Dawntrail | An Honest Review 

You mentioned something about financial limitations, and I can speak to this using Yoshida's own answer in an interview. Basically, FF14 doesn't have a budget. Square Enix collects all the money from subscriptions and uses them on other projects. They only distribute enough money to FF14 for basic maintenance costs and the bare-minimum budget their studio is allowed. If they want more for a special project, they need to pitch it to the board, get approval, get assigned a budget, and meet certain deadlines and benchmarks to not have it taken away. All told FF14 probably gets 10-15% of the revenue generated by subs for expansions, and upkeep of systems. 70% of those funds get spent on Square Enix flops like Forespoken. The only funds that FF14 is allowed to keep for extra development outside of their base budget is money spent on optional items. They get to keep 70% of that. It's a horribly antiquated business model. In order for ff14 to get full voice acting, they'd need approval from the board, who will outright reject it because it's an expense that has no benefit unless they can show how angry the JAPANESE playerbase is that the game doesn't have it.

I love dawntrail bcs Wuk Lamat has finally given me the strength the push the Skip Button, something I wasn't able to do in the other expacs. Truly an expansion of all time

The scions only exist in this expansion to be npcs to do dungeons with, Poor Krile deserved better than this.

Dawntrail is by far the worse FFXIV expansion for me from a story perspective. The plotline is too predictable. No new narrative hook for the new overarching story (like literally, this could've been lumped as filler under the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga). But most jarringly is the lack of any compelling characters. The scions (WoL included) were turned into Wuk Lamat's cheerleading squad with no agency whatsoever. Even the main antagonist barely had any time to be properly developed. Wuk Lamat herself felt like a generic battle Shonen protagonist and was too naive to be a believable leader. Compare her with the Crystal Exarch, for example. He also had lofty high morals and unshakable faith in his people. But it was grounded in a very clear realism with solid proof of his beliefs, as well as proper understanding that sacrifice is inevitable (not everything can be solved with friendship speeches). But what's by far the most concerning to me is the theme of the expansion. It's retreading old tropes that were already explored way better in past expansions (the concept of death's inevitability and its acceptance as a natural part of life rather than as a reason to despair). Living Memory felt like a revisiting of Amaurot. The antagonist felt like a failed attempt to replicate Emet-Selch. And to top it all off, it was all presented in a very "Disney-like" manner that lacks maturity and nuances. This lack of new direction is worrisome because it bespeaks a lack of confidence on SE's side in their own writing. They basically played it far too safe, with revisiting what they thought worked in the past, and keeping options completely open by having no clear new story arc. It's very disappointing. Is it a good story by "MMO" standard? Yes, but that's not a very high standard to begin with. Is it a good story by Final Fantasy standard? Absolutely not. It's very average and not particularly compelling. Most jobs remain as boringly dumbed down as they were in Endwalker, unfortunately. And I'm appalled to see that SE's knee jerk reaction to criticism about VPR's supposed "busyness" is to simply plan on dumbing it down as well (reducing positional requirements and lessening the fast pace, according to their Lodestone post). The saving grace of this expansion for me personally is that they're clearly trying to level up their encounter design and come up with new ideas for mechanics (though it still boils down to finding the safe spot for the most part). This got me excited to see what they cook up for the Savage tier and Eden Ultimate. The return of midcore content with a new Bozja-like zone will be much welcome as well.

Dawntrail does a LOT of tell and not show. There is one scene in a flashback where the characters- in excited tones- say HOW a battle went rather than show us. And it highlighted the major issues with the expansion. Koana was someone I wanted to mentor more. This was NO summer vacation. We traveled to a distant content to help instate a nepobaby lord into power. Where is the vacation?

Loved that, whenever there was a crowd cheering, all NPCs with the same model would move in perfect synch. That look so bad

I feel like a big missed opportunity was that Koana wasn’t present for any of Solution 9. He’s a new character marked to lead the kingdom, with one of the biggest flaws he develops from being a focus on integrating foreign technology without concern for culture. Solution 9’s a part of his kingdom integrated into a high tech foreign kingdom for 30 hours, with cultural exchange going both ways. Outwardly Sphene’s everything he idealizes wanting to be but can’t express well as a leader. He’s tailor made to be a great foil to that section, just odd they don’t use him.

Wuk lamat is simply not a good character. Coming out of the zero story Arch, which was fantastic

I had no issue turning off the servers for the Endless. In fact, i was rather annoyed that we were forced to meander around to learn about a long dead people we were about to erase once and for all, especially when we're on the clock for a calamity level event at that moment. Also the Endless are living a parastic existience at that point. Essentially vampires in need of "living aether" and are willing to kill all of us in the real living world to sustain it. I think the choice is pretty clear. Its them or us.

No matter how much money XIV makes, it's taken to carry the rest of SE which is constantly under-performing/bombing it's other games.

Yeah I was quite disappointed with the MSQ, but the battle content was really strong. At least I had a ton of fun with it. Also some of the best new music tracks ever. *shrug*

(SPOILERS!) ... ... ... ... The part where the story _really_ went off the rails for me was when we first went to Heritage Found and all of the people there had the same thing on their head that Baddie Brother (because I can't be bothered to remember his name) had on his head. Despite that, we were just happy to go along with the story without asking "What are those things?" immediately. Plus the fact that the Queen herself doesn't have one. Isn't that, I dunno...A GIANT RED FLAG? Yet our character, who has seen all kinds of shit through various reflections and realities just goes, "Yeah, I'd like to learn about farming!" I checked out of the story at that point and began skipping. Painfully stupid writing. I went into a rant after this and typed like four other paragraphs of irritations but I just deleted them all. There are too many glaringly obvious writing problems with this story to even get into in one RU-vid comment. I really hope that 7.x is better. The JP players hate the story too, so maybe there is hope after all.

I feel bad for the rest of the cast.

Dawntrail was a tremendous letdown for one of the reasons you said you liked it - the companion NPCs. With the introduction of Trust Dungeons where you can use your NPCs to take part of coming trial or dungeon, it felt like the Scions were only brought along to fill the role of tank/dps/healer for those duties because they had next to zero impact on the plot and story of Dawntrail. I'm dead serious, ask yourself the following: -what did Estinien do that changed the story? -if Y'shtola didn't show up for the second half of the story, how would it have changed - if at all? -why did Koana need Thancred to come along (other than to kill people)? If the scene where Koana was told to "open up more" was the reason why, would the story be changed at all if it were the village chief to tell him that? -what was Urianger's main contribution to the story? -what did G'raha do other than fill out the duty support for trust dungeons? -how did the twins impact the story AT ALL? I understand that the common defense of this is that the player isn't supposed to be the protagonist this time but I'm just asking for the "side characters" we've known and grown to love for a decade now would be treated better than to serve as mercenaries for Wuk Lamat's rise to power. I just wanted a reason for the scions and the WoL to be there other than to kill things for her, /nod in agreement, or to do a cool action pose (before killing something for her). I know that Ishikawa was promoted"to a managerial position within the company and has passed the torch to lead writer to someone else (Endwalker patch writer) and man, her absence is clearly felt. I have never felt so disconnected with a central Final Fantasy character than I have with Wuk Lamat compared to the entire franchise's history.

Ok so, about Living Memory: First of, the game makes it very clear that the entities that inhabit that place are not full people, and they are not living full lives. They are ghosts, endlessly repeating the same patterns, doing the same things over and over again, a depressing, meaningless existance. They have no souls. They have lived their lives and died. What we did there tantamounts to exorcism. Hell, a lot of the quests seems to be about dealing with their "unfinished business" before they can go, and literally none of them cares when they dissapear. The ones that matter - Erenville's mom, Krile's parents - actively WANT us to end them because they understand their situation. Also, they require souls to exist. The game estabilishes quite clearly that they need the souls of the living, no other source of aether works. They are not the same as Ottis, as Ottis was a soul placed in a machine. But the Endless have no souls - their souls were refined into a resource, like oil or coal. They are just memory inscribed in a computer. And we know that they are fake, 100% fake...because while Ottis's soul, the real Ottis, was in Heritage Found, the fake Ottis memories were in Living Memory. What if Ottis had not died? We would just have two of them? Can we even make more copies? We also see with Wuk Lamat's nanny, Namikka, that their memories in Living Memory aren't even that accurate - she existed in a state where Wuk Lamat was still a child. How can we trust that any of those memories were not tampered with? How do we know some of those "children" were not simply adults who were simply happier as kids, and had their memories scrambled by a computer to maximize happiness? Sphene herself is a victim of that. She was a real person's memories, but her intentions were tampered with. She had no free will. She was not a real person. None of them were. They were as real as Replika. They were vampiric, necromantic chatbots. They were no more real than the rainbows in the pools and the fire in the volcano. What we did was preserving the natural order. Literally everything in the game supports that.

I love my toon. I have for nearly a decade. Great care has been taken in crafting her personality, back story, style and ethos. At least as much as I am allowed by the limitations of the game. I would be a mentor to Arenvald, Fordola, Pipin, or any other of the great and endearing characters we have encountered so far. But my character would never for a moment entertain the forced pride that our characters are compelled to show in someone as grating and unimpressive as Wuk Lamat. There is just no way that I would ever choose that for my character, and I would not cheerlead the direction that Lamat took from start to end. This is the most let down I have ever been in a FF14 expansion, even more than when we were forced to care about the First in Shadowbringers. If Square is smart, they will just take the loss on Dawntrail 7.0 and realize they VASTLY overestimated their own ability to give the players just any old story and have us eat it up. Give us something better next time, Square. We are paying you for it. Just learn from this failure and give us something better

What I've gathered thus far is that MY vacation with MY friends will start once I am able to stop holding Wuk Lamat's hand. This is becoming torture. If this is the experimental expansion to test-drive a new idea, then I think the varied data they're getting should be useful. Don't quite know what the choice dialogue was hoping for, but I am not simping for Miss Mittens. Erenville can hold her hand, she can go to the bathroom by herself, and I am going to go exploring and have some ME time.👍

I completely agree. I don't want to sound like I'm being mean to the new writers but, they just don't seem to have what it takes to handle a full MSQ. There are basic necessities in a story like these that have to be met when introducing new characters and they were not present here. I would write a wall of text on this but I will refrain. In short, a character needs to arrive in a story with a past full of lived experiences and occurrences that shape who they are and how they react to different situations. A skilled writer will give a surface level introduction and then allow the player time to see how this person reacts to events to make their own determination on the person. Then during the story they lift the curtain just enough to give a peek into the character's drives, needs, desires and experiences. This allows the interactions rather than the exposition to shape the character in the narrative. In DT, we got a lot of direct exposition telling you how people act and what their 2 dimensional personalities are. We are told, not shown. Then in the case of characters like Wuk Lamat (I didn't dislike her as a character and I thought her VA did just fine) we get very little to no character progression or growth. The first half involved a journey that was meant to teach her a lesson about each culture and none of these lessons felt like they carried to the next area. Then at the end when faced with "This is not a person, it's a machine with an AI built with memories that just runs program and it will kill trillions willingly and plans to" we get this weird and unrealistically braindead "I have to talk to her!" refrain that lasted all the way to the end of the game. If the same team handles 8.0, I don't know how long I will stick around. I really miss Ishikawa.

The writers seriously don't have a handle on how to make the player character a deuteragonist. HW managed that, DT fails miserably - you could remove the WoL so far and nothing would change. That is a *terrible* thing to do with the *player* character.

I get if we get too powerful we just stand aside let others fight. because if we handle it on our own all the time, all the fight will be finished fast. So I don't mind the first half we're just there and not interfere with kid's fight. But then again in the last fight, I somehow need to be saved by someone. this part sidelined your character too much. Where is krile? graha? Either everyone come, or just you yourself. That's how much your power is. If you want that, should switch the role. Should make your character like Saitama. you got teleported out because you are the most dangerous one, the rest struggle to fight, until you come back and finally beat the boss. this part of the story is 100% a F U part for the main character. After the fight, even the boss don't even notice your existence. Way to shove wuk lamat save the day again at the last fight after we got NONE for the whole expansion. Utter trash.

Just skip the story Wuk Lamat is terrible

For me, Dawntrail is the worst story in FFXIV. I realize that enjoyment of the MSQ is subjective to the player, but it just didn't work for me. The graphics improvement is really nice, though.

While I appreciate your honesty and giving legitimate critizism, I simply hard disagree that DT is "worthwhile". The writing alone has so many flaws, with WL overextended screentime as the biggest one, and so many un-used ideas etc, that I have to recommend skipping the story all together, until the robot-invasion, because verything with the rite was basically filler that doesnt have any interesting enough story seeds for future Expansions.

I'll be honest. Dawntrail is the very first time I felt incredibly lukewarm about an expansion release. So much so that somebody like me who pre-ordered every expansion out of sheer excitement still hasn't bought Dawntrail. The only thing about it that got me excited was the jobs. I'm a narrative gamer so the new jobs alone won't be enough to grab me. Now I'm hearing things about the story that just coincide with the vibes I was getting and now I'm feeling myself lose even more interest fast.

Thanks for all the fascinating insights you have shared with me here. I love learning how others experience the story, and the ways we think about the world in differently. /many hugs to all

While I enjoyed the MSQ in places and thought it was very gorgeous, I feel Dawntrail pushed a lot of XIV's real story flaws into too much of a spotlight, while adding a new one in allowing one character (Wuk Lamat) to come at the expense of essentially everything. I also agree the VA is more needed, especially in the literal sense of forcing them to be more economical with the script as there is just plainly far too much pad in DT. I also think the overall story of 90-95 is simply too weak and lacks the interest of even Stormblood, and while 95-100 is better, it's also disconnected and doesn't get far enough away from the problems of the first half. With Wuk, even if you liked her, I just don't think it was the right play how it was handled - she gets too much focus, robbing opportunities for other characters (both protagonist and antagonist) to have moments. Krile for instance who has waited since Heavensward for her moment to shine basically gets shelved in favour of Wuk. I feel they lost how important the player perspective and agency was in building the character and MSQ, even if not necessarily in the WoL but all the dynamics, and instead thought only about Wuk. And as the WoL, try to name a moment you had that felt 'on par' with anything from previous expansions. Probably the highlight is the Gulool Ja Ja fight but right after we're back to playing second fiddle. On the Endless, the story was successful in giving us the serious disquiet and uncertainty in turning them off, but overall, it is the right thing to do. Living Memory is an unsustainable ruin, the aether drain means that their 'life' comes at an insane cost of death, bio-transference as opposed to simply being allowed to die and pass on is clearly against the wishes of many of the Endless we meet. They are essentially ghosts that come from an incapability to reconcile grief or loss, and as such, rob and are robbed of the closure people around them need, something Sphene can't understand. The trial was a neat 'save the world' moment we knew we needed... but again loops back into the previous 'Wuk is the key to all this' problem. Ultimately I think they are compiling the feedback very hard on Dawntrail and in some ways probably knew this MSQ would be a painful but necessary step to build out the new world for us to mess with. But they have a serious uphill battle on patch content and need to come out swinging to prove that the DT MSQ was more of a blip.

I think a lot of the rigging problems with the models you mentioned are because they are ripped and upscaled from ff11. They were never designed to have fluid mouth movements in that game.

The only factor that determines whether or not you're going to like dawntrail's story is how much you like wuk llamat. Because for the first 2/3rds of the damn story, she's the only chracter who exists. Shes the only chracter with any meaningful amount of dialog. So if you just found her to be a boring naruto clone, but with none of the struggles he had, like i did, then the story is going to blow ass.

I always found the second half of the expanision's MSQ intriguing. Though I had a different interpretation of who and what the endless were based on what they revealed about the nature of the soul all the way back in post shadowbringers. As we know the soul is comprised of the Memory, The Conscious/the Ego, and The Emotions based on Post-shadowbringer patches I believe. What sphene's civilization essentially achieved, was that they didn't exactly preserve the soul in it's entirety, what they did however do was preserve the memory while the remaining parts of the soul was used to act as soul cells that help resurrect citizens of alexandria whenever they are met with a unfortunate accident or death. These Endless are thus nothing but memory given form. They imitate the people they once were when they are alive, they express things in the way the person they were would, but in the end, they more like a arcane creation like the watcher or a simelcrum. Now as to why the endless need the Aether from souls to sustain themselves is probably becuase memory cannot exist without the other types of Aether that makes up a soul. The Aether that makes up souls is completly different from the Aether that you would use and channel in arcane arts or find naturally in the enviroment, hence there need for such a resource, living souls just possess the right type of aether necessary to sustain the memory and in term allows the endless to keep there systems operational. Without it, the endless would just fade away and be release into the ambient aether because they won't have enough aether to sustain the memories existence as a arcane entity. It's probably why machines aren't adequate for sustainability because Otis wasn't a Endless, Otis was a complete soul being kept alive in a machine while the Endless themselves are nothing more then memory given form. To me, the systems from which the endless run on, is rather sad and dark one, because it appears as nothing but a illusion being perpetuated by a system designed out of neccesity, grief, and survival. So us going there to confront and defeat Sphene just felt like turning of the lights in kingdom that was trap in a state of constant memory and was already long gone.

I have so many friends that won't play because of the lack of voice acting, it really is a huge shot in the foot.

Wuk Lamat in English is something else... Story is way too slow for what it tries to do and achieve. Wuk Lamat's dialog in general could easily cut in half without losing any character building. Game's structure doesn't work at all for "mentor" arc of story telling. Can't wait for JP voice mod port for english voiceover, would fix some of the annoyance with Wuk Lamat. Msq's structure remaining identical to every other expac when story telling shift is so major is a god damn crime. Other post msq content is good, so expac as a whole is fine. However I would be lying if I didn't say that I was looking forward to hitting skip on every Wuk Lamat's dialog on my alt. Lastly. Wuk Lamat and Sphene are strangers since, yet she still comes in Gaia style when it makes zero sense and takes all the glory and steals your final conversation with Sphene away from you... I get that DT is about her, but that moment made me straight angry at writers.

5:24 I think the problem is that his character, in fact, never felt like true antagonist? He was more like Gaius but without real crime rate, after all him having ambitions doesn't mean he going to pursue it and as far as I can tell many people thought that he will be different man by the end of msq, because that's how same character traits usually played in anime and manga and in Final Fantasy games, so to speak. But shift from warlord with principles who cared for his people in his own way to extremely genocidal warmonger, was rather, if not much, unexpected and very plane. It's either they have something more for him, like it was with Zenos, or that's just what it is now: waste of a good potential. His both designs and extreme trial were amazing, though.

The voice actors don't know our characters names. So voiced scenes would have to refer to us as "adventurer" or some such - our character's names we give them would never be spoken.

Ive played on and off since 2017. I dont pre order anything i always wait a few days/week after a game launch to see how its being received. Seeing all bad reviews for dawntrail really makes me not want to buy this. Especially since ff14 players are pretty nice and chill, so the fact an expansion has everyone universally upset tells me they REALLY messed up the expansion.

Whats done is done. Hopefully Square Enix doesn't compound their horrible mistake with the Dawntrail MSQ by continuing to have Wuk Lamat take center stage. As long as she just stays in her little palace and plays no part in the stories of the upcoming patches, things will be much better.

Your scripts and delivery are excellent! I am so glad I discovered your channel while looking for recent reviews! Instant subscribe. Not only you raise very important points but you analyse them so well. The writing failing to justify many things that happen in DT along with the poor character writing were my major gripes in an experience I overall enjoyed but couldn’t help thinking what it could have been. Lastly I will reiterate by saying that your voice work is stellar!

The amount of voice acting required to cover entire msq would soon turn this game into memory devouring villain

edit: tl;dr SB , but worse. My analysis of the expansion is in the final trial I was just yelling "THIS IS THE COOLEST FIGHT EVER." then you know who shows up and I just exclaim, "WHAT?!? WHY ARE YOU HERE?!?". Midnight to 6 instantly. Wuk Lamat's NA VA was so ... not good. Like such lack of expression. She meets her dad and finds out he's alive and there's literally ZERO emotion or acknowledgement of it. I didn't skip any cutscene until that last zone and I couldn't take it anymore. I skipped all but 1 of the Otis cutscenes.

Erenville: "Why didn't you tell me you were an Endless?!" Cahciua: "Why are you the only Turali with an Icelandic accent?! Even I don't have one!" Erenville: "I... shit..." Sorry, that just stuck out to me. 🤣

It's the GW girl! I love you!!!

They most likely will never voice the whole MSQ. The cost would impact gameplay elements as they would have to cut content in order to fit it in the budget. Remember, they have to pay for voice actors for the English, French, German, and Japanese versions. That is a lot of money. Also, if they have to do rewrites of scenes, then that cost adds up. I know it is frustrating that the game isn’t fully voiced, but I would rather have more content than more voice work, but that is because I don’t only play it for the story, I do endgame stuff as well. If someone only plays it for the story, I can see how they wouldn’t care about losing some additional content, as long as they get a fully voiced story. But, I am sure Yoshi-P is hearing the feedback about the need for more voice acting (and Dawntrail has the most out of all the expansions) and he will add more next time. Will he go all out and do 100%? I highly doubt it. Though, it would be nice to see an interview question in regards to the issue. Most of Shadowbringers and Endwlaker were not voiced, and people still engaged with those stories. Hell, people love those stories.

The thing with Zoraal Ja. He wants to surpass his father by uniting the world wheras his father only united Tural. But he wants to do it by force.

isn't that the _Heart of Thorns_ soundtrack though?

I disagree on burning budget on voice acting. You are asking for more delay around actors scheduling. As we can see with the mistake that is too much voice acting in Guild Wars 2 certain characters just end up written out due to VA not being available and replacing would feel even worst than having some reading.

Thank you for the review! You have a lovely voice to listen to, first of all! about FFXIV's Dawntrail, I agree with you completely. I find it sad many people see it as an expansion that has to be 'better' or 'just as fantastic' as the other expansions they loved so dearly. And sadly, those two expansions mainly being Shadownbringers and Endwalker. To me it feels as if ARR/HW and SB have been forgotten and seem to hold no more candle towards 'the peak expansions.' Therefore, forgetting that before ShB and EW, there too was lorebuilding, there too was world building, character- etc. you name it. So overall, I see Dawntrail as just that, new world, new characters, new lore. etc. And we've just stepped into it with what we had. You've said it perfectly that, sure it has its flaws but the journey through it was well worth it. You've also opened my eyes a bit in understanding the Solution 9 part more deeply, and I thank you for that. Keep up the good work! Definitely got my sub!

Man Otis just made me think of the game SOMA That game was clearly existential horror as the last humans on earth tried to shove their consciousness into a server where they would live forever but left a few copies of themselves behind to launch said server into space to avoid the earths destruction and at the end you launch it and upload your copy into the server but the game ends with you in your robot body stuck on the doomed earth. (This is a quick summary that doesn't do the game justice its worth a play)

It feels like a tragedy, the things you're saying. Simply because we all know why the negatives happened. Because of Square Enix's financial irresponsibility. Apparently in Japan there's a "loud American" stereotype worker who is an American who will tell the boss what the workers won't due to societal norms. My question is, where is Square Enix's "loud American"

stop wasting money on DEI / ESG consulting companies, use that money on more voice acting

Dawntrail has interesting things to say, interesting lore to show, but the way these are all presented to us is very lackluster. You likened the events that happen in the last zone of DT to The Burning of Teldrassil and the attack which you take part of as a Horde player. I need to specify that, I was also very uncomfortable participating in the Burning of Teldrassil, but I will be honest, nothing in the MSQ gave me the same understanding and empathy for the Endless that I had for the Night Elves going into the pre-patch of BFA. A few lines of dialogue speaking with characters I cannot remember the name of outside of the major characters from each sub-zone, does not equate to years and years of knowing the Night Elves. All of this to say, that despite the MSQ's insistence that we are basically committing genocide, it fails in its mission to make some players care. The characters I cared about were actually Krile and Erenville. Especially Erenville, whose inner turmoil is just heart-wrenching to watch. I felt more bad for the characters rather than the nameless endless that we erased.

I gotta disagree with the voice acting thing. I was fully engaged through the entire story even with a lack of voice acting in certain scenes. If you prefer the story to be told with voice acting I think that's fine but I don't think it's an "unforgivable sin"

You know guys , There is one thing that makes Dawntrail REALLY wierd to me . In this story line the ENND OF DAYS was not that long ago, red skys , animals and citizen becoming malformed beast , DESPAIR was the name of the day . I has k you all gentlemens , does tural seems to have been exposed to blasphemies AT ALL ? Look at the Despaired lizard folks at the bottom of the jungle , THEY WOULD HAVE TURNED INT OA TIDE OF BLOOD THIRSTY FRENZIED BEAST ! This whole bloody setting can only make sence if you IGNORE THE LORE !

If the whole expansion was voiced that would be sooo damn cool.

Good video, thanks. I enjoyed some of the story but Wuk Lamat really dragged things down for me. At least the combat is getting better it seems.

The writer was either incompetent or had no passion. Maybe even both. I think if you played through DT again you would have an even more negative opinion.

fully agree about the voice acting. This to me is the main reason why I have a love/hate relationship with this game. I first played it a few years ago and I was enthralled by how they handle the MMO aspects of the game, but I was never able to be immersed in the story due to the lack of voice acting. Even WoW which has a good amount of text-only quest dialogue to this day still has more. With how story-focused the game is, you would think it would be a no-brainer to VA the entire main quest at the very least. Oh and its not just that its not voice-acted , but many times the dialogue is very verbose. If the text was concise and more natural it wouldn’t be as painful to read for hours on end

Amazing video and great explanation, also you could read the most boring thing in the world and keep me interested with your voice.

The reason there is two different Otis's is because the living memory Otis is his memories given form from 400 years prior and robo Otis is his soul give a vessel to use. By this explanation gives why living memory Otis didnt know wuk lamat, wol and friends.

I’m genuinely really upset by how the Endless were handled. The peoples made from Dynamis in Ultima Thule are also created from the memories of the dead, so why do they get a nice new planet to inhabit and we broker peace between their unique cultures despite not fitting the Etherys type of aether based life, but we literally cause the Endless’ genocide and Wuk Lamat and her nephew now rule Alexandria. The whole thing is terrible!! It goes against every lesson the game exposed til this point!!!

Would Wuk Lamant given up her chance to be Dawnservat for Koana?

Sad, but agreed. As a long-time ffxiv player that's played since ARR, the story of Dawntrail was disappointing, and felt like a step backward. Even if you do find Wuk Lamat to be an interesting and well-written character, it's just very slow and flat. I think it's actually fine to be unsettled with the outcome of the endless, because to me that means that it's a multi-faceted situation without a cookie-cutter solution. (That's far and away the only time the story presents a theme in a way that warrants actual discussion and engagement though, and by the time I got there I had already been disengaged by the previous story.) But it sounds like some people aren't just unsettled, they were unsatisfied. I wanted the story to dive a bit deeper into it, so that, even if you disagree with the outcome, you can still be satisfied with the events.

I read all the quests, my friend skips everything unvoiced, so when we have our play sessions progressing the story together it is quite tilting, especially since like 10 of those unvoiced cutscenes were super important for the plot, including one with Zoralja and the gate. Why was this unvoiced? There is no logic behind this.

Brilliant review, subbed!

I think one thing of note in regards to Otis alot of people over look is the point in which his memories got moved into living memory and the point at which he "died" in the MSQ. I think his Endless "death" and the discrepancy of his memories as another form of endless should solidify the player's opinion that endless are in fact an AI's interpretation of giving a simulated series of decisions based upon a "lifetime's" worth of experience. For had the old robotic knight version of Otis had truly inherited the soul while the Living memory version was cut off the moment the soul left the body existing simultaneously as an approximation.

I love Dawntrail because I save so much time playing and watching cutscenes.

Dawntrail systems enhanced the game. Fate's, dungeons and trails really improved from Endwalker. The MSQ is one of the worst mmo experiences I played through. I did not find Wuk lamat compelling and found myself left clicking through chat screens as quickly as possible so i could avoid being "lectured" too on ethics. Please course correct Square asap for the sake of the community.

Oh boi, the paper-clip anaolgy makes this so much better to understand... And makes any kind of moral dilemma kinda... moot? Like, they're not real so its ok to delete them? So, we were rpoving Emet Selch right, after all?

Amazing video and listen 👍🏽 a lot of good points and insights

Square enix is a awful company. Creative unit 3 doesn't get as much resources as needed, otherwise, I'd be in favor of your suggestions towards the end.

The Endless are souls stuck on an artificial afterlife in the most literal sense of those words, even the experiences there are akin to a theme park, simulated, controlled, and non-organic. Like, reunions are pushed by the system, not something that just happens. You pull the plug and now they are send to the actual, real after life. They are to have their aether added to the Aetherial Sea and from it, reborn. The metaphor is about how nostalgia often gets us stuck into distorted memories, not moving on. The comfort of past memories vs. the growing pains of reality. The game goes out of its way to tell you this directly. You are not killing a sentient being, you are not even killing a ghost, you are helping people move away from a line of perpetuity into a a natural cycle of rebirth. To consider this a 'murder' is to fundamentally ignore the lore as presented. Also "We commit what we were trying to prevent" - The people Sphene wanted to mass murder were living, breathing people. Not ghosts. In her system, those who die from unnatural cases (like being murdered by Sphene) do NOT become endless! Their aether is used to fuel the machine. THEY don't get the nostalgia fake afterlfie, they are stripped of their memories (!) and identity and harvest to have their soul fuel the dreams of others. A metaphor of colonianism. To try to compare the champions of those who are treated without humanity is a very harsh view wouldn't you say so?

Mouth rigging looked fine to me. One NPC model per race? I say a lot of variety in the NPC details (except maybe the Pelupelu).

August 20th I will be taking the boat for Janthir Wilds and leaving Wuk Lumat behind!

I did enjoy the story, I think the worlds we got where pretty neat, even the out of place syfy looking city.I liked the characters we got to meet and was so so happy to see three particular npcs. I do agree that Zarool Ja could have been explored more, same with his retainer or whatever he was to Zarool ja. I also agree that there should have been more voiced dialog. One more thing, I was so happy that Krile got to be on an adventure with us.

Great review and perspective! Subbed!

I'm only up to the half way point so for that reason I won't comment on parts of the review that are part 4:31 and I'll come back when i have reached that point. However so far I've been fine with it for the most part. I saw a comment talking about stormblood and i feel like that expansion had the push of heavenswards end and zeno to push pressure, but I to this day dont feel like Lyse had the time to cook up her rise to leader. So far if they didnt give me the time to see wuk lamat grow I wouldnt want her in the role. Is she nieve and the start, yes. To quote bakool ja ja she kinda is a house cat nervous about things and not experienced. But she grows to depend on people, continues on past her childish grumbles about alpacas and boats, learns her peoples culture, gets martially strong enough to beat bakool ja ja, and uses the benefits of her brother to help the mamoolja. Like they straight up show how all the other claimants fall and leave their people not as happy or safe. As far as vacation vs not as exciting... we knew we were coming for a fight for thrown and thats what we got. I personally will be wanting just a bunch of fun vacation and hunting in post content. Like i got monster hunter vibes and they pointed out giant beasts in endwalker post and where the heck are those. Also i think the player character would be having fun doing all this just cause it's a new adventure, like learning new peoples culture that's an adventurers jam. What's more vacation than walking around, punching stuff and eating tacos. Like i got the vibe after destroying the endsingers that are butts are just here for the ride. Then as far as side lining the others so far I'm only worried about that with two things. Krile not having a moment to shine and me really wanting to fight thancred and urianger. As far as the twins so far they came for garlemald can't really make a offer for them when we're just working on crowning someone. So their banner is all i really needed. But all this is just my opinion, ery body has their right top want a certain experience. And the snip of spoil i heard (my fault entirely i was to curious about the video) with the brother not having much reasoning is for sure a flaw that will anger me.

I don't think enough people are questioning the ethics of what we did at the end of the MSQ. It really did make me feel like a genocidal maniac. It's also jarring how the many characters who you meet in the various zones learn of their fate and are weirdly fine with it. The endless show that they have their own thoughts, feelings, and aspirations for the future. They are most definitely sentient beings. I understand that introducing immortality at will in the story would definitely be a bad move, so the solution cannot be easy or just "immortality is now a thing and everyone has access to it". However I have two main problems with the solution we arrive at in the end: 1. I don't think the need for the aether to sustain the endless to be "living" aether was ever properly justified. I recall it being mentioned in ONE line, no reason given. With 99% of the universe now being empty as per EW, there's plenty of unused aether to go around. If they are just basically computer simulations, why would you need souls to power the computer?. Now, assuming they really do need living aether in the form of souls, this only lends more credence to the endless being living sentient people, which brings me to my second point: 2. There is a HUGE difference between letting someone die because the alternative is worse, and outright MURDERING them. Disregarding your solution with the robot bodies (which I hadn't thought about, great solution), yes, the system must stop but WHY TF DO YOU PUSH A BUTTON THAT KILLS MILLIONS? You can just stop the supply of souls and defeat Sphene and they will eventually fade away, let them live out the rest of their (un)natural lifes. The only reason it is written this way is so you can cheaply and artificially make sad farewells for some characters. Speaking of these sad farewells... If I was forced to do this, and truly, really, there was absolutely no other choice, I would be absolutely DEVASTATED and looking at what I've just done with abject horror. Instead the characters are mildly sad and still completely sure of their moral high ground.

When you mention that "you are a better person for it," it makes me think you don't separate yourself from the narrative and the game, which was already a significant drawback, but you proved me somewhat wrong. I wish you had addressed the logical issue of how they simply bridged the gap of an "age-long war" with just a dinner. Have they never seen war? Do they really think all the maiming, hate, and worse can be forgiven so easily? I'm happy you mentioned how Zoraal Ja is nonsensical, the reason for being so "evil" is simply because "Daddy didn't give me everything for free."??? I'm also very happy you highlighted the problems with the Endless and how we are force-fed the writers' agenda and point of view on them. They literally "hear, feel, and think." Not to mention, the reason Emet-Selch said it's okay to kill is because "we are so thin of Aether." So, Endless don't have Aether in them makes it ok to kill them? I don't think Shadowlands is much worse than Dawntrail story-wise; they both have the same issues with pushing the writer's view of death down the reader's throat. Bottom line, stop accepting the dragon-tyrant. Regarding Sins: As far as unforgivable sins go, dude, I am with you. ESO has it all voiced, so why doesn't Square Enix? They're just becoming lazier and lazier. This isn't a money issue; it's a "greedy issue." The NPCs all having the same model? Honestly, I'm so used to it that I can spot all skeletons and animations on any race or monster. It's really sad at this point.

I thought the problem with the Endless wasn't storage it was energy consumption. Putting the endless in robots just moves where the energy needs to go not the elimination of the need. A total AI allegory.

Even your bunny got turned gothic at the end of all that lol

FF14 has been able to jump the shark over and over again with its story because they intentionally dud the story in between the high points. ARR was dull, HSW was immaculate, Stormblood was awful, SHB was immaculate, END was well kind of like a SW:RotJ game. It merely exists to close off that story and it had good and bad. DAWN is merely filler laced with story seeds for the future. It’s not meant to be good, it’s meant to make the next game the new Heavensward.

If Narut--- Wuk Lamat had stayed in Tuliyollal after the attack, and the story had moved onto Erenville and Krile, this could have been just on par with Stormblood or Heavensward, specially with the Final Fantasy IX themes. But no, Luff- Wuk Lamat had to return. Seriously Japanese writters sometimes just stick to a theme/character and over do it, and this was one of those times. At least i am very tired of anime narratives and specially 25 year old shonen anime narratives.

I half liked Dawntrail Msq. I did enjoy the rite of succession arc though Wuk Lamat at times felt odd, though I did enjoy her character at times. The second half was jarring for me and it dragged on and on. The brief respite in the fourth zone refreshed me but I noticed when Wuk Lamat came back...and acted as if she never grew at all from the Rite of succession, it felt odd. Combat excellent, Dungeons Excellent, but quest design is severely aging. Also the over abundance and dependence on walking escort quests was lazy and made it boring. They are way too in love with this quest design and it needs to stop. Music is great yet at certain story beats was jarring and odd with certain story beats. For example the ascension to dawnservant, did they really need to play the loud super overly cheerful music over her speech and drown the crowds cheering?? It felt like a clumsy cheesy Lion King Disney scene at that beat. I feel like Post EW should have been an entire expansion...its a missed opportunity, I feel like we should of stayed the main hero and started saving other shards. Exploring new areas and people. With this expansion, we now knocked out two more shards with a blink of an eye...could had been two possible expansions. I dont know, this feel rushed and that is my interpretation.

I am not done with the MSQ but I have skipped more in this Expac than all off the game combine and yes that also includes ARR lol it's very sad because I really wanted to enjoy it but sadly I just can't I am going to play the parts of the Expac that I like which so far are the classes and dungeons and raids but the MSQ I am sadly going to skip because I just really feel not motivated to go through and read/watch.

There are 4 thing that disappointed me about DT: 1. It about Wuk Lamat (not to mention VA in the very bad way so they are fine as they are to me becuz I don't hate the VA for my opinion) basically the story is about Wuk Lamat tale and not our character story becuz we being supportive to her and I agree that we can help her and believe she can win with everything she got but what she should've have done is let us fight with her expectantly fighting Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja during the the fight cutscenes or solo duty. 2. The story are somewhat complicated like we know about Electrope and everything but Sphene being endless and being the real final boss break my heart plus I dont like the fact about the soul collecting to become one with soul to gain power and erasing soul along with memories which make me very angry than seeing 120 dead children in Skydeep dungeon so what Im trying to say here is it just not right with the story. 3. The scions should have bigger role than short like Thancred, Urianger and Estinien if they can be more helpful like before and they could have included Raha and Y'shtola becuz they are part of the story too since the trailer of them appearance so that way we all can enjoy and laugh but in the end it was always short becuz like I said about the 1 part is always about Wuk Lamat, they should have let us play as Scion and heck even Koana becuz it would be so much better than Wuk Lamat. 4. Two dye slot and most of DT I would discuss: they did stated two dye slot but didnt say it would be limited becuz for starter I thought two dye slot meant for all current gear which I hoped to dye and understandable if they will make more room but a lot of ppl complain about it and say it would limited for only attire and gear of lvl 1 and DT which is upset but I don't mind waiting for future if they can make all current to have two dye slot happen. Anyway the attire of DT are fine but weird becuz the attire of Bard is like HW and some of them seem alright but weird, I dont know about the rest of classes but the bard and stuff are off

I really enjoy your review style among a sea of loud screaming and click baiting reviews. Thank you for your thoughts! Coincidentally, we had very similar impressions of the expac. I diverge on the topic of voice acting, though. I find that, subjectively and personally, am way more engaged by reading than by watching longwinded Va'd cutscenes. I know I am likely the minority here, but the biggest gripe I have with this expansion is how much it talks at us rather than letting us engage. But in any case, I think where it can benefit everyone is sort of 'choose a lane'. Either VA the whole thing ( and you can cut 50% of the cutscenes OUT ) or not at all. It is very taxing to switch back and forth.

On Zoraal Ja not receiving any growth in the thirty year bubble- I can actually believe that. He created an enemy in his mind, and then isolated himself from that “enemy” and created for himself an echo chamber of mechanical soldiers to allow that hatred to fester. Even if he no longer cared about his father specifically, he was forced to brood on his expansion via conquest mentality for thirty years while his civilization could do nothing but try to escape the barrier and he had nothing but ambition left when he finally did.

I personally disliked it at start. I got pelupelu as my first task and I hated every second of their quest line. This community never grown at me. After that the birds were cool, first dungeon was OK, but defenetely not as good as first dungeons in last two expansions. The characters were acting super cwrtoonish and annoying. But going deeper in the story the characters became more likeble and even early annoying behavior started to make more sense. And after I just got used to it, we reached the second part. I will not lie when I say, I almost turned off the game, with never coming back when I saw another empire with mythical modern technology coming for us. I am quite tired of this empire reuse. BUT, I recollected myself and gave it a chance. While I am not entirely sold on the girl that is copy paste from metrion and the shadowbringers reuse of "for us to survive, you must die", I loved it, totally. The story of the city, the entire idea of electricity and the crisis for resources, this was one of the best cyberpunk stories in years and it is not a cyberpunk game. It was so good that I forgive them for reusing metrion. Shutting down the city, that absolutely intentionally used most human NPCs for the entire expansion exactly to force you feeling worse doing it, adding multiple cool or important characters in the city we shut down to spice it up. And most importantly, the bold move of leaving the city dark, stony apocalyptic distopia for the player once you shut it down, totally loved it. I believe it is absolutely intentionally to make the players feel the weight of their actions better, totally hit the spot. They really need to voice the damn game.

look like it was a good call to stop playing it at endwalker only downsde is that i should've stopped at the end of stormblood, when the war arc gets thrown to the recycle bin and comes out has an isekai fanfic for me that was the point where the story was really bad :/

Regarding the "so much for Tuliolyall diversity". Mammol Ja models are quite re-used, same with the other beast tribes, agreed. However, I couldn't disagree more with the player-based characters? The red poncho has a meaning in the lore. Its the textile production of the Xbr'aal people and a call to their presence in Yak T'el. Several npcs wear it with different colors. They all share a large city and culture. Is it a stretch that fashion works the same way as our own world? There were several scenes where the team went out of their way to give NPCs a wide array of attires, re-using assets even to expand what they wore. You see this more on zones where Yak T'el textiles aren't as present like in Xak Tural and even Solution 9.

Its the first expansion ive ever skipped the story and for me its a bad msq.

Can you elaborate on why you think you're a better person for playing FFXIV? o.o

Glad I unsubbed when the 1st Trailer Dropped. I thought it looked like Stormblood 2.0(BORING MSQ) and whaddya know...

Your proposed solution does not work. Otis was a soul on a machine body. The Endless have no souls, as their souls have been cleaned up in Origenics and packed for consumption. The Endless are merely simulations made from the memories of the deceased, more akin to a chatbot trained on datasets made from a person's memories than any living being. There is no soul anymore to put in the machine bodies, their souls have been used already. That's the actual horror of the Alexandrian Living Memory. They are forever barred from the lifestream and from the cycle of reincarnation that we explored over the previous expansions, because they cannibalized their own souls. This is why the Living Memory has to be destroyed. Comparing it to the burning of Teldrassil, which was an actual genocide of living people who were already once displaced from their native home, is completely erroneous.

Why spend that money on voice acting the MSQ fully if we can throw it to the trash bin with DEI initiatives, DEI appointments and other DEI checklist elements for SE games? Dragon Quest III 2.5D remake is about to underperform, future games will commit similar crimes and slowly but surely FFXIV turn will eventually come to drop quality for a checklist. I have played Squaresoft/SquareEnix games since i had 10 years old. It pains me to slowly rain the train downwards. I hope i am wrong and that future expansion will reinvest more money into it, but don't underestimate corporate greed.

Such little actual combat and gameplay during the msq has ruined the game. If the msq is going to be the big part of your game, you cant have it be a visual novel. Genuinely debating about demanding a refund due to such a crap experience.

Lets give Final Fantasy 14 $5 Billion Dollars you do realize that is not only going to Final Fantasy 14 but other Games in Square Enix. Yes that is why they don't voice every scene or change every Model because it's not going all to 1 Game. Sorry how Square Enix, Amazon or other big Companies run their Game Company like they don't have brains and sadly don't fully back their Games.

Half way through the story and its the most boring story I ever sat through. I thought this was suppose to be swash buckling pirate theme and a continuation of the gods. Its been pretty boring story about ja ja binks.

I was thinking of going to back to FFXIV but it looks so outdated both visually and gameplaywise..

The problem with voicing the entire MSQ would make the file size potentially go over 300GB (some people will have to wait at least a week to download the entire game.) Aside from the monetary costs, this should be taken into consideration because you don't want your playerbase that paid for a sub to be able to download the game to miss out on their money spent in days waiting for a patch to download. That aside model diversity would be nice, but I believe FF needs an engine revamp before introducing more ingame models. Hopefully they won't make the same mistake in this regard with development as WoW devs with their spaghetti code

I can't comment on all you said because I haven't finished the MSQ, and I have no intention to do so in the future However, I completely disagree that it's worth the price I didn't care for Wuk Lamat in Sharlayan but I got to hate her. I was saddled with her without any mean of escape Because of that, and the weak story, I was so bored during the MSQ that I started skipping everything I could but in the end, I just stopped playing DT, and got back to old content because I still have about 70 days of sub Just this morning I just realized those are not the only bad things about DT for me, if the next expansion it's great, everybody praise it, and I decide to give it a try, aside for the sub, I still have to finish DT or spend money on a skip I'm not doing either so I guess I'm done with FF14 for the time being, although in some months for now, I may return to level a new character until Endwalker

Awful story writing. Look into who didnt help write this MSQ this time. And it shows.