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 the final part, where the game’s combat comes into focus.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Review - Part 3 - Trailblazing: The River
You’ve strapped in this long, and we’re in the final stretch. I want to talk now about the really juicy stuff. The stuff that you’ll remember the most after the dust of the main scenario has cleared, and the new normal of the updated graphics, new level cap and new jobs has sunk in; and that’s combat.
There was a meme kicking around a while back about how people remember that Stormblood had a ho-hum story, but had some of the best endgame content in the game. I think that’s true of Dawntrail as well. It was the first dungeon that sparked my interest.
Dungeons have followed a pretty strict formula for a few years now. Two mob packs, wall, two mob packs, then boss. Repeat three times. This formula is still strictly true if you look at Dawntrail in a vacuum, but when you step into a boss arena you’ll see the difference. They’re tougher, they’re busier, they require competence. I actually died in a few bosses, something that had not happened for a long time. Not only that, but the combat team is clearly playing with concepts. New attack patterns unseen before, big sweeping attacks that demand you pay attention or else get filtered out. This is consistent across all the dungeons too.

I’m not going to say that dungeons are the most interesting thing in the world, but they’re only mandatory once, and after that, they’re completely optional. This being said they’re very good fun. I actually haven’t had this much fun in dungeons in ages, and that’s a huge boon.
Then there’s the trials. Eight-man content that is also extremely good this time around. These have always been mildly challenging content, but here they’re also turned up to 11. I’ve seen duty finder groups fail the content. It’s not due to a body check or enrage sequence, but actually just gets completely wiped out due to difficulty. This is actually amazing. The two of three trials we’ve got which translate to Extreme, the most difficult non-savage content in the game are very very fun, again with new ideas on show. An absolute blast to play.
Finally, we come around to the final piece of content I wanted to talk about, and that’s the raids. There are two flavours of this; the Normal mode, and the Savage. Normal mode is difficult but weekly gated content and Savage is meant for statics, groups that are (generally) set members. Much more difficult.
These raids, called The Arcadion, are where just like in Stormblood, the game really sings. They are absolutely dripping with style. Bright, vibrant colours spill out as you’re blown away by the music which is different for every floor. M4 (the fourth raid) has a banging theme with lyrics, whereas M1 is a variation on this theme and instead leans more into pop than rock. Each theme is extremely good, both in visuals and music. On top of this, there’s an announcer that is commentating during the fight. If you use Limit Break, he’ll happily exclaim about how we’re not holding back. If you die, or dodge attacks, he’ll mention it. It’s a really satisfying feedback loop that’s going to be hard for future raids to meet.


The only problem I really have with the Savage mode fights is that maybe they’re a bit too easy. Mechanically they’re quite fun, but the DPS checks feel a smidge low. Statistically speaking too, almost 3 times as many groups cleared week 1 than have done historically, and I saw that some teams cleared the final fight of the tier with almost 10 deaths. To me, this takes away from the memorability and euphoria that comes from struggling and finally clearing a fight, but they’re still a world of fun.
In this expansion, there’s still a lot of content to see, as it releases. Players still have eight more normal/savage raid fights, three 24-man raids to see, and an Ultimate raid, the hardest type of content in the game. The future’s so bright I’ve got to wear shades.
So here I stand on the precipice. What is the weight of each of the parts that make up an MMO? Am I allowed to just rate it based on big fishing, which I love? Obviously not, but if only.

When I look back on Dawntrail, I have bittersweet feelings. I’ve dragged myself through the main scenario five times but once I did, it’s done. The Arcadion, the trials and dungeons are very, very fun. The graphics updates are amazing, even if dye channels are hit-and-miss. The new jobs are very cool, and updates to other jobs are mostly very exciting too. Each of these parts together makes up something that’s really special (still) but also really frustrating.

Part one of Jason’s Dawtrail review is available here and you can read Part 2 at this link.
Dawntrail was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by the publisher.