conversation. It's one of the most bizarre gaming experience I've ever had. I've played many RPGs before and many since DT, but not a single time have I felt so much like a tool.
Some of that is because the WoL doesn't really talk, but some of my favorite (if inconsequential) scenes have been because they're hanging a lantern on the WoL's tendency to just solemnly nod and get on with things.
It was around that point I really started to notice that every time something happened, the camera would settled on the WoL as normal... and then immediately pan to Wuk Lamat. There's making someone else the main character and then there's rubbing my nose in it, you know?
A quote that's relevant to this, from a beloved franchise that had immensely awesome writing but has since suffered a similar fate today: "The horror is not that it happened, but that it was allowed."
@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1 Hespith says it in Dragon Age Origins. “That's why they hate us... that's why they need us. That's why they take us.... that's why they feed us. But the true abomination... is not that it occurred, but that it was allowed.”
@@katanano Ah. I remember playing Origins a while back and I thought it was... okay, I guess, but it didn't really capture my fancy. I've heard that the new one is a dumpster fire, though.
Wuk Lamat is staggeringly devoid of any history that ties her into the world. It's like she literally appeared in the world of Etheirys in the last patch of Endwalker and two guys were given the knowledge that she was their daughter (biological and adoptive) and Erenville suddenly realized he had an old friend he seems to not actually like. "Oh, I've been here before! I barely know anything about it." "I love my people. Oh wow, I'm learning about my people for the first time!"
There were multiple times in the Dawntrail MSQ where I was not only bored and disappointed, but had to literally put down my controller and leave, from how mad I was One notable moment was when Wuk Lamat sat and watched her father get murdered in front of her because it was an 'honorable duel', where one of the combatants literally revived from the dead after the duel had concluded. Another was the start of Living Memory, where Cahciua proceeds to, in unvoiced stock shot reverse shot, tell us exactly how the moral quandary scenario is going to go, decides the right answer for us ahead of time, and sends us off to go through the motions. I don't know what it takes to get a Lead Writer position at Square Enix, because basic, really common sense writing rules and concepts aren't being followed here, like character consistency, stakes or build-up.
If Square operates like any other Japanese corporation, which they are, the answer is seniority combined with a bit of endorsement by superiors. Ishikawa was picked as head writers because of her stellar work, close relationship with everyone including her predecessor, Maehiro and in SB Maehiro recommended Oda and Ishikawa to co-wrote SB with Oda writing the Gyr Albanian half and Ishikawa writing the Doman half. Ishikawa was picked mostly due to the fact that Oda had developed health issues and thought that Ishikawa did a better job with character writing and Maehiro's avid endorsement of her work. After Ishikawa's promotion (which is fair since she wrote a stellar story and it is cruel to force a writer to continue writing after you wrote you grand finale ) the next in line was Hiroi who also had Ishikawa's blessing. On paper, Hiroi wrote the most stories and worked on FFXIV the longest writing the majority of the raid series, trials series, alliance raid series relic, majority of the beast tribes, half of the job quests, several X.1 patches (4.1 and 5.1 come to mind). Hiroi's strengths was that he was an excellent support writer as he came up with many ideas Ishikawa would use in ShB and EW, good at remembering obscure details and lore, and writing focused narratives. However, he tends to world build via text dump and isn't strong on character writing (though he is good enough for side content like Werlyt or Bozja)
I was literally so angry starting 7.1 that I didn't even touch it. I've been so upset and disappointed about DT that I just couldn't even force myself to play. I started around SB and 4.3 was my first live patch. I've never NOT wanted to play. This story is just ..not good :(
yep the duel had me stop playing for a few days too in an absolute rage, i had to delete the video i was recording because i just started screaming stuff that'd have gotten my channel deleted.
I totally agree with you. This expansion felt so empty in so many ways. The story was so predictable that I couldn’t believe they were actually making it that easy to predict. At the end I was so tired of Wuk that I even hated the last boss fight. But most of all, I feel that the developers lost the big opportunity to give us a trial/soloduty against Thancred and Urianger!
I was a CBT for 1.0 and I actually started my journey in ARR. Experiencing all of the highs and lows throughout each expansion, and finally getting everything tied together in Endwalker felt fulfilling. However, experiencing Dawntrail made me regret ever starting. I actually find it incredibly unbelievable that Yoship signed off on this writing. Even worse, Ishikawa is supposed to be in a supervising role, and she let this pass to Yoship? The writing is so absurd I wanted to believe an AI spat it out.
@@Zyart I'm giving it until 7.5 to get its shit together, or I'm out and give the win to my WoL: "I TOLD you I was RETIRING in Thavnair after that endsinger shit!"
Alright, here’s a longer post from me. ^^° I feel like Dawntrail might be suffering from something that’s plagued many games recently, especially in 2024: story development that misses its target audience. Now, don’t get me wrong - it’s not as bad as in other games (thankfully!), but for me, it feels a bit like playing Spider-Man 2 after Spider-Man 1. Something just feels... off. In this case, it’s Wuk Lamat. Compared to every other NPC in the game, she’s just a Mary Sue. She faces zero consequences for her actions and, somehow, is even stronger than us. Like, she literally jumps into the final fight against the Queen Eternal and holds the boss off - something an entire group of eight Azem couldn’t manage. Meanwhile, we, the literal "medieval nuke," can’t? Yeah, sure... Having an NPC who makes the Warrior of Light look incompetent is just... eh. On top of that, I’m really glad I played the game in German because, honestly, what even was that voice acting for her in English? They improved it a bit, but it still feels inconsistent with the tone of the world and could definitely use a full rework. Fun fact: If you combine the info from her father in both the German and English versions, you learn that Wuk is only 17. In one version, it’s stated, “This happened 13 years ago,” and in the other, “She was 4 when it happened.” Anyway, enough Wuk-bashing. Let’s talk about the story itself. The premise is interesting, but the pacing feels rushed. The first half has us constantly running from point A to B, with no time to take a breath or delve deeper into the lore of the tribes and cultures. It feels like Ultima Thule, stretched over five levels in terms of pacing (not story). Then the second half is really cool but way too short. Honestly, this could have been split into two full story arcs. Instead, it feels like they compressed A Realm Reborn into the first half and Heavensward into the second, both of which deserved more room to breathe. As a huge fan of Final Fantasy IX, the second half of the second half was a mix of love and frustration for me. Otis as Steiner? Absolutely perfect. But their version of Alexandria? Meh. I’ve completed the Dawntrail story with 17 characters now (yes, 17), and I noticed something odd: In Shadowbringers, I rewatched tons of story cutscenes with nearly all of them. Same for Heavensward, Stormblood, and Endwalker. But in Dawntrail? I rewatched the story with only one. And here’s something else I noticed: In Shadowbringers, you kill over 50 enemies in the main story. In Dawntrail, it’s just 25. Across the entire expansion, outside of solo duties or dungeons, you only fight 25 enemies in story quests. That feels... weird? Like, why even have a combat system if you’re not going to use it? Why do I get gear upgrades in dungeons if I’ll barely use them before replacing them with story quest rewards? The progression feels meaningless. For fun, I completed most of the expansion with one character still using ilvl 660 tomestone gear from Endwalker, and it wasn’t remotely challenging. Back in the day, Stormblood’s ilvl 400 gear wasn’t enough for parts of Mt Gulg - even today, some tanks struggle there! Then there’s the lore. I have so many unanswered questions, and I really hope they address them. For example, why the hell did no Ascian care that a portal between shards has been sitting there for 20 years? (How old is Krile again?) Or that there’s an artifact capable of partially merging worlds? Emet-Selch knew about the “golden cities to the west” (he tells us this before the “Sternengrab” - I forgot the English name), but you’re telling me he didn’t know it connected to another shard? Highly doubtful. Anyway, that’s enough from me for now. ^^° Time to finish watching this video (I’m only at 8:50). Edit: Ahh, I totally forgot to mention this - shame on me! I also feel like the second part of the story is missing a sense of urgency. The city is under siege by spaceships, we have no idea where exactly they’re coming from, and yet we’re just sitting around watching a lengthy montage of people repairing a train? Or how about all the running around we do inside the barrier while Zoraal could attack us at any moment, but doesn’t... because? It just feels weirdly off, like the stakes aren’t being taken seriously.
No, Wuk having flaws does not prevent her from being a Mary Sue. Her flaws are inconsequential and never inhibit her in any real way. No, facing hardships doesn't prevent her from being a Mary Sue. The hardships she faces are just magically overcome. Her SECOND face off against her kidnapper she just solos him AND his army of mercenaries. Even being kidnapped didn't have any long term consequences since she's saved without issue and you just take someone else's proof. Specifically, Wuk is a black hole Sue, with everything just warping around her.
I encourage everyone to look up the term "Black Hole Sue" and read the article about it on 'writing tropes' Cause Wuk Lamat fulfills EVERY SINGLE POINT of it completely. Even all examples the website gives occur in DT.
“Talk to Wuk Lamat.” is the new “Pray return to the fucking Waking Sands.” Like. I cannot believe SE dropped the ball so hard. They practically slammed their foreheads into concrete to give themselves life ending brain damage and then gave us this story.
We don't even return to the waking sands over 100 times. And that's still a meme. We talk to Wuk Lamat over 100 times. Wuk is Pray Return to the Waking Sands (Savage)
One point that I am glad you touched on was the idea of Wuk Lamat being about her people. It was one of the story points that bothered me the most while playing Dawntrail, that she was supposed to be the claimant of the people. She was supposed to be the one that both you and I could relate to the most and yet for some reason...she knew absolutely nothing about the people. I understand from a gameplay perspective, they wanted us to venture and learn these new environments and people and get to know their cultures and the likes. However using Wuk Lamat as a vehicle to do so underminded the idea of who she was as she no longer looked like she cared about her people, but instead cared more about the IDEA and the SHOW or PERSONALITY of caring about her people but in reality she had never taken the time in her years to even attempt to learn about them in the least. I was half expecting her to even question what a Pelupelu was at some point or being amazed about how large the giants were or something because she seemed so oblivious to her own people. Either way, good video and though I want my hopes to be high for the patch quests they are pretty lackluster thus far and so instead I am now hoping that true effort is being put in the next expansion's story and presentation of it.
It's so cold that Krile gets essentially a thumb drive in her earring and she couldn't even use the thing, she had to have the shameless merch insert use it for her.
40:23 that scene even out of context is so powerful. That's what dawntrail was missing, it was missing the powerful truth, the anguish and hope of life. The realness. Dawntrail felt like the entire thing was run through an AI before release that absolutely sucked the soul from the story. Going back to old quests they are so compelling. While new ones are the most boring stories I've ever encountered. I don't understand how DT dropped the ball so hard..... many of my friends and guild mates have quit since DT came out. It makes me very sad.... Also the ONLY part of DT I was excited for they haven't even MENTIONED since the first time. The idea there is a sunken God in the trench beside Turali. Please, give us the good stories!
@FrazzleCat I have a theory, DT is supposed to be "As Above, So Below" look at the way everything is mirrored with a dark reflection. The logo, the intro screen, and the sunken God. It feels like vestiges of an idea we're probably not going to see
I don't expect anyone is really going to read this, but here it goes anyway. Originally I created a whole timeline to comment on the things you said, but TH-cam comment length limitations forced me to delete it. And so I will just say... yes, I agree with almost everything you said. The only thing I disagree on is the bit about exploring and having no knowledge about what's out there before we venture out of the main city. To us it's new territory, but to the people who have lived there, they know about all of it... so giving you a little heads up before you venture out is like when a tourist shows up to a new place and a travel guide informs them of what to expect or where to go. I didn't mind so much that it was all already known, and frankly I just enjoyed learning about the cultures as I went through the world. I'll also say: as a role player, the way I explain Wuk Lamat to my friends is: she's like the do-no-harm Paladin with main character syndrome at the table. She needs to be in the spotlight for everything, and any time she's not allowed to do something, she finds a way to brute force her way into something just so she can solve all the problems and be the hero. She never gives anyone else a chance to shine, to grow, or to feel like they matter at all. And that final trial where she nags Meteion 2.0 to death just had me begging, _pleading_ that the writers would just make Wuk Lamat shut up for five friggin' seconds. After watching and listening to your entire review, I had some points I wanted to make that you didn't cover. --- 1. The Timeline All of the older characters are shown as their younger versions during the story, and to me, they look like they are in their twenties or thirties. But we hear that the peace was brokered and the problems of their land were solved some 80 years ago. 80 years is a bit much for them to still be living, much less for them to look like they're only in their 60s or 70s. This wouldn't be a big deal to me if it wasn't also for the fact that when Krile finally meets up with her parents, she reveals that she is 20 years old. So when she was taken out and given to two face and his adventurer companions, was the peace already brokered? Well no because that would have happened during the time two face was doing the journey to make peace. So in 80 years, Krile only aged to be 20 years old? I just... the timeline wasn't made clear and I hated that. 2. Meteion 2.0 As I referenced above, I felt like Sphene was just Meteion 2.0. She's an enemy that appears way too late in the story when the focus should have been on Zoraal Ja. If they were _really_ desperate to have a secondary antagonist, they should have kept Zoraal Ja's aid and made him the second in command of New Alexandria. There's another game I played called Guild Wars 2 where, in one of the race's origin stories, you deal with a device that creates alternate dimensions, and you have an aid with you who is helping you along your journey with the device. When the device finally activates, you have to fight an alternate reality version of yourself and his second in command, who is an alternate reality version of the person who has been helping you along the way. In their alternate reality, they conquered their land and now they were hell bent on conquering yours. After the battle is won, your companion admits that he likes the idea of conquest, and you decide that the device should be destroyed and for this future to never come to pass. Now I'm not saying that they should do what they did with Guild Wars 2, since those two stories were very different from one another... but in that instance, you have your character and your sidekick being well established early on, and your companion's continued desire for conquest remains in him even after the battle is won. They could have done something like where Zoraal Ja and his companion overthrew the New Alexandria empire, where the guy who'd been helping Zoraal Ja becomes second in command and takes Sphene's place. Maybe then Sphene could have been a queen who was trying to formulate some kind of rebellion to regain her throne and enlist your aid to make that happen. There's so much more that could have been done with established characters instead of introducing a new villain two thirds of the way through the story. 3. Zoraal Ja's Complete Control I really, really, REALLY didn't like that Sphene gave Zoraal Ja, a stranger to her and her people, so much power over her society. I mean the fact that he was able to implement a code to kill everyone _behind_ _her_ _back_ and _without_ _her_ _knowledge_ DESPITE the fact that she's an omnipresent AI is absolutely ridiculous to me. Sphene claimed she was 'afraid' of Zoraal Ja and his conquest, but Zoraal Ja is like a tribal man holding a spear, and New Alexandria has sci-fi gunships and robots everywhere. How in the world was Sphene afraid of Zoraal Ja? They could have swatted him like a fly and forgotten about him forever in the next ten seconds. But instead, they just _conveniently_ hand over their _entire_ _empire_ to Zoraal Ja because they were afraid of him? No... this was an utterly forced situation for the sake of plot and I hate it. 4. Krile's Parents are Endless because...? Don't get me wrong, I love that Krile got that little story segment and we got to see something nice at the end of the story, _but_ ... Krile's parents were apparently super opposed to Sphene and Preservation, and yet their souls were waved and they went on to become Endless anyway. I don't know about you, but I feel like if there was a group of people who stood in my way and prevented me from achieving my goals, the very last thing I would want to do is bring them back after I've eliminated them. Again, I love that they were there so Krile could meet her parents and have some closure, but it didn't make sense from a plot point to me.
Thank you for putting so much effort into this video, it really helps to have someone else who's also invested in the story and game walk through all the reasons it didn't land.
The point raised around 29:00 about Wuk Lamat only wanting peace because it was what her father wanted is something that we've seen before - in the Coils of Bahamut story. With Alphinaud pushing Alisaie about her reasons for wanting to protect Eorzea, and how it seems to him that she only wants to help Eorzea because that's what Louisoix wanted. And he winds up saying something like, "A borrowed reason is never as strong as one that you come to yourself; in time, it may falter and fail."
Its something she observed heavily as a child and wanted to embrace personally. Its something that became her reason though she had trouble with the cause. The journey is about her figuring out what it takes and if she has it.
Idk if this is part of it, but some latino people I know feel very strongly about roots and heritage. They like to appreciate the past and fit into the mold.
I think wuk lamat explaining she wanted to be a king like her father makes sense because she always knew what she wanted, but not how she fits into it.
Yet another example of how the scions could have used their endless wisdom to help Wuk Lamat grow and develop from a naive princess into a proper leader, instead of blindly supporting and reaffirming her every step of the way. Fantastic comment.
Coils of Bahamut was written by Ishikawa. She's on another level compared to Dawntrail.
@@Icycrits thats the kind of development she needed to experience herself. Theres a reason why people sometimes weigh experience over education.
Besides, wuk lamat being from a very different culture can make this kind of thing tricky to navigate. Especially with politics involved. Sometimes you cant really apply your own experiences even if it make sense if it happened to you.
Even as early as 6.55 we already saw that Wuk Lamat's motivations are quite short sighted. She wants the throne just purely to deny Zoraal Ja from being able to get it.
Her wanting 'peace' is kind of just like finding an excuse to embody some sort of ideal, due to the whole resolve and reason thing. Ironically the setting of Tural could have offered plenty of opportunities for Wuk Lamat to be thrust into that sort of situation where she struggles with achieving peace. The extremists in Mamook, and the Chirwagur and so on could have been a huge reality check to show just how Tural's peace and unity was in fact a delicate powder keg that could blow anytime and throw the whole nation into civil strife, but they were all brushed aside and dealt with like minor inconveniences because the story would rather defer to the 'old reliable' trope of a big world ending threat with ultra-high stakes.
With how different the scions are behaving in this expansion, I'm starting to think they really did die in Endwalker, and the ones we got now are aliens disguised as our friends.
damn Meteion
please look forward endsinger 2.0
XD
I mean we brought em back w/ Azem Crystal, they're already just ghosts or whatever, I knew something was up in the 6.X quests & the WHAM will probably hit forreal in 8.0 or whenever
Enjoying your tinfoil hat, adventurer?
In b4
SBI involvement
you're entirely right about everything in this video don't let twitter gaslight u
who cares about Musk-shitty-place anymore ?!?!
My queen?
@@7RicolmE7 simping in the big 25 💔
Lucy being based
twitter is twitter. Why bother with them? ;)
Estinien had the Dawntrail experience we should have had
I wish we got to share a sabotender meal, sigh.... 😔
I felt like that is stormblood too
clearly, the smartest scion
In his defense. He did earned the vacation.
What's funny is they could have told a more interesting story in the "past tense" like have it where the opening scene is you in "The Rising Stone" and every is relieved to see you again asking you where you have been all this time. And you just start the story. After deciding to head to a new land the ship you were on was shipwrecked and you lost all access to communications and because of the current change in aetherial flow from Endwalker you were unable to use any means of teleportation to arrive back at a previous destination. So all you could do was explore the land you had landed on and see if you could make contact with any other people. As you continue walking you hear cries for help and a battle going on, apparantly creatures are attacking a village and as you go to help a familar dragoon leaps down slays the foes, they look back at you witha grin as you realize that Estinien is here.
But then basically the whole story could just be told through the WoL perspective and any time you stop doing a "quest" would just be a moment where you decided to pause telling the story. A fun dynamic way to tell the story and heck the story doesn't have to end at 100, it could end at 96 and as you finish explaining everything that has happened maybe something of note would strike their interest and you would then return to explore what you had discovered while "missing"
But man, I wish they would stop copy-pasta the content flow of an MSQ, like you can't even be excited for a trial because it's like oh "X" I saw "X" earlier I guess it will happen after this dungeon, oh I've been level X6 for a while now, must be getting close to another dungeon. It's just takes the sail out of the story when the content flow is so predictable. I wish they would have used Dawntrail to experiment with MSQ content, like give us something that unlocks "Field Exploration" content, have 2 levels of MSQ take place in said Field exploration, give us endgame content at the start that involved Field exploration, something like that could have heavily leaned on expanding the idea of exploring an unknown land.
Whoever decided Krile's arc should be so short needs to re-evaluate their choices in life.
"Krile is finally going to get her spotlight in this expansion!"
My reaction after Krile's arc: ... welp im out *skips all scenes*
Once again Krile got shafted. I'm sick of SE breezing over characters stories. A 45 min story and that wraps up Krile's and her parents arc? I understand that they were under time constraints shutting down the terminal but still it felt so rushed imo.
felt like she forgot how ARR, Heavensward and Stormblood was. Dawntrail was not meant to be Endwalker or Shadowbringers.
I was screaming Krile had more ties to the 2nd half of the game and why were we stuck with Wuk Lamat?
@@arcalas The problem is this was worse than ARR, and let's not even talk about Heavensward, this doesn't even come close. The pacing was just awful. In the 2nd part they kept talking about unimportant things instead of focusing on what really matters, like how about talking which shard the enemy is coming from? Imagine if they talked about how you can farm in Azyss Lla.
Bruh Erenville didn't get a goodbye. His mom dapped him up, high fived him and said GOOD LUCK MY SON. You get one split second of her treating the dude like a son then she's gone.
God that pissed me off so damned much!
While yes, it is exactly in character for her to do so, the actual play, the right decision for that would have been to force her to remain alive and address her neglect of her son while also carving out time amidst her rebellion to spend WITH him. Not an "Oh I have a bucket list we're going to go through" before eventually fading away forever.
And you know what nettles me? Viera are EXCEPTIONALLY LONG LIVED. She either got herself killed in an accident or by directly opposing Sphene, and that's NEVER ADDRESSED.
Ngl the way she cheerfully talks down to him like a child while he's in shock over losing his family and his homeland made my blood boil
now compare that to the urianger / moenbrydas parents scene in endwalker. i know its not really meant to be compared but you would think there would have been a LITTLE BIT MORE for our man Erenville
@@Qesheniirc he only ever wanted to go on adventures with her as a child and then she gave him the impossible task of finding the Golden City for her to bring him along. It took him so long that he gave up and whoop here's the golden city as a reward for babysitting a princess. That's like 20 years or something at least and then a further 30 at least in his mom's perspective considering the time gap in Xak Tural after the emergence of solution 9.
The way she just brushed off her concerns about her own death and leaving him felt so tone deaf like what the hell. This is your son. Your "Fussy Bun Bun". Why are you not more concerned for him after more than 30 years of not seeing him while Namika has worried for Wuk Lamat in the entire time she remained in Heritage Found and then in Living Memory
@@sandjack7294 And it's all lazily played down by the whole "she is Endless now so she behaves like a robot because she's just a pile of data" excuse.
The point you bring up about NPCs having bland corporate speak felt like that got applied to ALL the characters
I was so excited when I saw the twins were going to be part of our team joining us. But when there was literally no fun bickering it banter between them, I felt so cheated.
It really felt like they were there to fill out trust spots and could have just as easily been Uriangier and Y’Shtola for all the contributions they had to the plot
not to mention where we left the healer behind and had a RDM healer, playing as a RDM main myself, I was like, where's my Vermedica?
This was my biggest takeaway from my initial playthrough of the MSQ... the Twins contributed literally nothing to the story. Alisaie has some snarky dialogue if you talk to her on the side, but in actual cutscenes had zero personality.
Yeah, it's so funny how you can count these moments on one hand. Says a lot that one of the most memorable scenes was Thancred in the dungeon blocking our path and playfully mocking us with a one-liner in good spirit.
Agreed - if they're not even going to be truly themselves then what's the point?
If they were only going to treat the old characters as familiarity goodwill tokens it would have been better to have completely new characters.
Also wouldn't it have been better for sheltered little Wuk Lamat to go forth on her journey of discovery and growth with people from her own goddamn country rather than sourcing clueless foreigners without intimate knowledge of her countries woes and nuances?
Ironically evokes the signature line of Garnet til Alexadros of Alexandria (FF9), "One day, I will be Queen, but I will always be myself."
I spent the whole first half of the expansion thinking “Can I team up with Koana? He seems to know what he’s doing.”
Koana's story arc is pretty much just a better version of Wuk Lamat's, and Dawntrail would've been a lot better if they either cut Wuk Lamat or turned her into a side character in Koana's retinue a la Erenville. She didn't need to be in the rite of succession, she needed to be the down-to-earth friend for head-in-the-clouds Koana.
I, unironcly, wanted to team up with her brother. I completly forgot that he was a warmonger. But he was sooo much more competent, then the rest
It felt like Wuk Lamat was the comic relief character you run into every so often and Koana was supposed to be the main character but... we make the comic relief the main character?
I agree with this! I wish we could have picked one or the other!
Then he stood in front of a charging giant dinosaur to dispel that notion.
They could've almost entirely fixed Bakool JaJa by just making him release Valigarmanda because he was so sure of himself, he thought he could beat it by himself, and then when he obviously can't, he flees, leaving you to deal with it.
So many moments like this one could have been fixed with minor adjustments. The whole of Dawntrail feels like it was a first rough draft, which never got any reworks.
"Oh, the trial involves Valigarmanda! Well, if I release and defeat it, nobody else can finish the trial!"
"We are genius, brother!"
...
"Oh no!"
Or we save him from the clutches of death despite all of his deeds. This would make his change of character much less jarring.
@@kevintruong9135They could've easily taken a page from DBZA.
Wuk Lamat: "You released Valigarmanda? What were you thinking?!"
Bakool Ja Ja: "I thought.... I thought I could beat him."
Wuk Lamat: "Great. The thing that Papa was able to trap has been freed. The two idiots who could help stop him are flat on their back, in a puddle of their own piss. How can this get any worse?!"
Bakool Ja Ja: "I'm... I'm sorry."
Wuk Lamat: "Oh, we really *are* fucked."
I was waiting for a moment where he'd say something like "I knew you could handle him anyways and if not I would" and he thought of it only as a delay for you considering he does/should know WoL's crew are strong regardless of his arrogance + not take Valigarmanda as seriously as people make him out to be, but nothing like that ever came. 😔
Zoraal Ja was impossible to take seriously from the moment he stated his motivations. He's literally a Reddit armchair general and would have gotten bodied instantly going into a war-hardened, post-EW rest of the world. Hell, he gets bodied instantly on his own turf. His only successful move was his surprise attack on the capital, but he doesn't really do anything strategically except posture. Then his forces he spent 30 years building get annihilated in an afternoon by an extremely small contingent of specialists from the East, dragons, cowboys and his countries' own original military. He couldn't even beat his own father with that bonus 30 years without his regulator crutch.
He was pathetic and lame and every time I saw him on screen I wanted to alt-f4. He really should have been the one with the mid-story heel turn into a regretful good guy, after seeing that the rest of the world was well and truly already familiar with war, death and tyrants.
Bro, I’m not gonna lie…I rather have Zenos back over Zoraal Ja. That damn blue lizard was so dull
Hard agree, I was annoyed with Wuk Lamat for how overbearing she was and I was expecting to be annoyed with Zoraal Ja for being a stupid villain. But, no. Everything about Zoraal Ja was so stupid in the extreme that I couldn't even be annoyed, it just became funny, in a pathetic, embarrassing and very much unintentional sort of way.
Zoraal Ja: 'With this immensely powerful technology, and my soldiers that can swap bodies, my tiny island nation will conquer the world!'
Me: "Your list of 'accomplishments' doesn't even equate to a quarter of the things I did in the last two years, and your military isn't even equal to one of the nations in the alliance of nations across the sea. Even if you miraculously defeat me, you're getting bodied the minute they hear about you being the one to kill me, considering all I've done for them. You're getting Navy Copypasta'd, boi."
Bro all of this is facts. His motivations make no sense at all. He wants war for the sake of peace??????? Like dude is easily the WORST villain in this game. No real motivation, no reason to care about his story or villain arc.
When I was doing the MSQ with a friend I was like this for Zoraal Ja too (and Sphene)... there is zero logic here, their plan is moronic and short sighted, and "can we please just body this guy and get on with out supposed holiday? He isn't even a threat..." But nah, we just stand back and watch as the situation gets worse and worse. ARgh!
This is the first FFXIV expansion where I felt the writers were writing to the lowest common denominator. It was so dumbed down and held our hands far too much. Story was so shallow and writing was just not up to par. Not to mention how insufferable and one dimensional Wuk Lamat is.
I personally think that Square Enix's ethics department got involved to make sure the story would be as inoffensive as possible.
"Turn off your brain"
A classic argument in "defense" of bad writing. My breacking point was when nobody jumped to Gulool Ja Ja's help because of "muh honor duel". Especialy when Alisaie was present, the one character who would not adhere to it, especialy when Zoraal Ja gets back up from death. Gulool Ja Ja's death was the most telegraphed thing ever but the way he died was stupid and did damage to everyone present.
The scions were just not allowed to be characters this whole expansion. Meat puppets who nods to everything Wuk said.
Forgot about the whole soul system of Solution Nine. We enever get to know how it works (we likely will know). Is the soul consumed, breaking the reincarnation cycle? Again the scions just don't get to be characters and even though some of them finds the practice disgusting, they go "it's how they live, we don't judge".
After knowing how souls and the aetherial sea works, I feel like the way Solution Nine treats souls as comodities would go as far as trigger wars if the knowledge spread in Eorzea.
@@tarotxiii9830 My exact thinking. I was like" So are we going to even try diplomacy and ban this technology or are we uniting all nations of the world and razing this place to the ground?" And we do not even have to talk about reincarnation, the technology itself is insanly dangerous. Just imagine some evil groups would get access to this technology. Taking souls from people so your soldiers and leaders are immortal would start so many wars.
Yeah. The whole soul destruction thing was a massive emotional plot point in end walker but was dropped entirely afterwards.
@@tarotxiii9830 "it's how they live, we don't judge"
I mean that is actually true. You do not judge for this, you start holly wars and total wars over stuff like this. Either to steal this technology for yourself or burn the knowledge of it from the world.
But I am sure everything is going to be all right, they are lead by experienced and competent rules... oh actually no, I forgot. They are lead by child with daddy issues.
That was my limit as well, I decided I was done with the story and started skipping all the cutscenes. And what's maddening is it's such an easy thing to fix... have the fight happen while the group is not there so that everyone can arrive just in time to witness Zoraal Ja revive and kill Gulool Ja Ja from a distance. Wuk Lamat runs in and attacks Zoraal Ja. Job done.
I've said it before and I'll say it again.. the quality of the MSQ in a game like FFXIV can absolutely have an impact on the enjoyment of the rest of the game, whether they're directly related or not. It's why I think a lot of us have been pretty lenient about the game's shortcomings, so I think it's no coincidence that there seems to be an uptick of more critical, negative or apathetic sentiments about the game as of late.. and that's frustrating.
I know you mentioned how you were depressed for a little while after first finishing Dawntrail's MSQ. I'm still kind of there. I still do care about XIV, which is why I keep reading and watching stuff like this, I suppose in the hope that things can improve from a writing standpoint if enough people raise their concerns.
Great video overall, really lays out a lot of the reasons why the story didn't work, in a constructive way. I hope they really take this stuff to heart. Thank you for posting it, probably was not easy to make given what's been happening lately. Stay well.
I agree with this. Personally, the great story kept me around as I felt very immersed in the game. I didn’t mind doing repetitive or more “boring” content because I’d read up on characters I loved on the side, and would often go to my favourite areas and reminisce on the story.
This time I tried for a bit… but I’ve decided to take a long hiatus from playing, only logging in to do seasonal events and keeping my house. I just don’t feel engaged anymore.
My investment in everything with this game has been stifled because of this story. If I survive this expansion and continue on, I won't give a good god damn about Tural, its people, its places ever again.
We're not even six months out from expansion and I'm already ready to move on to the next expansion in total.
I do share this hopeful sentiment that with a bit of humility and openness to criticism the current MSQ writers can improve their writing process towards better storytelling, more showing and less telling, and reflecting previously established character traits for the entire present cast.
However, this recent display of mediocre writing, as well as the increasingly formulaic nature of the major MSQ storybeats, not to mention the obvious language barrier between the japanese devs and the wider community, make me skeptical that any of the concerns raised in this video or others like it will have any meaningful impact on the writing going forward.
I do think we should confront the very real possibility that this is the new standard for writing in FF14 and it is not going to change anytime soon. Does that suck? Yes. Would I blame anyone for abandoning the game or at least unsubscribing for longer periods of time in an effort to vote with their wallet? Absolutely not.
Absolutely, I have a casual friend who considers Dawntrail a wash until next expansion. I was hopeful for the content and have been enjoying it, seeing the story as a "bad start" but enjoyed the more relaxed and fun raids/ultimate/chaotic as a hardcore fan. The bozja equivalent needs to be in the game NOW though.
300%. I stopped playing the game everyday as I used to because of this damn expansion. Even the fights which are admittedly good could not even keep me hooked in more than necessary.
In perspective, I used to gear 3/4 alt jobs via savage... This expansion I only bothered with my main and I have zero desire to return so much so that for the first time in 5 years I'll let my sub run out till most likely 8.0.
Even the FFXI ally raid could not let me retain my sub. The gear sucks, I never played xi so I don't get any of the references and I had rather much more them teaching me about jeuno during the quest (especially post instance) than having fucking tacos again with wuk lmao. Not to mention the usual bs trope of "if you don't see their dead body they are not dead". Cuz hey, here we go again with sphene, and in the same patch too. It's ridiculous.
I really wish Wuk Lamat had stayed behind in the second half to protect the city since she's literally the supposed warrior, while Koana joined us to Shalooni and Heritage Found since he's the technological guy, and would understand better what things do, and even understand the nature of Sphene better. It felt very awkward.
He did study tech in sharlaya. The scions mostly studied magic.
So north party shouldve been: koana, krile, graha (graha is the scion with most tech experience)[healer], thancred [tank] the inflitrator. and WoL
It really made no sense. The whole first part, we have Wuk Lamat telling us every single time how much she loves her people and how much she wants to protect them as Dawnservant. Zoraal Ja's invasion should have been her moment in the spotlight, the moment where she should have taken up the mantle of Dawnservant, rallied her people and shown what she learned in our journey by capitalizing on each race's strengths and outside help, leading Tural to victory.
But that was what Koana did. For no reason at all, everyone agrees that only she can take revenge and her first act as Dawnservant in a moment of crisis was to leave the burden of ruling to her brother to go kill her other brother. She cares only on a superficial level but can't keep her head straight when it should have counted.
Right? I thought for sure after he became Dawnservant as well that we'd get the other half of the expansion with him. It felt like there was 0 reason for Wuk Lamat to still be tagging along at that point
Wuk Lamat's also meant to be the people person, making her probably better for diplomacy and gaining allies. Meanwhile, Koana still felt like he needed that reverse colonialism bullshit to get beaten out of him, which visiting Yyasulani/Heritage Found would've probably helped with.
I dont get why she came back so suddenly, even with the DT MSQ continuing shes back, it makes sense she has to be here now because she and Sphene have a connection but Koana couldve done so much more in the area and even despite loving her the first half of DT, I am feeling fatigued of her presence.
The expectation was we were going on vacation and we didn’t get any of that. Babysitting an incompetent was not what I considered fun and the first part was wayyyyy to long. The scions constantly going on their own and my character stuck w Wuk was torture
I loathe wuk lamat, that character made me quit ffxiv, after 4 years of constant playing, the MSQ is so unbearable, i enjoy more playing WOW, fcking wow? can you believe wow being more enjoyable that ffxiv?
I feel like we went on vacation but from the POV of a mother and father with a hyper child. We wanted relaxing but someone.. got into the candy and started bouncing off the walls. I also feel like Wok was someone's .. self insert or pride and joy character, maybe and that's why everything bended to her being so awesome. IDK, she is odd.
@@ThePlayplay64Wuk Lamat IS an activist self-insert 100% and I am 100% convinced of it. I've watched many of these cases. Wuk is the protagonist here, we are just servants. "Wuk" sounds close "Woke" and "Lamat" means 'break' Tho 'woke break' could be a coincidence, the rumors around the voice actors adds more evidence to what IS than what isn't.
People can deny it all they want because they want to be 'fair' or rational or fear repercussions of disliking something they are not allowed to. That's why channels even delete my comments about it with 'labeling excuses' that I don't buy. (yes I tested it that isn't youtube)
We can dislike what we want, not just what we are 'allowed.' It's in the constitution yo. Enough with the nonsense. Enough with the repression. I'm sick of this mafia...
@@andresangel8641 I liked Wuk character introduction but also came to loathe it and also quit ff14 cuz of the rotten story. (visuals and new picto class were amazing tho)
I gradually came to dislike Wuk personality, then her voice sounded like a guy forcing it by lev 97...and I read why. My only problem with 'voldemorts' is when they force on me what they aren't. Otherwise, I like them.
Reminds of that annoying Taash character from Veilguard
As I was playing Dawntrail, the character writing for the scions gave me the feeling that it had been written by someone who had not played nor cared about any of the previous expansions. Seeing the breakdown of how WuK Lamat's journey contradicts important themes of previous expansions makes me feel that even moreso.
And yet apparantly Ishikawa signed off on the writing... did her climbing higher in the career ladder addle her brains from lack of oxygen?
I wholeheartedly believe the writers did not play the game. Everything is so far disconnected from events of Eorzea even the scions felt like strangers. I'm starting to believe that we either died or slipped into an alternate timeline during that sea storm in the intro.
I feel like Koana would've been a much more natural story focus after the last expansion literally took place in Sharlayan.
_He_ was the character with the potential to be a great leader with a little nudging in the right direction. Then fact Wuk Lamat needed an entire party of baby sitters and he only needed 2 companions says it all. She could've been a great loveable sister to him if she wasn't the main focus
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was intended to be him, but they made the switch to Wuk for whatever reason.
@@Jinxyoutoheaven like woke ooops i said it
I liked Koana up until the point when he tried to sacrifice himself to save 1 cow.
Its made worse by his part of the story in 7.1, where we get a little look into his history and realize that his thought of being abandoned by his parents partially led to his disregard of the traditions of Tural. Which would have been much better if it was in the MSQ proper not some random post story thing that is back to back parental issues.
I really don't agree. Koana's whole arc is realizing his path forward, while well intentioned, was not the way if it sacrificed the unique cultures of Tural. It's like we didn't spend the whole last expansion learning that Sharlayan was willing to let all of the other cultures of the world die so long as they were left to remember them.
Dawntrail should've been a vacation arc that had extended epilogue where all the scions get their time to reflect on the events of the previous expansions.
For example, Thancred talks to the WoL about what he said to Meteion as his cutscene never got dialogue in EW. He reflects on his past failures of unable to protect Minfilia's parents, Minfilia herself, his lost ability to use magic. He felt like a failure, but despite that he fought and took back Ryne's life and gave her her freedom.
Y'Shtola reflects on her mortality and her relationship with her family. She has nearly died the most times by nearly getting cut down by Zenos, sacrificing her life to give the scions time to escape, sacrificing herself again in the 1st, and losing her sight to where she can only see ether. She promises to talk to her family more like Matoya who is her mentor/mother figure and her sister who lives in Gridania.
Urianger reflects on his friendship with Moenbryda and how she inspired him from being a loner bookworm who only researches knowledge through books and actually goes out into the world to explore. Experience is a better teacher than through someone else's experience.
Graha Tia, thought that for a century he would be trapped in a foreign land for the rest of his life, never seeing his friends again in the source. He reflects on how it feels to readjust to familiar settings all over again.
I could probably go on, but it is tiny details like this is what makes me disappointed in the story direction Dawntrail did.
This is a great idea!
I actually had very similar thoughts for the role quests, which didn't quite click with me this expansion either, unfortunately:
Since G'raha at the end of EW promised to go on an adventure with us so that we could regale him with our tales of what he had missed, I thought each role quest could've recapped on different prior expansions, meeting other key characters and checking in on them post-EW.
Alas, he was not allowed to fulfill his own promise and we instead went back to familiar places seemingly not caring about how they're holding up because of newly introduced plots that seem somewhat disjointed to me (haven't finished all of them just yet, though, tbf).
But I do understand that this approach would've been tricky to implement with the scions all making at least brief appearances later on and it would've probably placed too much focus on one single NPC, too (not unlike Wuk).
Something along those lines is precisely what I had hoped for instead of whacky adventures in the third world. My main man Urianger got shafted so far in this expansion.
Your final point about the lack of nuance is what really got me as well. The way Nanamo's reckless idealistic reforms almost got her killed. The way you trying to make things better was met by opposition, not by enemies (which are a given), but by the same people you were trying to help, like it happened in Ishgard or Garlemald. The way Endwalker tried to establish a message about finding what makes life worth living, yet at the same time presented Zenos as a twisted version of it's own message by becoming single-mindedly consumed by his own obsession, not being afraid to show how finding the spark to beat despair can also go totally wrong.
These "devil's advocate" moments are what made me fall in love with FFXIV, and are sorely lacking in Dawntrail. Tural itself is presented as this melting pot of diverse cultures living in perfect harmony, which is a beautiful thought but also very unbelievable, lacking in nuance, and anathema to actually interesting storytelling. Any inkling of conflict in the tribes is easily steamrolled by Wuk Lamat's bright-eyed idealism, which goes through the whole story pretty much unopposed, and the constant repeat of the "peace and happiness" mantra feels tiring at best, infantilized and patronizing at worst.
I guess the way they tried to put the idealism to the test was with the idea that Wuk Lamat inevitably had to go to war against her brother in order to maintain peace, which is indeed a contradiction. But Zoraal Ja was portrayed in such a villanous way that in the end the whole thing just feels like a typical conflict with the bad guy rather than a highlight of the inevitable problems of her idealism. Remove Zoraal Ja, who is an over the top and exceptional anomaly, and everything is swell. It just misses the mark, IMO.
I still love that they did the second ballsiest thing they could have with that Nanamo storyline: Ul'dah is still a sultanate. Despite the conspirator's death, his plan to end Nanamo's reforms succeeded.
Mind, I still think they should have let Nanamo stay dead. Nothing against her, but once she was in that position (mostly dead) I'd prefer that the writers had sealed that deal.
Zoraal Ja is an over the top and exceptional anomaly until the MOMENT you kill him. Then he's all sads because because he just wanted to be as important as his super cool daddy!
Probably the bit most emblematic of this is the Pelupelu tribe quests. Not even MSQ, but the scenes are all so boring because there's nothing to do because Tural is too perfect - there's even one part where they introduce a baddie and some genuine social problems and then go "oh yeah no we fixed that offscreen years ago." ARGH!
@@MrThirtyH "I just wanted to play... on da playground..." - Zoraal Ja, probably
Even Alphinaud in ARR, and Lyse in SB, for all the flak they got, were never as constantly, omnipresently, overbearingly clingy as Wuk.
And the former had dire and real consequences for his naivete. So many were sucking up to him not because he was such a upliftingly charismatic ray of sunshine like a certain black hole cat, but because they were taking advantage of him. and then when the time for the big betrayal came, they pretty much took EVERYTHING, cueing our flight to Ishgard.
While the latter couldn't just suddenly fill the gap in the resistance leadership, and slammed into how Ala Mhigo's people might not have the will to rebel anymore after having their spirits crushed and indoctrinated under Garlean occupation.
Thank god for the Skip button or I would've logged on patch day when they showed we wouldn't get even a single bloody quest point of reprieve from that mary sue.
Have you ever gone to your friend's house to play, but your friend's mom says you have to include the little sister... 😱
Little sister is fine. We are talking about a full grown adult here.
@bigfoxki I think you're missing the point and focusing on the wrong word in my comment. 🤦
@@Dracounguis No, I got your point. She was forced into our party. I just wanted to bring up that her actions will make more senses if she is a kid instead of someone who lived there years till adulthood. And she knew nothing about the people she lived years with.
@@Dracounguisyou’re the one that clearly misunderstood their comment, not the other way around. They were agreeing with you, and expounded further by mentioning it’s even worse as she’s an actual adult. Chill and also why does this need explained lol
@@bigfoxki you might want to google what an analogy is
In a way, Wuk Lamat feels like sort of a mascot for toxic positivity. She is dumb, shallow, mindlessly positive in a very superficial way - and gets nothing but affirmation for it, isn't questioned, doesn't fail, just succeeds by being shallowly positive nonstop. Call me crazy... but I think this might actually have been what the writers were going for? If so, that makes it worse.
Considering the current year, that checks out.
@@HiddenEvilStudios Dawntrail feels more like it was written by the Square-Enix employees who made that horrible Avengers game than CBU3.
And I strongly suspect that, internally, that is not far from the case. Big SE making demands and "consulting" a lot I'm sure.
I think the problems started in the post-Endwalker patch cycle. More of the patch content for Endwalker should've gone towards Dawntrail's world building. Probably would've helped the pacing in the beginning instead of being bombarded with all of it in the first three hours of the expansion. And conversely, the Void subplot should've been given a whole expansion instead of being relegated to post-MSQ patch content, given how much of that story had been sitting on a back burner to the point of boiling over for years.
But Krile (46:22) being shoved aside for all but a couple of moments in the back half of the plot is probably the greatest sin committed in Dawntrail out of the rest of that mess.
The void subplot could have been a lot better if it wasn't held back by FF4 member berries and tried to be something unique
@@dylansetright3359 True. But regardless of reference overdosing or anything unique, it needed more than a patch content subplot that was clearly only meant to tie up loose ends.
I think we have to agree that square enix decided to just milk ff14 to support other projects while producing minimum viable product due to budget cuts. The board of directors don't give a damn about games. They're not interested in their own product, only the client's money.
Problems started in msq of endwalker. It was terrible
The void storyline should have been the trial questline, like Werlyt and the Warring Triad, etc.
Glad you waited on a REAL review.. Not a "Rushed" review for clicks, clout and content.
You let your opinion simmer and actually did your due diligence in writing your review. Thank you for an actually detailed review no one will get from any other media source.
cough cough ProJared cough cough
Who cares if they arrive at the same general conclusion. Some of you were really butthurt that the expansion wasn't unanimously liked.
@@xaviernaruto I think if someone "reviews" a major expansion right after they complete it they're doing a disservice to their opinion and the review itself.
I think Zepla taking her time with it even if doesn't get as many views allows for a more elaborative point by point review process.
Yeah this expansion was some highs and a lot of lows..
Her review amounted to the same as everyone else's and the months of online discourse. We knew hos she felt about it, because we SAW her livestream her playthrough.
@@Mr.Genesis The expansion was poorly received in july, and it's still poorly received in December. The time didn't change her feelings, it just gave her more editing time to show side by side examples of why past expansions handled similar topics better. Same thing other reviewers talked about in july, they just didn't edit it in, assuming you've played everything before 7.0
Lyna's short scene you showed in the video gave me goosebumps. I remember the moment, it still moves me. I don't think Wuk Lamat managed that in all of DT.
Shadowbringers is chock full of these bite-sized moments that just made you fall in love with these characters. Lyna's lament, Tesleen's view on mortality, Ardbert's intangibility making it impossible for him to save the soldiers from the sin eaters, a quick chat at the DMV with a new old friend, Elidibus monologue descending into dementia. The Ishikawa special. These are the moments that made FF14 truly special. I almost tear up just recalling them.
Lyna, a side character, might well have been more engaging than the entirety of DT.
I took a week off of work to play Dawntrail.I thought the story was so bad that about three days into my vacation I was wishing I was at work. This was the first expansion that I just wanted to get it over with instead of wanting to see what happens next.
That's why i only take whole weeks off at work for travel vacations. I felt into that trap with wow before.
Same. After i fnished a MSQ I was usually a bit emotional, in awe, happy, sad, you name it, mixed with looking forward to things.
Not with DT. I was just glad it was over, disappointed and annoyed.
Yeah I kept feeling like... When is this going to be over so I can play the game. Normally I don't want the story to end.
@@rexhurne Shadowlands?
tbh same, was not feeling it with DT and stuff but got peer pressured because my circle was buying it. then i played it then i was hella annoyed. some part isoke but majority are like meh, even with stormblood i feel smtg in the middle of the msq (not the post) but thank God anything beside the MSQ is hella fun
I've been using Smile as my alarm, nothing gets me awake and scrambling to turn it off quite as much
Why would you subject yourself to such psychological torture every time when you wake up? You may as well put yourself into a living nightmare.
My friend, please stop torchuring yourself. There are people in your life who love you and care about your well being. You do not need to do this to yourself. Nobody does!
We went from "Twas a grand, glorious dream we shared" to rubber bullets.
That was an incredibly powerful scene.
I don't understand how anyone though Wuk Lamat was a good idea. I think the WoL should've hung out with Estinien the whole time.
I'm convinced wuk is one of the main writers' pet character. She gets more spotlight than any character despite being just introduced one minor patch before. Hell, alphinaud's smug ass in ARR had way less.
The WoL and Estinien getting up to hijinks together and watching the trials happen sort of tangentially would have actually been fun. It could have even wound up with the same latter half, once Alexandria shows up, and it would have been alright. Because then we wouldn't have been inundated with Wuk Lamat, and she'd simply be sort of our vector into getting into the endgame.
I would have far preferred it if we were just allowed to drift from one place to the next, as a kind of neutral 3rd party while we get a lay of the land, meeting people in a more organic way, instead of how hamfisted the introductions to each of the places and cultures we get to know. You know, LIKE A PROPER ADVENTURE AGAIN? XD
I agree we dont need goofy sidekick
Theres already so many side characters and ofc scions gang.
this would've been awesome. rather than a planned out road map of where to go, we could go wherever the wind takes us like Estinien does it.
Krile being sidelined is so freaking meta. Fun Fact, for the Endwalker key art, Krile was notably absent because Yoshi P forgot to tell his artists to add her. Like EW, Krile in DT was essentially given one zone where she was imperative to plot.
1/4 zone 😂
I like this video alot. Unbiased and genuine analysis and constructive critique of the story and characters. I'd like to see more of these videos in previous or future expansions
I was legit so disappointed we didn't actually get to clash with the Scions 'cause that's how the expansion was _advertised_
Felt like we were basically on the same side the whole time :/
I would have rather been on their side helping the one brother Koana.
They even said we'd be surprised who takes a side against us......but it was the most obvious ones possible that everyone assumed it'd be.
I mean hell even if it wasn't a serious fight someone like Thancred would probably love to get the chance to throw hands with the WoL
True, i expected some tension to win it all, Thancred and Ugrainger dont hate us, but they were in this as friendly competition as well as work.
@AzureRoxe And they had the best candidate too.
The story was so bad I stopped playing the game. Not even joking. My headcanon is the WoL and company defeated the existential threat at the end of Endwalker and society slowly rebuilt itself. The End. There is no threat that can top what we faced at the end of Endwalker without it being ridiculous.
"Wuk Lamat seems to have no limitations that affect her in any meaningful way, and she isn't so much a well-developed character as she is an omnipresent force who smothers the rest of the story, not giving others a chance to breathe."
I agree with this UTTERLY. This sentence perfectly encapsulates what I feel about Lamaty'i along with her Default Writing™ script
どなたかこのビデオエッセイを日本語に翻訳してください
This is the most well presented critique of the issues with Dawntrail story. It's what I felt the enitre time playing the MSQ. I wish YoshiP, the writing team, and the english translation team would see this. From what I've seen in the media interviews after DT, I think they've taken the wrong feedback.
No sadly they Took the only Reasons Square Enix will Allow. This isn't the only Game Square Enix messed up they have 6 Games in Total they really messed up on (The Quite Man, Forspoken, Murder, Soul Suspect, Final Fantasy 14 Dawntrail, Life is Strange Double Exposure. Yes there is another one but right now you get the idea).
@@mattstansbeary3068 Do you think Sweet Baby play a part in this?
@@bebekkurus unlikely if the company worked on this game at all. Plus the company isn't the writer, the writing is entirely done by a Japanese team at Square Enix. Furthermore, Square only really works with in-house localization employees (i.e. Koji and Kate) and Sweet Baby doesn't work for Square Enix.
@@Blahblah-oo7lk It feels like Yoshi P outsource the writing of this game to other company. So badly written, so unlikely feels like FF 14. I thought this was made by Sweet Baby Inc.
@bebekkurus again nothing to do with SBI, which is a consulting company.
The problem is multifold and Square Enix rarely contracts with outsourcing due to their own shaky history with outsourcing (to other Japanese companies) to the point they are scared to outsource which is a different problem entirely.
The biggest issue is that they had new a head writer who isn't suited for the 50+ hour MSQ format and that they had three writers for DT. And too many writers in the room can create inconsistencies. The thing with DT is that the concepts, motifs, and themes (legacy) are all there and can resonate with many people, especially Asians who struggle with it. The problem is the inconsistent writing and execution falling flat. There are good moments in DT but it is sloppily put together you would think each scene was written in isolation and then whoops they have to link them together somehow.
Wuk Lamat: claims she cares about the people of Tural.
knows nothing about the people of Tural.
Something doesn't add up here.
She feels like Naruto. She wants to be Hokage despite knowing little about the job, knowing nothing about the town, the people, or what any of it would even mean. She like Naruto is written to be an incompetent clown, but given way less time both in game and in world to 180 into a leader.
@@doctorcis3510 She WILL be the next Dawnservant, Believe it!
Maybe she should’ve been a kid too. Wouldve made sense why she’s clueless and baby hrothgal would’ve been adorable.
@@doctorcis3510the funny thing is that Naruto does not actually become Hokage in Naruto.
Dawntrail is like if Naruto got his life goal in the first season, before he even did everything in all the other seasons.
It's like a Hokage Speedrun.
@@DNAdoc1748 Maybe that's it, Naruto's ignorance was in part to be an audience stand-in and give an info dump. But we already have an audience stand-in that is ignorant, the WOL. When you think about it from that perspective, the writing makes more sense because it means they wrote the story without the WOL, and then inserted the WOL afterwards.
Dawntrail certainly feels at times like a Self-Insert fanfiction. The kind where the Author put himself in but then proceeded to not change the canon and instead just be there, turning the whole story into just a narrated recap of the actual story.
I think a large part of what makes dawntrail so frustrating is that it completely contradicts and undermines the moral complexity of the previous expansions, to the point that it feels like the writers only skimmed the cliffnotes of the story from a wiki and never actually engaged with the deeper meaning.
Garlemald's whole story is about how you cannot just end a war on good vibes, and especially not as a member of one of the warring factions. But here's comes Gulool Ja Ja and his friggin' tacos, and look! The war is over (except for the part where a significant part of the Mamool Ja will continue to live in a shithole for 80 years, but, y'know, details).
Nanamo Ul Namo learned the hard way that she couldn't simply throw money at the displaced ala mhigans to solve the problem, and that just because the monetarists opposed her didn't mean that they were opposed to helping them categorically - only that it had to be in a way that was mutually beneficial for everyone involved and sustainable long-term. Do you know how hard it is sometimes to find a story that doesn't portray a firm capitalist faction as exclusively made up of 70-year-old obese bastards who'd kick puppies if it got them an extra dollar (and would, in fact, kick the puppies even if it cost them a million dollars to do so), regardless of whatever other factions are involved or how they're acting?
In fact, more than a few stories in FFXIV's main quest up to this point have been, in one way or another, about undermining the idea of a wide-eyed idealistic kid hero solving everything and just telling everyone to get along. Alisaie and Alphinaud both started getting well-deserved serves of humble pie as early as ARR, the backstory of the first and it's warriors of light is basically that writ large, and you could even make the case meteion is an example of how badly an actual kid could take if faced with the hopelessness of it all. Even in places where characters skirted by at first (hien comes to mind), later stories show that there's still aftershocks of their actions. Like the conflict between doma loyalists and defectors by choice and necessity, with Izanami at the epicenter.
And then Wuk Lamat comes in and plays every single note of stock shonen protag without a SINGLE moment of criticism on any part of her actions is just infuriating. there's some acknowledgement that she's not ready at first, but that never manifests as any major mistake or cock-up, she just powers through every problem with no major missteps. even when she falls behind because of some choice or other she made, it just so happens that the next task everyone is going for (and they all go together) requires them all to be there, so there's never a point where it even gets punished. Nor does she ever get significantly inconvenienced - even during the cooking part, they pair her with the one person she can get along with flawlessly, and her way is the only way that'd work. never mind two mamool ja not knowing what their own culture's signature dish was. (seriously, imagine a version of that story where she gets paired with bakool ja ja, and he's being super specific about the dish because he loves it while she's initially dismissive of him for his valigarmanda stunt.)
Side note, as much as people like Gulool Ja Ja, if he was the actual focus of the expansion people would've absolutely hated him. Like, imagine actually being with him at his taco party peace talk. His actions when it comes to raising his children to be leaders are only really comprehendable if he popped into existence about five minutes before he came on screen, because he's a good father to all of them during dawntrail, but by that point it's far too late for Zoraal Ja's complexes to be addressed, and frankly it's ridiculous that Wuk is simultaneously supposed to be a kind, brave warrior princess... but doesn't know the first thing about any of her people. Koana is the only one who'e complexes are understandable in the context of the story, because he spent a lot of time in a fairly sheltered nation getting the best education he could. A very understandable direction he was taken in results in a fairly predictable, but not insurmountable, character flaw, and Gulool Ja Ja hasn't addressed it fully yet because it required him to be a whole ocean away. But he still could have done SOMETHING.
Further to your point in the paragraph about Nanamo and UlDah, I still remember how striking it was that they gave the underplayed, background, "wait, who's that?" character Dulala a fleshed out role as a sort of mediator ON the Syndacite between the Royalists and Monatarists, giving voice to, essentially, your critique of Nanamo's inexperience, that her role was to lovingly, as a cleric, guide her naive monarch to a more realistic policy position and cultivate a relationship that has endured in the expansions since.
Big agree on a lot of these points
Bro is spitting
True! Great comment.
My largest problem with Dawntrail was Wuk Lamat (and her weird narrative treatment), no contest. She's literally Naruto; a bright-eyed, naive youth who wants to occupy a seat of power for shallow, poorly considered reasons, without actually understanding anything about the position she wants to occupy or the people she would rule over. FFXIV is a lot of things, but a shonen isn't one of them, and without significant character development, the shonen protagonist that Wuk Lamat is was easily the weakest part of the story for me.
I remember when I got to Ok'Hanu and she suggested holding the festival. The game _gives you the option_ to ask what the heck a festival has to do with helping the crops, and when you select it basically every character says "well we're here to support Wuk Lamat, so we should do it her way". Like ??? Doesn't supporting someone mean making sure they don't make stupid mistakes??? I was looking at the twins/G'raha/Krile like "C'mon you guys are _scholars_ aren't you smarter than this???" Like Alphinaud has leadership experience and WoL understands the burden of responsibility, shouldn't the game be tapping into that to teach this new, naive character about the ways of the world and the burden of leadership? That the narrative works so _hard_ to discount all the experience WoL and the Scions have in favour of justifying Wuk Lamat's idiocy made me _so_ mad.
And I had exactly the same response to leaving Wuk Lamat behind to go to Shaaloani. At first it was "Yes! Freedom!" and then when she decided to follow along after the invasion, I was like "WAIT NO!" There was no _reason_ for Wuk Lamat to go to Alexandria with us. She should have been back in her city, shoring up defences, or maybe sticking back in Shaaloani to defend her people from anything that escaped the dome. After all, it's not like the Scions are an unknown entity to her and Koana now. They just spent _weeks_ with us. We've already stepped up to defend Tural when Valigarmanda was set loose. They _know_ how competent we are and how committed we are to defending the world from evil/invasion.
And the kinship that she shares with Sphene is just... I didn't understand it. There's no _way_ that Wuk Lamat can understand _anything_ from Sphene's perspective. She's never been the queen of a dying world. She's never faced the sort of odds Sphene has. And then when it's revealed that Sphene isn't real and is programmed to behave a certain way, she doesn't _stop_ her naive attempts to bulldoze her way to changing Sphene's mind. Like, god, the final battle was _so good_ until Wuk Lamat burst her way into the arena. How did she get there? _Why_ is she there? What did she think she was going to achieve? Especially when Sphene's consciousness has been deleted and she's not there anymore; you are _not_ going to reach her.
But of course, she does anyway. Because the narrative can't allow Wuk Lamat to be wrong. Ever.
The whole game up until Dawntrail has been about WoL and the situations they find themselves in, the conflicts they champion and throw themselves into in service of the people of Eorzea, and later, the Star. Dawntrail makes WoL take a backseat, ignores the experience and wisdom of established characters, and forces us to play second fiddle to the single least developed companion character in the entire game.
God, someone save me.
That's the thing. Almost all Shonen MC typically grows out of it.
Naruto is a good example of show not tell. He wants to be in a position of power because at the start everyone looks down on him or sees him as a blight.
Then the chuunin arc he starts to mature a little bit vs Gaara.
Then the mystery around his mistreatment starts to come into focus.
Bit by bit his character and drive shifts.
Eventually the Pain Arc is where Nauto achieves his goal. He becomes a hero and is reconize by the village as such.
Wuk...not so much.
Even the reveal of she was Given up as a means of protection due to one of the tribes wanting to rebel...just came off forced.
Comparing her to Naruto is weird because everyone loves Naruto for exactly the reasons they hate Wuk Lamat
@Naoto-kun1085 It would probably make more sense with the context that Naruto is one of my most hated characters of all time. I find him obnoxious and irritating. 🤷♀️
@@Naoto-kun1085 Naruto is loved because he actually grows. He learns, he changes. I despised him at first, but he grew on me because he changed. Wuk Lamat, as I mentioned in a previous post, is Naruto on steroids. She's Naruto without the growth. Or an over-caffeinated Asta (Black Clover) without a Yami there to yeet her sorry ass into the sky whenever she's being stupid. Which is always. She's ALWAYS being stupid. If the game had allowed me to be the Yami to Wuk Lamat's Asta it would have been more bearable. But they didn't do that. Cause their precious widdle kitty pwincess can never ever be wrong and punting her into the farthest mountainside is too meanie weanie for their widdle feefees. 😿
@@Naoto-kun1085 It's because Wuk Lamat is very similar to early Naruto.
However Naruto grows and understands the world he lives in very early on [as shown when he encounters Zabuza and Haku] while Wuk Lamat legit doesn't change.
The scene at the end, in which after the final bossfight you're shown chilling in your room, and Wuk Lamat comes in and immediately hits you with "Hey, it's a shame we didn't have a chance to SPEAK PROPERLY" is still the funnies joke xiv has ever made.
Wuk should have NEVER jumped in to fight Sphene, someone she knew for 2 days and we are forced to believe they are besties with nicknames for each other.
That honor should have gone to Otis, he should have joined the fight to try and protect his Queen, realized she's too far gone, then made the noble sacrifice then and there to take himself out alongside Sphene. Then we could have had a very touching cutscene with them together, as they were seen in the past in their human forms with "You're Not Alone" playing in the background. I think that would have actually made me cry.
Smile made me cry, but only because I had to listen to it 3 different times and I couldn't discard the Orchestrion roll.
This llama spitting straight facts here
Fuck its so sad we didn't get Otis do it, it would be such a great finale for his arc.
Wow, I love this idea. This would have been a powerful scene.
Yup that would've made A LOT more sense then what happened. Last nit pick I had was that Wuk was War LBing like it was nothing through HER power of peace, friendship or whatever. WoL is by far the most potent, powerful character in the current moment and he was a side line character in many moments where WoL could've done something his agency was taken away.
Except Otis is dead because he sacrificed himself to save Sphene, who could have told him at any time she was in a temporary body and in no actual peril.
I thought I was the only one realizing that the "MSQ Package" as you call it, is actually a thing. The patches in this game have a 100% scriped formula, the dungeon have, and to a big extend high end raids as well, even ultimates. I feel like they've done everything that the engine is capable of and storywise they can't decide on a direction.
I feel the team is bad for being formulaic. FFXVIs biggest issue was that it's story started strong but massively falls off the more and more it becomes a typical FF, worlds ending god story.
I feel DT had this issue too and the storytelling takes a nosedive with Sphenes predictable ass
@@FredericckPesetas over 5K hours in XIV. It's very formulaic btw
@@dylansetright3359 Formulaic isn't bad, bad is bad. Shadowbringers and Endwalker have the same formula. Dawntrail is just straight up bad.
Why does it have to be "trial one at x3, trial 2 at x9, trial 3 as final boss?" I get the dungeons every 2 levels for XP grinding reasons, but trials should occur naturally over the course of the story. Especially now that we can use duty support with them. With the way the writing has been over the past 2 years, I'm really starting to wonder if they don't have a new FF MMO in the works that's sucking all the talent away from 14. Like, EVERYTHING is feeling phoned in lately. Except maybe the raid series. But that's 4 fights over 8 months worth of content.
@@TheAsj97 EW itself felt rushed to me. The story was amazing, but it really should have been 2 expansions. The moon as the final area for one, and Ultima Thule for the other. Ancient Etherys should have been it's own entire expansion zone. We're there trying to figure out the root cause of the final days while the scions are in the source dealing with the fallout.
This "heavy affirmations" in writing is a new trend I've seen in a lot of movies, especially Disney remakes. There is no natural growth through hardship and true introspection of necessary character development, instead the main character finds that the heavy affirmations leading to "Believe in yourself!" is sufficient to power you up and defeat the big bad. Yas queen slay. It's boring, poor and insulting.
It was bad when _Captain Marvel_ did it, too. (Picked because it's the earliest big budget project I can recall off hand that did this.)
Incredibly well made video that thoroughly and digestibly addresses most of the errors in Dawntrail.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the best example of god awful pacing and patronizing over explaining in the entire expansion which was learning about regulators.
-Zoraal Ja shows up in the surprise attack, the regulator is given a ton of visual focus via the camera angles.
-Zoraal ja dies and is very visibly resurrected by the regulator
-The regulator then turns red, and he goes beast mode and easily overpowers and kills Gulool Ja Ja
-The boss of the next dungeon then overtunes his regulator to take on a super beast form
-Namikka gets taken away to the cloud, and everyone forgets her because of the regulators
-We have now seen every single major function of the regulators in person at least once
-We go to the rebels to get an explanation on the regulators
-They stop the explanation because "No! No! You have to SEE it to understand it!" despite the fact that we have literally viewed all of the major functions in person.
-We completely break the pacing to go meet this random nobody monk and waste 5 minutes in a long cutscene watching her die, come back to life, and go beast mode like we've already seen Zoraal Ja do.
-After we see this, we go back to the rebels in the exact same spot.
-We pick the explanation up exactly where they left off, and they explain it to us with words anyway.
I wanted to tear my hair out.
Overall, I think Dawntrail is a genuinely good story in theory that is so completely and utterly bogged down by a complete lack of technical writing skill. This is a first draft of what would've been a great expansion. The worldbuilding is fantastic, the emotional character beats and setup are all present and mapped out, the stakes get raised to a level that feels worthy of our accolades, Alexandria genuinely made my skin crawl in such a cool way, etc. All of that is held back by amateur hour stuff like bland characterization, contradicting details, a ton of bloat that could be trimmed down (like I showed above), a ton of balance problems with characters and narrative figures. The writers had great ideas but just couldn't execute them properly.
Honestly, though the manner of the issues such as overexplaining for the lowest common denominator, bland dialogue, and the oversaturation of the expansion mascot in everything genuinely all sounds like textbook things that happen when the corporate suits start getting involved with a game and start meddling in the team's processes with asinine demands. Given how popular FFXIV got between ShB and EW, and how it has been shown to be a major pillar keeping Squeenix afloat, I genuinely wonder if this was what was happening. It's as likely as an explanation as "writers are amateur".
Personally, I think 7.X is going to be really good. In so many ways, this expansion has been a perfect mirror to Stormblood. Poorly recieved story, Annoying female lead, Absolutely bangin' battle content, came right after a peak FFXIV expansion and felt like it under-delivered by the fandom, Estinien shows up every once in awhile for 2 minutes to do something cool and then fucks off again. One defining thing of Stormblood for me is that the MSQ in the post game was incredibly well made, and fixed a ton of my grievances with the base MSQ, so we're do for the same thing in Dawntrail. 7.1 has already piqued my interest by answering a question that bothered me so much while playing, and also leaving us on a bunch of super interesting cliffhangers. I think it's off to a great start, and with all of the heat Dawntrail got, and how much Yoshi P. personally takes every stumble of the game, they're going to be calling in the big guns to get shit back on track and as good as possible.
The Writers failed the Beach Episode.
There was a dire lack of Beach in the so called Beach Episode.....
@xd3d034997 Tuliyollal had a beach, but no interactions with it, only big Orange Cat furry babysitting. 🙄
There was hardly even a beach. The "beach" in Tuliyolal is extremely tiny and you can't even swim in the ocean, there's huge rocks lining the edge of the beach and an invisible wall behind them. And this is despite the fact that the game has had swimming for years now.
@@Chadric14 Danger was too high players would get a cool spot for G-Posing. Also why we were forced to ruin the last zone into ugly greenish-brown ruins.
How much I would have loved, for example, a story bit where we just chill on a beach, cocktail in hand, before a monster attacks the beach and we have to fend it off and save the day. Or this party we've seen in the trailer, where Krile was painting. I was so looking forward to see the stuff in the trailer, just to have a cheap and quick reference to the Scions eating stuff after the MSQ and nothing else from the trailer making it in the actual game (Edit: Forgot about the boat scene at the beginning, which was actually cool). It was straight up false advertising, and I feel betrayed, and I'm surely not the only one who feels like this.
Oh you thought you were free of Wuk Lamat in Zone 4? Nope. You now have to go retrieve her bracelet that her handmaiden lost. You literally cannot go through one zone of DT without Wuk Lamat having a presence in it.
I'm almost 45 years old. Been playing FF since 1987 on NES, and FFXIV since Heavensward's release. This is the worst MSQ I've ever seen in an FF game. Dawntrail has shredded my love of this game. I haven't even finished the latest patch.
When Wuk Lamat chewed us and her adopted father, the Dawnservant out, for dueling behind her back and hanging out without her, then sent us on an errand so she could go back to her tacos, I literally yelled out loud in anger. Beyond anger. The only time my character would ever commit an evil act in the story, would have been right then and there.
Then they made her interrupt our fight with Sphene... I'm ready for my WoL to take up Emet's mission to bring about the rejoining.
Same
A fellow old-school FF player! My parents would rent FF1 on NES and play "properly" and I'd mess around in between and play with a full White Mage party as they'd watch, puzzled at my choice. FFXIV since North American beta, FFXIV since it's 1.0 (Collectors Ed.!). Took a long break since Stormblood but just catching up now and ... not looking forward to this MSQ "speed bump" as I'm enraptured by ShadowBringers and Endwalker.
@@Proxenos_zh Shadowbringers was peak FFXIV story and characters. Endwalker had some amazing moments, and some rushed moments, but was a fine conclusion to the 10 year story arc. It also, in my opinion has a couple of the most badass cutscenes in the game. Dawntrail was such a stepdown, I don't know how the people in charge approved it. I haven't even finished the latest patch MSQ as my enjoyment of the game took such a massive hit. I still log on and play with a friend here and there, but I just feel so disconnected with the world and characters now.
word for word same but only 35, i can't bring myself to finish the 7.1 msq even though i've been done with the MSQ since like 2 weeks after release(what a long dreadful 4 months for MSQ THIS low quality), even moreso now after seeing the words "buffalo romance" used repeatedly in reference to the 7.1 quests, sounds awful and NOT like something i want to stop playing space marine 2/dead island 2/literally anything else for lol
@@zeening Dawntrail broke every rule in the book for writing a story, that you can do. There's even a comic/meme out about Krile getting herself drunk and someone else telling her that Square enix will give her more screentime next expansion and won't ignore her next time... It's just so sad that this is what we got. This is what we paid for.
What a video... Well done Zepla. Genuinely extremely well thought out and detailed critique.
Goodness willing the team looks at this from start to finish, and takes notes.
Not a singular miss on the takes and thoughts. Bravo.
I remember there was a quest point which said "Speak with Wuk Lamat yet again". Even the devs knew. :')
I am guessing that's whoever entered the quest data vs the writers lmao
@@natwon633 the internal struggles were real
Definitely a case of localizer/quest entry writer vs writer/scenario designer.
There's an old saying, "ironic shitposting is still shitposting". Ironic bad game design is still bad game design.
There comes a point in development where you're fully aware of the problems but there's no time to remake and change them anymore.
My biggest gripe of dawntrails storyline, which I didn't enjoy thaaat much either but tolerated for long time.. Was the utter massacre it did to FF9. FF9 was all about return to pure fantasy after multiple magitech worlds and stories.. and despite using FF9s music and names.. It's put into the most futuristic aesthetic possible just screwed over and trampled to the nostalgia it was trying to evoke by just making me annoyed about it.
Also Wuk invading the final boss killed the character for me. Besides just smothering us with "friend friend friend" talk.
Omg finally someone who thought magi tech is played out. That’s what I loved about ff9 the most the return to good princess, castles, and dragons. I was upset with how they “techified” Alexandria.
Good point.... I actually personally love the ff12/Garlean style tech that still feels quite unique and fantasy, but this neon cyberpunk razor accessory stuff is a terrible fit for 14
putting Zidane as a preorder minion had me thinking maybe Dawntrail would be good like ff9, but... nope :\
Yeah, I've seen a similar comment on twitter that I agreed with. Why did they do this to final fantasy 9 when they could've modeled it after FF10's Zanarkand? It was right there.
@@caldera1134 Not just that but the first half of the expansion already had a feel closer to FF10. Wuk Lamat as naive Yuna travelling to different people (temples) on pilgrimage to become a worthy successor (summoner) to protect the peace (calm) of her people.
They just completely wasted FF9 tie ins.
This Video is actually really well made and I hope devs will see that and make sure that the next expansion will not suck as this one does.
Pity people dismiss your opinion because ffxiv fanboys are coping that you're hating on the game for views. Really pathetic community.
This game felt mostly like a HUGE tribal quest.
OMG! This is it! This is exactly what it felt like until Alexandria! 😱And then it went weird and tried to do sci-fi... 🤔
This is kind of true and it's sad.
Up until Alexandria.. it felt so fillerish..
@@wintorzplays tbh everything before Alexandria was a blurr lol
Happens when the head writers worked on the tribal quests. Granted they also did almost every single raid, trial and alliance raid story. Eden, Pandemonium, Void Ark, Ivalice, The Four Lords, The Triad, assisted on Nier and Bozja, and Omega.
"Good luck in Ishgard, IDIOT!" had me dying 🤣
Gridania's elementals : Call an ambulance! But not for us!
With the full dragon forces, the Ishgardians, the alliance, probably Vrtra, possibly Radz-at-Han, I don't think he's thought things through
And Yanxia, and Ala Mhigo, and Bozja... Literally everyone is more schooled in war than Zoraal Ja. He's a glorified cop come mountee... Not transferable skills!
Same! All the villains were so unthreatening compared to the crazy shit we've seen/fought.
@@SusSpooder Trueeee! Every time I saw one of these people in a cutscene talking about how bad they are, I kept saying “I saved the fucking universe from people way better than you”, and they did nothing to disprove that
I actually liked Koana in 7.0, and they had to go ahead and destroy him in 7.1. For some reason I didn't feel too bad after 7.0, but 7.1 just made me realize how bad everything actually was...
I haven't seen a lot of people mention this, but I really do think it was a huge mistake for FFXIV to reveal Solution Nine before the game came out. It ruined so much of the discovery for me. As soon as the "Golden City" was mentioned, I knew Solution Nine was going to either be what they were referring to, or at least part of the puzzle (which we now know is Living Memory)
Imagine if we never knew Solution Nine was going to exist going into this expansion. Now on the flip side, imagine if they had spoiled Amaurot when teasing Shadowbringers. The magic of seeing the underwater city woven by an ancient ascian would not have hit nearly as hard.
Also, Sphene's character is essentially Meteion on the opposite side of the spectrum. She wanted to create a world where people live forever, and Meteion created a world where people would die and never be reincarnated through the aetherial sea.
At first, I thought this parallel was a neat way to show how both sides on the extreme end can lead to bad things, but Dawntrail didnt earn the emotional investment the same way Endwalker did. The way they forced Living Memory into the story just felt so cheap and contrived, especially because you are constantly reminded how "these aren't real people so its okay to just delete them".
I mean I get why
Because amaurot and solution nine aren't the same thing
Amaurot is within the same ballpark as living memory
And I suppose they need to reveal S9 because of some forms of tradition when it comes to showing the endgame city, solution nine is more like Eulmore or Radz, Rhalgrs, idyllshire or mor dhona to them
But yes, the reveal of S9 should have been kept under better wraps, like show the southside of heritage found more or something.
There is a theory that DT wasn't being pre-ordered enough so Solution 9 was revealed to increase discussion around the expansion to get more players back after so many left after EW.
Yoshi P himself did admit at the Korean fanfest that revealing Solution Nine early was a mistake.
It felt like the devs had no real confidence in the first half (to be fair they were right) and had to put in the "hook" to keep people interested.
Remember when the ShB gameplay trailer straight up revealed that a certain duo were primals? Pepperidge Farm remembers. The marketing team honestly need their heads looking at.
I wish I didn’t know about it either. Because I spent the majority of the expansion asking when i was going get to the cyberpunk city, and got increasingly annoyed as the game went on and we weren’t there yet.
That last boss fight was what did it for me. I was unhappy with my character's lack of agency and the 'guided tour' feel of the first part, annoyed by the fight between the Third Promise and his father and our lack of action and really wished Wuk Lamat had stayed home while we were exploring the final zones, but Wuk Lamat breaking in during the final boss fight I was actually yelling at the screen "No. No. FFS, I *finally* get to do something in this entire expac and this happens?" I was so mad and it actively soured the entire experience for me.
Yep, Final Fantasy XIV is OUR story, but you're no different than an NPC during the entire expansion thanks to "Woke Lamat" (Name pun intended)
This should be an object lesson to everyone: Companies don't make games. PEOPLE make games.
Natsuko Ishikawa has been writing for FFXIV since ARR, and was a main scenario writer starting in late Heavensward onward. The quality, moral depth, and nuance of FFXIV's narrative increased practically in lockstep with how Ishikawa's influence and contributions grew.
Then, between EW and DT, Ishikawa suddenly takes on a background supervisory role, and IMMEDIATELY the narrative craters. There is a zero percent chance that these events are not correlated.
People make games, and as it turns out, the person who was substantially responsible for how beloved FFXIV's story has been is no longer the one making it.
True things were better when Ishikawa was the main writer, but she was also the writing supervisor for DT. At some point she was handed a script for DT MSQ and said "yup that's good enough, ship it".
@X1OProductions I have my doubts about how much actual control she has in her new position. She may also not be temperamentally suited to tell other people that their writing is garbage and needs to be rewritten. Being an editor takes a different kind of willingness to be confrontational that being a mere writer entails, and the two skill sets are not identical.
@@MattrexDeux All plausible, I just take issue with certain fans kneejerk reaction to blame the new writer as the sole person responsible. Games are made and written by a team. Fan favorites Ishikawa and Yoshi P are partially responsible given their supervising roles. Delaying DT to rewrite MSQ would have been the correct call.
Ah this is Peter Principle at play, Ishikawa is a great writer but once promoted to a manager her work just falls apart. In the end she is still responsible for the mess DT is
16:15 that's not an "adventure" that's a guided tour. an adventure always has a sense of danger or threat from the unknown. walking around a foreign area, not being able to speak the local language. that's adventure. this is feels like a japanese salaryman's vacation to south america where the tour group always sticks to the guide.
You're absolutely spot on about Wuk Lamat.
I've never felt less enthusiastic about following the story, because for the first time my character is forced to have opinions and make choices that in my head, they never would.
Whenever she pops up in a scene my enjoyment of the story plummets, and I spent the first half of the MSQ being upset because Koana always seemed the better choice.
She's immature, short-sighted and naive, and her saturday morning cartoon attitude only succeeds because she warps the story around herself and *forces* it.
The moment I went from disliking her to loathing her was the fight against Bakool. VERY shortly before, she tried, in her own words, "putting everything she had" in a blow against him and his simple act of parrying her left her on the verge of defeat.
And suddenly she dominates not only him, but also his whole squad of minions?
HOW?
I had a similar reaction to the WoL vs Ran'Jit fight, but where that was one inconsistency in an otherwise great story, this was just another slap in the face after a dozen prior ones.
And then she barged in on my only chance to shine in the entire MSQ in the end. That was the moment I started hating her.
I started LOATHING her after our duel with the Dawnservant. We were chilling, having a discussion with him in the throne room just the two of us, about the trials, the country, and she barges in all mad at us for dueling behind her back, and hanging out. She treated both us and her adopted Father the Dawnservant, as children. Then she sends us off to run some errand, so she can go back to eating her tacos that we somehow interrupted. At that point, I started wishing to kill her at some point in the story. I'm even willing my Warrior of Light to become an Ascian against the entire world to make it happen.
So that "suddenly" is three to four of the main trials previous, during which you all fight one of the strongest giants alive and Valigarmanda, a literal country level threat.
The WoL could have beaten Bakool Ja Ja for Wuk Lamat and she would have gained absolutely nothing. Just like Thancred's whole arc in Shadowbringers was accepting his responsibility as Ryne's father figure and learning to see her as a different person from Minfilia, something Ran'Jit couldn't do because he just saw ever other girl he'd trained and sent to die. And you still get to beat Ran'Jit yourself in the end.
Plus, you can say the same damn thing about the WoL vs Zenos in Stormblood. Zenos wasn't even supercharged at the point you originally fight him, and comparing him to Nidhogg or Estenien feels cheap.
Beating Ran'jit made perfect sense. Tons happens between our first defeat and our victory over him. We've literally absorbed MASSIVE MASSIVE amounts of aether from the Light Wardens, it makes perfect sense that we're stronger than him by the time we beat him. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat didn't actually do anything to warrant her getting stronger, especially not by that degree.
At least during the fight with Ran'jit, we lose near the start of the expansion and defeat him MUCH later when we're canonically a few levels stronger, similar to what we did against Zenos.
I might not agree with every statement you’ve made about the game in other videos, but holy shit if you aren’t literally spot on with everything in this one. Best critique of the story I’ve heard to date by a mile
This whole video beat for beat. Hit every nail I have had since beating the msq 7 days after release.
And constantly being told by others " why play the game if you don't like it." Or " Why are you even here if you hate the game so much."
Just made it worse. No room to express criticism. No room speak freely about issues or inconsistent story. Just completely just down at times.
The depression was real. Thought about quitting even though I have a medium house and a large FC house.
Getting others to understand that I have been playing since 1.0 and I love this game primarily for story and that DT was a whiplash that hurt my brain.
Just couldn't seem to get others to understand.
I got kicked out of a Discord I'd been very active in for almost four years for criticizing DT. Toxic positivity has killed this game. I absolutely HATE the playerbase at large now. I also have a personal medium and a large FC house and just play the bare minimum weekly these days.
Yep, since hating the direction of a DLC means hating the game to these lot ¬_¬
I teared up ONCE during the DT story, it was when Vrtra/the dragons came in to help save Tuli during the fight and the Endwalker music started playing. I didn't tear up because of anything that DT directly did, it was because of how powerful the music and characters from EW were, and hearing the EW music made it all come flooding back. I realised then just how much I missed the powerful storytelling of the last two expansions, and how badly it fell flat during DT, the contrast in that moment was stark.
I didn't come close to crying during anything else, not even the Erenville scenes at the end with his mother, I think it was because I simply didn't feel connected or care about what was happening. At the end It all just felt so...rushed? A detail that bothered me was that Erenville and his mother had such different accents, it actually ended up making them feel less organic (if that makes any sense??). I hate to be a hater, but DTs good parts were so sparse it's hard not to feel extremely disappointed
Vrtra was a terrible character and ruined dragons in FFXIV.
@@emmaemma4807 the accent thing made sense if you read the dialogue, though it is easy to forget. Erenville mentions twice that he got a lot of flak and weird looks because of his birth name and accent. So over time as he worked in Sharlayan he changed his name and accent to fit what Eorzeans thought the Viera sounded like (since their exposure to Viera are from Orthgard which have an Icelandic). One of the crafter quest lines in DT is about cultural and accent differences between Viera tribes as a male Viera from Orthgard comes to Tuliyollal to learn about the culture of the land and their Viera.
I think his mother mentions once that Erenville was a bit embarrassed by his accent and sought to hide it in the Old World too but is a bit disappointed in that he didn't use his birth name.
The real reason is that Viera were designated to have an Icelandic accent to reflect Fran's voice actress's performance from FFXII as a nice nod. But also they wanted to differentiate the Viera in Tural so they gave the Turali Viera different accents. Erenville was conceptualized an entire expansion before that choice so they created the reason that he changed his accent when he went overseas which does happen.
@@Chaoskoch Aww, I actually liked little brother. I can see how he's less scary than Nidhogg or Midgardsomir, but just thinking of him as the youngest even in dragon form made me accept his soft side i guess.
Amen, sister, I felt the game! I cried ugly tears during Vritras Rescue mission, but every other CS in DT left me blank of emotion, except for maybe annoyance. The train scene - boring. The "coronation" - wow, I don't care for this, just let us go exploring the golden city already! Krile and her parents - atrocious german VA. It was horrible til the very last second. Erenville and his mum - I expected a bit more than stony faces and a few nice words. I wanted to sob and whine but I felt nothing. Only so much disappointment. After Shb and Ew this expansion really felt like a slap in the face 😢
Bro same the entire time Thancred Urianger and the rest held their own I'm like "Nice cool."
*Footfalls guitar solo bridge*
"LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The detail of your critique is great and appreciated. Brilliant, really.
Living memory ziplines Wuk is like "what are these" while we know she literally used one in the endwalker dungeon :D
Something that still bothers me to this day is how dynamis wasn't even once suggested as a means of sustaining the souls in Living Memory. We have verifiable evidence that it's enough to not only sustain a form of life/afterlife through Ultima Thule, but that it's *so powerful* it can even reshape elements of reality and build new land based on things that were lost. There is *so much* emotion wrapped up in Living Memory. It's the driving force behind its creation and sustainment. So why, at no point, didn't someone come forward to Sphene and say like 'Hey we actually have a *really* good alternative for the power crisis you're going through and a veritable army of scholars, mages, and engineers on call that could put their heads together with yours and figure out how to make this place ethically sustainable'?
The power of Dynamis is greatly diminished on our planet due to aether.
Hermes explains in Elpis that "[...] Dynamis is far weaker than aether. Under normal circumstances, its effects are drowned out by the latter." Usually (barring the Final Days where Meteion was blasting us with torrential amounts of Dynamis fueled over eons by sorrow and suffering of entire worlds, way more Dynamis juju than naturally exists on the planet) the effects of Dynamis on Etheirys have been shown to be either slow to accumulate, or shown in smaller interactions, such as being able to push beyond usual limits. Ultima Thule is different because it's in space where Dynamis is more present and also not impeded by the dominance of aether.
Also even in space, without the help of an entelechy (a being more readily able to interact with dynamis and convert emotions into tangible phenomenon) like Meteion, it might be rather difficult to guide the effects of Dynamis to achieve some specific goal. What Dynamis manifests is not very predictable. We couldn't just be like "Dynamis go!" is what I'm saying.
TLDR Dynamis is not strong enough or consistent enough on Etheirys to be a viable energy source we can make great use of.
Dawntrail is the first Retail WoW treatment I've gotten from FFXIV and it practically slapped the rose-tinted glasses off my face.
Returned to FFXIV in full swing when Shadowlands dropped; that expansion was where the development team went hard on gaslighting its fans and being outright disrespectful to its community while stepping on the established lore and creating nonsensical, unappealing plot-points for their 'new lore' and dumping on established characters while giving disrespectful conclusions to aforementioned established characters. Blah blah blah -- loved FFXIV, breath of fresh air, MSQ was something to look forward to. It was my 'new home' and what helped me break my 18-year-addiction to WoW. Characters both annoying and endearing I enjoyed in FFXIV; they all grew as we moved along, and I got to help them through their troubles. I cried in main-EW at Ultima Thule when I caught up to everyone. It was magical.
And then I reach Dawntrail, ready for another beautiful enriching story where I get to help Krile seek out her established grandfather and her parentage while getting quality time with Erenville and being introduced to his childhood friend Wuk Lamat. We go to a tropical paradise with mountains, valleys and all sorts of different zones to explore. I'm ready for a beach party, mini-games, and all sorts of adventure while focusing on my beloved companions and their need for answers and closure. And what do I get instead of that? Instead of adventure and closure for Krile I get stuck babysitting a preachy Mary Sue, dragged all over the hills by said-Mary Sue, and all the while bearing the most braindead attitude that my character has ever exhibited. And during my attempts to TRY to enjoy Dawntrail, Square Enix and staff members from the FFXIV team both are saying "thank you for your time, we care about you, we love our jobs" [and a certain someone dumping on me for disliking a certain song and a certain character AND being protected by Square]. I sure don't feel appreciated, being fed barely anything each four months [or so] and spending over half of the expansion watching cutscenes of a character I cannot enjoy in any context other than the GIF memes I see of shutting doors. In a word, I am heartbroken but I am wiser for it.
I was in the same boat as you my friend :( I actually left to FFXIV during SL (so mid SHB) and I loved it. I loved the characters, the story, the fights, everything. I praised it. EW came, made amazing friends, still loved the story...but...when I saw the DT trailer, I didn't feel hyped. Something felt off putting. During this time, Ive met terrible toxicity in FFXIV (mostly the rp side) and I just felt like it wasn't the same game :( I went back to WoW for mid DF and goodness, I had fun again. It's sad that I tried DT regardless with my best friend who is an advent FFXIV player and I timed us. We played four hours the first day and we didn't battle ANYTHING for an hour and a half. It took us nearly two hours to even see an enemy. We killed like 3 things then back to cutscenes we went. After that first session, I had to go outside just to breathe. We finished it...and I told her with a sad heart, I LOVED the game. Past tense. I loved the characters but I just...can't go on and will be going over to TWW. She wanted to try WoW...and unsubbed from FF. I was shocked. Its sad that yes theres a soft spot still for the game but to me it feels the devs are out of tune with us. Even their own game perhaps. You dont hear updates, you dont hear anything from them. It's just...silence. Where is our road map? Where are trailers to get us hyped? It's just...oh here's content in five months...please don't leave. I just hope it truly does get better, maybe will give it another try but until then, they need to do better. Hope you have an amazing day friend and enjoy whatever game comes your way
When the FF14 expansion feels so Retail WoW'd that you look at 2024, and look at actual Retail WoW, and have to admit the latter is less painful because it's simply less jarring.
I saw it coming with how freaking awful Zero was, so I didn't burn any money on this trainwreck.
I got 10 great years from FF14, that's more than most media can say.
@@jaeusa160 Happy you didn't waste money on it
@@Aukaisihir Maybe not $80 worth but hey, at least the actual fights, the raid tier, and other elements were bound to have provided a bit of positive value.
We may be roasting story and that's a huge deal for a game like 14, but the actual gameplay instances look like they still had the good polish and engagement they usually have.
@@jaeusa160 Sadly even the gameplay didn't keep me. The whole fate grinding/dungeon grinding of the same two dungeons that popped up got boring. Id just sign on and sit there, not knowing what to do. I started leveling my third class and just threw in the towel. To me its just the same. Nothing new to spark my interest. And I'm probably the only person but I hated the raid with a passion. I did it once and never touched it again
Unfortunately, the lack of a good, engaging story, just showed off how little gameplay there often is in the MSQ, especially the case in DT. Fighting like 10 total enemies through the entire MSQ outside of dungeons. Nothing going on in the game's zones has been a problem since Heavensward, but the lack of good narrative really puts a magnifying glass on the flaws during the leveling experience, when every bit of engaging gameplay is instanced, segregated from the game's world. DT was the first expac I stopped playing almost immediately after finishing the initial story and have not gone back. Didn't level other jobs, didn't do end game, wasn't even kept around by my FC. Fell off and haven't had a twinge of remorse.
I never realised just how much Dawntrail Wuk Lamat contradicted 6.X Wuk Lamat.. that is bloody egregious lmao.
Hi, Zepla, I want to thank you for providing this critique as only you could. I was there to watch your reaction streams to DT and empathized so much with your struggles. As a writer, we can learn so much more from evaluating poor writing because we can see the consequences more explicitly. I think this video could be a good thing to revisit before starting up any new creative writing project.
At this point I’m not sure I’m going to be coming back for 8.0. Was subbed since HW, I gave up my house willingly after waiting 4 years to finally get one. I genuinely hated Dawntrail, unapologetically, it’s one of the worst expansions I’ve ever played.
I feel your frustration. I would do the same wouldn’t it be for my friends who refuse to play anything else that I like…so I keep my house and play once a week. I used to play every day and loved it.
Same man, abandoned my house after so much struggle to get it... it was right next to my RL brothers too, and I had it decorated like I was preparing to attack his... But I just lost all interest in the game.
someone needs to force pander.p, erm yoshi.p to read all of these comments under threat of pain, this cannot happen again or the game is done for. it's already damaged my desire to play it which is.... insane as someone with almost 30k hours playtime according to steam, as someone that regularly preached for 2 yrs about how shadowbringers was the single best piece of content i've ever consumed in any form. DT was literal hot garbage.
that and the god damn patch cycle is ridiculous, might sound harsh but i don't care about the dev's mental health that much if it means they're literally going to kill the damn game over it, they need to get some tougher freaking devs then. 5-6 months FOR A MINI PATCH is DISGUSTING, even LOTRO.... even... even SWTOR freaking does it faster than that like what are we even doing here....
i'm SERIOUSLY debating losing the house i tried for 4 YEARS to get myself, before they changed the system had 3 separate days where i spent 16-18 HOURS clicking the placard only for some **** to come up and seemingly click it once and buy it
I think none of us were expecting DT to be better than ShB + EW story-wise and the fact that most of us still found ourselves either mildly or severely disappointed says a lot about a lack of direction.
I might he talking out of my butt but I think SE needs to stop pulling Yoshida and other key members off the MMO
I gave DT soooooo much leeway. I knew it was restarting a story and it was coming in after both ShB and EW. I *knew* it couldn't possibly be perfect from the get-go and I tried so hard to give it a chance. Far more than I gave any other expansion. But every single point it seemed like it might get better, it just slapped me in the face again with the same repeated message about how Wuk Lamat loves her people and all I could do was enable that. Not one single comment about the hardships of leading. Not one single conflict where her perspective was challenged or that the greatest difficulties comes after being elected. Everything is sunshine daisies for Wuk Lamat and Koana with some mild inconvenience of regicide and mass murder. It was a political plot with the most kindergarten take on politics.
I don't think Ishikawa should write *everything* because that's so much work and stress but I def think she should have input.
This is what happens when you take someone truly gifted like Natsuko Ishikawa and promote them out of their element. It's clear that she was either too busy to properly supervise the writing or is just not great in the role. Just pay her more and keep her WRITING. I know she's not a workhorse to be exploited, but if the alternative was THIS mess of a story, then she should have been a lot more in the weeds. I really, really hope that Yoshi-P really absorbs this kind of long form video essay feedback and takes it to heart so we get a return to form for 8.0. It hurts so much to see this level of quality from a game I love.
Uematsu was sent on vacation to cultivate the inspiration that gave us the FF9 soundtrack and Melodies of Life, the greatest game theme of all time (BURY me at my funeral to that, just UNFFF!!)
Square should give her the same: money and a zen-as-fuk retreat to get her creative juices flowing.❤
someone needs to force pander.p, erm yoshi.p to read all of these comments under threat of pain, this cannot happen again or the game is done for. it's already damaged my desire to play it which is.... insane as someone with almost 30k hours playtime according to steam, as someone that regularly preached for 2 yrs about how shadowbringers was the single best piece of content i've ever consumed in any form. DT was literal hot garbage.
that and the god damn patch cycle is ridiculous, might sound harsh but i don't care about the dev's mental health that much if it means they're literally going to kill the damn game over it, they need to get some tougher freaking devs then. 5-6 months FOR A MINI PATCH is DISGUSTING, even LOTRO.... even... even SWTOR freaking does it faster than that like what are we even doing here....
@@Proxenos_zh expecting square... who unironically tried to shove NFTs into ff14 and STILL want them in ALL of their projects after losing over 98% of their trading value... and is located in japan, that historically treats their employees like canned meat.... is on the scale of expecting a black hole to politely decline to swallow all matter in it's vicinity.
edit: but for the record i agree 1000% she's a god-tier writer and should be treated as such.
The Zoraal Ja betrayal scene isn't voiced, yet right afterward when you leave for Shaaloani it is voiced for Erenville saying "Let's head out" or something similar. The amount of blunders are many and so strange like they had a different person for each zone or maybe 4 or each zone, I really really hope they do better in the coming patches and next expansion.
same or i won't be there lol
the “MSQ package” is so depressing…. they’re definitely going by this formula, and i really hope and pray this won’t be the case next expansion… if it is i don’t know how seriously i can take the story anymore.
this plus the patch formula...starting to burn out more and more player, they really need to thinking about something
8.0 will be my breaking point.
If MSQ is shit again or job design is as bad as now
I'll straight up quit and uninstall.
8.0 last dungeon will be us going through Allagna during the 4th's calamity.
Xande will be narrating in the background about how the dragons attacked first and brought the calamity.
Also Xande was actually a good guy and tried to stop the 13th from invading by sacrificing himself to made a pact with Cloud of Darkness.
@ omg you’re killing me here 😂😂😂
@@bigfoxki not going to lie but that sounds a fuck load better than baby sit lion girl for 50 hours with peace and smiles every other line and no character development.
I think the story would have been better if along the way she realized that she was in fact not worthy and fully backs her brother to become his sword and Shield and support his dreams. After she realized that this dream of hers isn't actually hers. But her fathers
Zepla, I was wondering why you were quiet about this subject. Quietly I hoped to myself "I hope Zepla is the one content creator who will take her time to submit a full detailed review in the future"... so I waited and hoped patiently. And you do NOT disappoint!!!! THANKYOU!!! You even added details I felt, but I did not feel like expressing it. Not only that you went step by step and your feelings showed even during the live stream footage. I wanted to thank you for taking your time releasing this!
Really?! Zepla has been the most vocal about her hate of FF14
@@Naoto-kun1085 they mean like, it took a while for her to make a full video on critiquing DT. but yeah we know zepla criticizes the game
Imagine if they let us choose which Dawn servant we wanted to support and give us a slightly different storyline for each playthrough. That would have been a great way to kick off the new era of FFXIV.
Especially since they easily could have wrote it in such a way where the end state wouldn't have mattered- we could have Wul Koana and Bakool Ja Ja as our leaders and still get betrayed by Zoraal Ja, with only some dialogue and cut scene changes during the process with different Scions siding with different leaders.
@@autumneagle Yet they were even too lazy to implement different cutscene for healers like they did in Stormblood. "Oh the king is about to die, I better just watch the Redmage trying to heal him lol"
Square Enix is (sadly) not Larian Studios. If they would be this expansion would have been epic and repayable with choices you make. During my playthrough I felt in every corner that Square just wasn’t willing to go the extra mile. They just pushed something out that had to be cheap because we’ll buy it anyway. Firing the great VA’s of Thancred and Y’shtola (in German but I think the same happened in English) was the first clue. They cost too much money so they were replaced with cheaper ones. And it just kept going since Endwalker 6.1 😢
@@Nickrauhl No, english VA's were the same. Although Y'shtolas voice quality was shit, it sounded like the VA herself recorded it in her home with a shitty headset mic.
@@rainerziehtkatapultenachgo9001 then I really have to think about changing my language to English. I have every other game in English only FF is in German but I really hate the absurdly low quality of the VA’s since 6.1. it’s so bad even the horrible story and VA performance in Wuthering Waves seems amazing in comparison 🙁
It's really quite simple why the game's quality has declined. The team has gotten comfortable. You see it everywhere. They're unwilling to take feedback, classes feel homogenized, the writing feels like fanfiction, the events are little more than dialogue boxes for housing items, and the dungeon and raid scene is repetitive. There's basically no spice to be had in how one progresses. It's become extremely predictable, so it's hard to get excited. And they'll keep doing it. They'll keep to the status quo, continue to butcher the skillsets and identities of classes, and keep shoving the next shiny thing in our face for the expansion so everyone hops on board and tries the new classes for a few months, then quit and do it all over again.
I have talked to countless others who only continue to pay their sub because they don't want to lose their house. And you can bet that the team is very well aware of that. It's how they make their money. I had high hopes for this game way back when ARR released, but I quit after Endwalker, and I have no intention to return. Watching Dawntrail's abysmal story has only emboldened my decision. It really is a shame.
The pacing was ATROCIOUS and the character development was nonexistent. Highly agree with 99.99% of what is said. The 0.01% is about Zoraal Ja. I understood is feelings about feeling slighted about feelings of jealousy with his adoptive siblings. It's something I've heard happen in families with biological and adopted children. The bio children feel jealous because the adopted children were "picked" by the parents while the adopted children feel less than because of not being biologically related. But yes, the character development was truly, this needs to happen NOW because we are running out of MSQ content.
Wuk... being thrust upon us EVERY WAKING MOMENT... entirely maddening.
I think the Dora, Blues Clues line around 35min in or so is spot on for this expansion. Dawntrail felt like SE didn't trust the players to understand what was happening. Felt like I was a kid being explained something painfully obvious by an adult.
There is a moment before fighting Zoraal Ja were Wuk Lamat is like "I am Wuk Lamat, and you are Zoraal ja" and I'm just like.. did they think we forgot? I get she was explaining it to Zoraal Ja who is sort of losing his mind, but the wording felt so childish and odd to me personally..
I know right, I thought it might have been wuk lamat’s accent, but it felt like watching Dora.
“Hola, me llamo wuk lamat, I love peace!!! Can you say…. Peace”
*pause*
“Muy bien, I’m glad you also love peace”
Where is Bakool Ja Ja? Can you find him?
Oh no! Time's up! Pray, return to Wuk Lamat!
I thought latest patch would be interesting alas half the patch was about chasing livestock....ffs
Where the voice of *reason* almost dies protecting a sheep? Yeah.
@@akkiko ''ILL GIVE MY LIVE PROTECTING THIS RONNEK THING THAT HAS ZERO SENSE OF SELF PRESERVATION OR SURVIVAL INSTINCTS!!''...........really? it would have been more emotional if it was a child not a walking beef sirloine
@@CommandoRickLVLike I get it. They’re like family. But for a Dawnservant to decide to use his body to shield it instead of AAAANYTHING ELSE, especially with Wuk Lamat RIGHT there… god. Not a single ounce of logic, just the same headstrong bs his sister banks on.
i posted similar thoughts on the ffxiv subreddit and got torn apart lol. thank you for sharing your thoughts, it's nice to know there are others who felt the same.
i dare not argue this in my fc either.. like my fcmates are nice people but the way some of them defends wuk and the story is just crazy.. trust me i forced myself to try and like wuk and the story.. tried to resub a few times but its just not for me at this time...
@@ynachoi5072i bet your FC mates love Rey Papatine...er Skywalker and the Disney Starwars.
@@everyonethinksyoureadeathm5773 Her name *is* Palpatine. Rey is as much a Skywalker as Wuk would be WoL, if she ever decided she likes our nickname and wants to use it...
@@silanahlmao
Reminder that in Wuk Lamat's backstory, why she's sent to Gulool Ja Ja in the first place is because of an assassination attempt with her being pushed into and half-drowning in the bottom of a cenote. Thus... it's reasonable to assume she's got some kind of brain damage.
lmaoooo
I want the flashback cutscene where the support characters all get together and talk, sadly, about her "condition" as she sits drooling in the background, trying to fit a square block in a round hole. They nod. They exchange glances, filled with pity. Wuk hiccups and belches, eyes wide. Vacant.
So very vacant.
@Proxenos_zh sounds like autism.. oh crap gotta be careful.. that adds to what those crazies can use..
it's really too bad it was only half-drowned
Honestly, I think the game needed to take a major L like this. It's been riding high for too long; the amazing story has carried mediocre job, world, and dungeon design, as well as boring loot and zero player choice. I hope we can get a refresh in a big way
You've pointed out so many things I missed that was wrong with the writing of DT, like the inconsistency of Koana's characterization, thank you!
One thing I want to also point out with the problematic writing is that this is the first time in any RPG ever where I've felt like an audience member rather than a participant in the story. And this realization came from the touring of Solution Nine where Wuk Lamat and Sphene went on a date together and for some reason the WoL had to act like a taxi driver, taking them to places where they talked to each other and ignored you completely. The world doesn't move on until you do, and yet you contribute nothing to the conversation. It's one of the most bizarre gaming experience I've ever had. I've played many RPGs before and many since DT, but not a single time have I felt so much like a tool.
Some of that is because the WoL doesn't really talk, but some of my favorite (if inconsequential) scenes have been because they're hanging a lantern on the WoL's tendency to just solemnly nod and get on with things.
It was around that point I really started to notice that every time something happened, the camera would settled on the WoL as normal... and then immediately pan to Wuk Lamat.
There's making someone else the main character and then there's rubbing my nose in it, you know?
A quote that's relevant to this, from a beloved franchise that had immensely awesome writing but has since suffered a similar fate today:
"The horror is not that it happened, but that it was allowed."
What franchise is that?
@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1 Hespith says it in Dragon Age Origins.
“That's why they hate us... that's why they need us. That's why they take us.... that's why they feed us. But the true abomination... is not that it occurred, but that it was allowed.”
@@TheWickedWizardOfOz1 Dragon Age
@@katanano Ah. I remember playing Origins a while back and I thought it was... okay, I guess, but it didn't really capture my fancy. I've heard that the new one is a dumpster fire, though.
Wuk Lamat is staggeringly devoid of any history that ties her into the world. It's like she literally appeared in the world of Etheirys in the last patch of Endwalker and two guys were given the knowledge that she was their daughter (biological and adoptive) and Erenville suddenly realized he had an old friend he seems to not actually like.
"Oh, I've been here before! I barely know anything about it."
"I love my people. Oh wow, I'm learning about my people for the first time!"
There were multiple times in the Dawntrail MSQ where I was not only bored and disappointed, but had to literally put down my controller and leave, from how mad I was
One notable moment was when Wuk Lamat sat and watched her father get murdered in front of her because it was an 'honorable duel', where one of the combatants literally revived from the dead after the duel had concluded.
Another was the start of Living Memory, where Cahciua proceeds to, in unvoiced stock shot reverse shot, tell us exactly how the moral quandary scenario is going to go, decides the right answer for us ahead of time, and sends us off to go through the motions.
I don't know what it takes to get a Lead Writer position at Square Enix, because basic, really common sense writing rules and concepts aren't being followed here, like character consistency, stakes or build-up.
If Square operates like any other Japanese corporation, which they are, the answer is seniority combined with a bit of endorsement by superiors.
Ishikawa was picked as head writers because of her stellar work, close relationship with everyone including her predecessor, Maehiro and in SB Maehiro recommended Oda and Ishikawa to co-wrote SB with Oda writing the Gyr Albanian half and Ishikawa writing the Doman half. Ishikawa was picked mostly due to the fact that Oda had developed health issues and thought that Ishikawa did a better job with character writing and Maehiro's avid endorsement of her work.
After Ishikawa's promotion (which is fair since she wrote a stellar story and it is cruel to force a writer to continue writing after you wrote you grand finale ) the next in line was Hiroi who also had Ishikawa's blessing. On paper, Hiroi wrote the most stories and worked on FFXIV the longest writing the majority of the raid series, trials series, alliance raid series relic, majority of the beast tribes, half of the job quests, several X.1 patches (4.1 and 5.1 come to mind). Hiroi's strengths was that he was an excellent support writer as he came up with many ideas Ishikawa would use in ShB and EW, good at remembering obscure details and lore, and writing focused narratives. However, he tends to world build via text dump and isn't strong on character writing (though he is good enough for side content like Werlyt or Bozja)
@@Blahblah-oo7lk There is no way that someone from Japan was the writer when Wuk Lamat stinks of western "girlboss" writing.
I was literally so angry starting 7.1 that I didn't even touch it. I've been so upset and disappointed about DT that I just couldn't even force myself to play. I started around SB and 4.3 was my first live patch. I've never NOT wanted to play. This story is just ..not good :(
@@AzureRoxe it's odd because really she's written like a male shonen protag more so than western girlboss but the end result is basically the same.
yep the duel had me stop playing for a few days too in an absolute rage, i had to delete the video i was recording because i just started screaming stuff that'd have gotten my channel deleted.
Dawntrail was the first time in 8 years that I play FFXIV that I had to skip a MSQ cutscene
Same... I started the "Machinations Skip" in 7.1
Big same when it came to the dialogues. I could skip after the first word she spoke and knew the direction it was heading with her 2 brain cells.
Unironically the side quests were better. I was genuinely more intrigued by the PCT job quest
@@Regnum_Deibold of you to assume she has two
By far the first expansion that had me falling asleep throughout the msq
I totally agree with you. This expansion felt so empty in so many ways. The story was so predictable that I couldn’t believe they were actually making it that easy to predict. At the end I was so tired of Wuk that I even hated the last boss fight. But most of all, I feel that the developers lost the big opportunity to give us a trial/soloduty against Thancred and Urianger!
12:10 "it's like it went out of its way to kill it's own momentum before getting too excited"
i feel that actually. Edgetrail
I was a CBT for 1.0 and I actually started my journey in ARR. Experiencing all of the highs and lows throughout each expansion, and finally getting everything tied together in Endwalker felt fulfilling. However, experiencing Dawntrail made me regret ever starting.
I actually find it incredibly unbelievable that Yoship signed off on this writing. Even worse, Ishikawa is supposed to be in a supervising role, and she let this pass to Yoship? The writing is so absurd I wanted to believe an AI spat it out.
You were in the CBT, and now the game feels like CBT...
@@Zyart I'm giving it until 7.5 to get its shit together, or I'm out and give the win to my WoL: "I TOLD you I was RETIRING in Thavnair after that endsinger shit!"
Alright, here’s a longer post from me. ^^°
I feel like Dawntrail might be suffering from something that’s plagued many games recently, especially in 2024: story development that misses its target audience. Now, don’t get me wrong - it’s not as bad as in other games (thankfully!), but for me, it feels a bit like playing Spider-Man 2 after Spider-Man 1. Something just feels... off.
In this case, it’s Wuk Lamat. Compared to every other NPC in the game, she’s just a Mary Sue. She faces zero consequences for her actions and, somehow, is even stronger than us. Like, she literally jumps into the final fight against the Queen Eternal and holds the boss off - something an entire group of eight Azem couldn’t manage. Meanwhile, we, the literal "medieval nuke," can’t? Yeah, sure... Having an NPC who makes the Warrior of Light look incompetent is just... eh. On top of that, I’m really glad I played the game in German because, honestly, what even was that voice acting for her in English? They improved it a bit, but it still feels inconsistent with the tone of the world and could definitely use a full rework.
Fun fact: If you combine the info from her father in both the German and English versions, you learn that Wuk is only 17. In one version, it’s stated, “This happened 13 years ago,” and in the other, “She was 4 when it happened.”
Anyway, enough Wuk-bashing. Let’s talk about the story itself. The premise is interesting, but the pacing feels rushed. The first half has us constantly running from point A to B, with no time to take a breath or delve deeper into the lore of the tribes and cultures. It feels like Ultima Thule, stretched over five levels in terms of pacing (not story). Then the second half is really cool but way too short. Honestly, this could have been split into two full story arcs. Instead, it feels like they compressed A Realm Reborn into the first half and Heavensward into the second, both of which deserved more room to breathe.
As a huge fan of Final Fantasy IX, the second half of the second half was a mix of love and frustration for me. Otis as Steiner? Absolutely perfect. But their version of Alexandria? Meh.
I’ve completed the Dawntrail story with 17 characters now (yes, 17), and I noticed something odd: In Shadowbringers, I rewatched tons of story cutscenes with nearly all of them. Same for Heavensward, Stormblood, and Endwalker. But in Dawntrail? I rewatched the story with only one.
And here’s something else I noticed: In Shadowbringers, you kill over 50 enemies in the main story. In Dawntrail, it’s just 25. Across the entire expansion, outside of solo duties or dungeons, you only fight 25 enemies in story quests. That feels... weird? Like, why even have a combat system if you’re not going to use it? Why do I get gear upgrades in dungeons if I’ll barely use them before replacing them with story quest rewards? The progression feels meaningless. For fun, I completed most of the expansion with one character still using ilvl 660 tomestone gear from Endwalker, and it wasn’t remotely challenging. Back in the day, Stormblood’s ilvl 400 gear wasn’t enough for parts of Mt Gulg - even today, some tanks struggle there!
Then there’s the lore. I have so many unanswered questions, and I really hope they address them. For example, why the hell did no Ascian care that a portal between shards has been sitting there for 20 years? (How old is Krile again?) Or that there’s an artifact capable of partially merging worlds? Emet-Selch knew about the “golden cities to the west” (he tells us this before the “Sternengrab” - I forgot the English name), but you’re telling me he didn’t know it connected to another shard? Highly doubtful.
Anyway, that’s enough from me for now. ^^° Time to finish watching this video (I’m only at 8:50).
Edit: Ahh, I totally forgot to mention this - shame on me! I also feel like the second part of the story is missing a sense of urgency. The city is under siege by spaceships, we have no idea where exactly they’re coming from, and yet we’re just sitting around watching a lengthy montage of people repairing a train? Or how about all the running around we do inside the barrier while Zoraal could attack us at any moment, but doesn’t... because? It just feels weirdly off, like the stakes aren’t being taken seriously.
Woke crap is killing everything
No, Wuk having flaws does not prevent her from being a Mary Sue. Her flaws are inconsequential and never inhibit her in any real way.
No, facing hardships doesn't prevent her from being a Mary Sue. The hardships she faces are just magically overcome. Her SECOND face off against her kidnapper she just solos him AND his army of mercenaries. Even being kidnapped didn't have any long term consequences since she's saved without issue and you just take someone else's proof.
Specifically, Wuk is a black hole Sue, with everything just warping around her.
100%. Black Hole Sue is a term I was introduced to when people have mentioned Wuk Lamat, and she matches the criteria.
Perfectly said.
She is a black whole Marie Sue. The world bends for her.
I encourage everyone to look up the term "Black Hole Sue" and read the article about it on 'writing tropes'
Cause Wuk Lamat fulfills EVERY SINGLE POINT of it completely.
Even all examples the website gives occur in DT.
@@RiseInAfterlife 100%
“Talk to Wuk Lamat.” is the new “Pray return to the fucking Waking Sands.” Like. I cannot believe SE dropped the ball so hard. They practically slammed their foreheads into concrete to give themselves life ending brain damage and then gave us this story.
Pray return to Wuk LMAO
@@kumomeme7852 I am done babysitting...
I'd rather return to the Waking Sands than "speak to Wuk Lamat again"
We don't even return to the waking sands over 100 times. And that's still a meme.
We talk to Wuk Lamat over 100 times.
Wuk is Pray Return to the Waking Sands (Savage)
I miss Minfilia more now lol
Wuk Lamat actually ironically became the jealous GF meme. “You don’t need any other characters, you got MEEE”
One point that I am glad you touched on was the idea of Wuk Lamat being about her people. It was one of the story points that bothered me the most while playing Dawntrail, that she was supposed to be the claimant of the people. She was supposed to be the one that both you and I could relate to the most and yet for some reason...she knew absolutely nothing about the people.
I understand from a gameplay perspective, they wanted us to venture and learn these new environments and people and get to know their cultures and the likes. However using Wuk Lamat as a vehicle to do so underminded the idea of who she was as she no longer looked like she cared about her people, but instead cared more about the IDEA and the SHOW or PERSONALITY of caring about her people but in reality she had never taken the time in her years to even attempt to learn about them in the least. I was half expecting her to even question what a Pelupelu was at some point or being amazed about how large the giants were or something because she seemed so oblivious to her own people.
Either way, good video and though I want my hopes to be high for the patch quests they are pretty lackluster thus far and so instead I am now hoping that true effort is being put in the next expansion's story and presentation of it.
Im going to need some time to speak with Wuk Lamat about how I felt about this video.
speak to wuk lamat again...
I know, let's do 3 quests to help the people in the surrounding area that will reveal the issue.
*Smile starts playing*
Don't forget to talk to 3 villagers for their inane comments before talking to Wuk Lamat yet again.
It's so cold that Krile gets essentially a thumb drive in her earring and she couldn't even use the thing, she had to have the shameless merch insert use it for her.
The amount of toxic positivity I see for this expansions story, especially in the FFXIV Instagram comments is absolutely staggering
Its unbearable really
40:23 that scene even out of context is so powerful. That's what dawntrail was missing, it was missing the powerful truth, the anguish and hope of life. The realness. Dawntrail felt like the entire thing was run through an AI before release that absolutely sucked the soul from the story. Going back to old quests they are so compelling. While new ones are the most boring stories I've ever encountered. I don't understand how DT dropped the ball so hard..... many of my friends and guild mates have quit since DT came out. It makes me very sad....
Also the ONLY part of DT I was excited for they haven't even MENTIONED since the first time. The idea there is a sunken God in the trench beside Turali. Please, give us the good stories!
i literally teared up just listening to the VA again
YES FINALLY! I'm not the only one who sees this!
@FrazzleCat I have a theory, DT is supposed to be "As Above, So Below" look at the way everything is mirrored with a dark reflection. The logo, the intro screen, and the sunken God. It feels like vestiges of an idea we're probably not going to see
It is a shame that so many people are quick to give up on the game
I don't expect anyone is really going to read this, but here it goes anyway.
Originally I created a whole timeline to comment on the things you said, but TH-cam comment length limitations forced me to delete it. And so I will just say... yes, I agree with almost everything you said. The only thing I disagree on is the bit about exploring and having no knowledge about what's out there before we venture out of the main city. To us it's new territory, but to the people who have lived there, they know about all of it... so giving you a little heads up before you venture out is like when a tourist shows up to a new place and a travel guide informs them of what to expect or where to go. I didn't mind so much that it was all already known, and frankly I just enjoyed learning about the cultures as I went through the world.
I'll also say: as a role player, the way I explain Wuk Lamat to my friends is: she's like the do-no-harm Paladin with main character syndrome at the table. She needs to be in the spotlight for everything, and any time she's not allowed to do something, she finds a way to brute force her way into something just so she can solve all the problems and be the hero. She never gives anyone else a chance to shine, to grow, or to feel like they matter at all. And that final trial where she nags Meteion 2.0 to death just had me begging, _pleading_ that the writers would just make Wuk Lamat shut up for five friggin' seconds.
After watching and listening to your entire review, I had some points I wanted to make that you didn't cover.
---
1. The Timeline
All of the older characters are shown as their younger versions during the story, and to me, they look like they are in their twenties or thirties. But we hear that the peace was brokered and the problems of their land were solved some 80 years ago. 80 years is a bit much for them to still be living, much less for them to look like they're only in their 60s or 70s. This wouldn't be a big deal to me if it wasn't also for the fact that when Krile finally meets up with her parents, she reveals that she is 20 years old. So when she was taken out and given to two face and his adventurer companions, was the peace already brokered? Well no because that would have happened during the time two face was doing the journey to make peace. So in 80 years, Krile only aged to be 20 years old? I just... the timeline wasn't made clear and I hated that.
2. Meteion 2.0
As I referenced above, I felt like Sphene was just Meteion 2.0. She's an enemy that appears way too late in the story when the focus should have been on Zoraal Ja. If they were _really_ desperate to have a secondary antagonist, they should have kept Zoraal Ja's aid and made him the second in command of New Alexandria. There's another game I played called Guild Wars 2 where, in one of the race's origin stories, you deal with a device that creates alternate dimensions, and you have an aid with you who is helping you along your journey with the device. When the device finally activates, you have to fight an alternate reality version of yourself and his second in command, who is an alternate reality version of the person who has been helping you along the way. In their alternate reality, they conquered their land and now they were hell bent on conquering yours. After the battle is won, your companion admits that he likes the idea of conquest, and you decide that the device should be destroyed and for this future to never come to pass.
Now I'm not saying that they should do what they did with Guild Wars 2, since those two stories were very different from one another... but in that instance, you have your character and your sidekick being well established early on, and your companion's continued desire for conquest remains in him even after the battle is won. They could have done something like where Zoraal Ja and his companion overthrew the New Alexandria empire, where the guy who'd been helping Zoraal Ja becomes second in command and takes Sphene's place. Maybe then Sphene could have been a queen who was trying to formulate some kind of rebellion to regain her throne and enlist your aid to make that happen. There's so much more that could have been done with established characters instead of introducing a new villain two thirds of the way through the story.
3. Zoraal Ja's Complete Control
I really, really, REALLY didn't like that Sphene gave Zoraal Ja, a stranger to her and her people, so much power over her society. I mean the fact that he was able to implement a code to kill everyone _behind_ _her_ _back_ and _without_ _her_ _knowledge_ DESPITE the fact that she's an omnipresent AI is absolutely ridiculous to me.
Sphene claimed she was 'afraid' of Zoraal Ja and his conquest, but Zoraal Ja is like a tribal man holding a spear, and New Alexandria has sci-fi gunships and robots everywhere. How in the world was Sphene afraid of Zoraal Ja? They could have swatted him like a fly and forgotten about him forever in the next ten seconds. But instead, they just _conveniently_ hand over their _entire_ _empire_ to Zoraal Ja because they were afraid of him? No... this was an utterly forced situation for the sake of plot and I hate it.
4. Krile's Parents are Endless because...?
Don't get me wrong, I love that Krile got that little story segment and we got to see something nice at the end of the story, _but_ ... Krile's parents were apparently super opposed to Sphene and Preservation, and yet their souls were waved and they went on to become Endless anyway. I don't know about you, but I feel like if there was a group of people who stood in my way and prevented me from achieving my goals, the very last thing I would want to do is bring them back after I've eliminated them.
Again, I love that they were there so Krile could meet her parents and have some closure, but it didn't make sense from a plot point to me.
Good post
Thank you for putting so much effort into this video, it really helps to have someone else who's also invested in the story and game walk through all the reasons it didn't land.