It’s been 11 years since then Final Fantasy XIV crawled out of the ashes of its disastrous 1.0 release A kingdom reborn. Four subsequent expansions saw the player base rise to new heights, surpassing its MMO competitors and (thanks to the amazing Yoshi-P) surfing a wave of good vibes.
But every wave must eventually break on the shore and recede, and Dawntrail may be proof of that XIV is now ever so slightly past its prime.
With the conclusion of Endwalker, you’ve squashed two completely separate cosmological apocalypses—time for a break. Enter the new world of Tural, Final Fantasyembraces Mesoamerican and South American culture, history and architecture.
The nation’s beloved Servant of the Dawn (aka the King) Gulul Jah Jah has decided he is too old to rule and needs an heir. The four candidates are his own son, a self-proclaimed fighting champion, and his adopted children, Uuk Lamat and Koana. You are on Team Wuk Lamat and help a good-natured cat lady with self-esteem issues as you travel around the country battling your rivals in challenges set by various different cultures. At the end of your road? The legendary city of gold.
Those expecting the Warrior of Light to take center stage may want to think again, as Wuk Lamat is unequivocally Dawntrailmain character. She embarks on the hero’s journey, grows as a character, deals with emotional conflict, and drives the narrative. As for your Warrior of Light? Well, to be honest, you’re just there for moral support and getting involved in big monster fights.
During cutscenes, your character’s role is to stand silently at the back of the stage, with the camera occasionally breaking to nod or smile just to remind the player that you’re there too. Sometimes this very peripheral role in this story gets a little absurd. In an early mission, Wuk Lamat has to tame a troublesome alpaca. You help her secure the special saddle she needs to calm them down, but are told that only she is allowed to do the actual taming. So Wuk Lamat goes off on his own to do the fun stuff while you sit in camp twiddling your thumbs wondering if she’s okay.
If Dawntrail were typical Final Fantasy a game you would play as Wuk Lamat (and indeed sometimes you do). For many players, it will be a lackluster experience to spend 40-50 hours as a passive cheerleader/bodyguard for the real character, but to be fair to the writers, you can only do so much with a generic any character with zero personality. However, if the charming Wuk Lamat rubs you the wrong way, you’ll be hard pressed to pass Dawntrail.
Reducing your active role in the story has the added effect of emphasis XIVthe prehistoric approach to mission design. Simply put, after 11 years the designers really need to be able to come up with quests more creative than talking to three people and going back to the quest giver or, if you’re lucky, fighting three monsters in a purple circle. EndwalkerThe pesky tracking missions are also back, but honestly, while they’re bad, they’re at least something different.
For me, the drudgery of MSQ questing is the bread and butter around the tasty dungeon and trial sandwich, ie. the content that forces you to sit up and take notice. There are no structural surprises here XIV veterans: each dungeon contains three bosses dotted with mobs. but while the creativity font may have run dry in search design, Dawntrail still finds great and difficult bosses to fight.
Most of them leave little room for error and require you to quickly understand their mechanics. Fail to figure out what’s going on in time and your adventurer will end up a miserable heap hoping a healer will kill you. By the time you get into level 95 dungeons and above, bosses don’t hold back, throwing quick mechanics at you and then layering them on top of each other. These will all be mastered over time, but expect to die in the later dungeons until you figure out what’s going on.
Dawntrail also introduces a wonderful new graphics update for the entire game. Materials, faces, and clothing resolution all get noticeable upgrades, though it’s the improved lighting system that dazzles properly. There are firelight conversation scenes that go past “that looks good… for XIV‘ to straight up ‘that looks good’.
Final fantasyThe long history of musical excellence is also on full display from the moment you arrive at Tural and Tuliyollal’s upbeat big-band bop begins. The theme of each zone is great, although a later blues guitar tune had me exploring the map just to hear it being played.
As for the overall story? I won’t go into spoilers, but the focus on appreciating unfamiliar cultures and the need for a leader to understand the people he leads is worthy stuff. Later in the game, things fall apart a bit after a twist that everyone and their dog should have seen coming – and I wish the later environments hadn’t been spoiled by marketing – but they settle into a familiar Final Fantasy a channel of villains screaming and transforming into pious creatures mid-battle is a tried and true formula.
Perhaps Dawntrail it was destined to be an anticlimax. Endwalker they wrapped up eight years of dangling plot threads in a really bombastic way and there was no way Dawntrail can reach these heights. However, it ends up being a story where your character is barely involved – things would probably play out about the same if you weren’t there at all, which isn’t particularly satisfying.
And while the graphic glow shows XIV has a few more years in the tank before it looks stale, they should give us more interesting things to do during MSQ. Maybe some of these boring quests are due to engine limitations that can’t be worked around, but in that case, maybe it’s time to consider a slow and careful stop XIV and pouring that experience into a sequel that isn’t built on PlayStation 3-era technology.
Dawntrail is not XIVThe most creative, interesting or well-written expansion yet still full of personality, vibrant nature, great music and amazing bosses. So unless you have a serious problem with looking at overly optimistic catgirls, you’ll have a decent time.
The reviewer purchased his own copy of the game.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail
“Dawntrail” pushes your character so far into the background of its story that you might as well not be there. That said, Tural’s vibrancy and personality is a real breath of fresh air, and dungeon bosses have never been more satisfying to take down.
