Jason is a big old Final Fantasy XIV super fan. So much so he couldn’t possibly put all of his thoughts on Dawntrail, the latest expansion, into one article. So folks, instead of a traditional one-page review, we have a 3-part epic. Welcome to part one where Jason looks at the story elements.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Review - Part 1 - Yawntrail
This one took me a while to get my thoughts around. I’ve played a lot of Final Fantasy XIV. The story has been great, the raids are awesome and I love crafting. It’s also been on an upward Metacritic trend for a very long time. The ten-year storyline is over, as of the end of Endwalker; now we’re on the continent of Tural, and a new storyline begins with Dawntrail.
I want to split up this review because there’s a lot to cover and some of the more contentious parts of the review don’t reflect the game as a whole. You all know the story about how the 1.0 version of the game failed, but 2.0 onward has trailblazed the way for some truly amazing gameplay, storytelling and especially music. That trend has continued, where each expansion has improved upon the previous. Dawntrail is the first time I think that that trend has changed, but I don’t think it’s all for the worst.
If you boil the game down to its story beats, I really enjoy them conceptually. You are playing assistant to the “Third promise”, Wuk Lamat, whose adoptive father and king wants to find a suitable replacement for his rule. There are four people able to take on the role, all with their strengths and weaknesses. You set off on a quest to earn gems from different settlements by proving your worth as a leader, and the first to complete their slate of all gems will be the next Dawnservant. Even when the story takes a hard right turn halfway through, a la Stormblood, the concepts are great. But concepts don’t make a fulfilling meal.
Where the story flounders is in multiple parts. The main, most egregious one for me is just how little agency the player has. You’re not the star of this story, Wuk Lamat is. I saw an analogy that if this was a play, Wuk Lamat would be the one in the spotlight always, you are a side character who gets a few lines here and there, and the actual side characters are relegated to the background completely. This is certainly very true. Characters like Krile, who is the main focus leading up to the expansion and even has huge story beats get completely sidelined except for one or two scenes, which feels truly awful. Krile’s story should have been great but played a backseat to Wuk Lamat’s story.
Many of the quests through the main scenario boil down to “Talk to Wuk Lamat”, or do something for them. A lot of the incredibly cool scenes end up just as cutscenes without any gameplay. Even many of the missions have no combat or anything similar, which means that you’re just sitting around watching things happen rather than actually playing.
The other problem I have is in regard to the world itself. Galool Ja Ja, the current Dawnservant is pretty terrible at their job, and Wuk Lamat is idealistic to a fault. In fact, the real person who should lead Turali is Koana. Koana is a bit stoic and distant but takes a measured approach to leadership, listening to people’s issues and devising a solution that fixes the underlying cause. Wuk Lamat will rant about peace and friendship but mostly lucks into a solution. This is not the stance of a great leader.
Because you’re moving through the story at a decent pace too, a lot of the issues with settlements get dealt with in an incredibly high-level way. The issues are waved away like a fart on the breeze, and years of discrimination and expectation are handled with such speed and disregard for any long-term story conflict that it’s not uncommon to get tonal whiplash for serious, interesting topics in one scene and a feast, handshakes, and hugs all round before moving on in the next cutscene.
If I sound like I’m dripping with vitriol here, I am. Someone I know almost quit the game due to the story, and this was a pretty common sentiment. My wife and I felt pretty similarly. Final Fantasy XIV’s story isn’t something I’d normally complain about. It’s had ups and downs, sure. But thematically it’s been amazing. This time though, I had to take breaks. Breaks! It was the only method I had to split up the monotony.
I’m hoping Dawntrail is a blemish, and nothing more. I know people who really enjoyed the story and I’m not going to yuck their yum. Thankfully (and I completed it 5 times total), the main scenario is done with, the tone and expectations somewhat reset and we can look forward to more interesting things with the main patch story.
Square Enix has been amazing at listening to feedback in the past, and multiple favourite character surveys don’t even have Wuk Lamat in the top 10. I don’t mind them, but they were shoved in your face in a way that made me extremely annoyed.
This is only the first part though. The rub here is that the story is only one facet of the game, so there will be more to come. Dawntrail has some truly awesome stuff, so now we’ve dealt with the nastiness, the good stuff is yet to come.
Stay tuned for part 2 of Jason’s epic review tomorrow.
