From its its preliminary reveal, the most recent Remaining Fantasy XIV growth Dawntrail has had some lofty expectations to dwell as much as. It’s the follow-up to a decade-long story arc, which ended sturdy with Endwalker (regardless of some points post-launch.)
And, going into Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail, I knew that this is able to be a extra subdued growth — one which units issues up for the last decade to come back slightly than a bombastic finale. Nevertheless, even with my lowered expectations Dawntrail nonetheless manages to stumble in quite a few unlucky methods.
Heading West
Dawntrail sees the Warrior of Gentle heading west to the continent of Tural. Right here, they need to assist Wuk Lamat — a personality launched on the tail finish of Endwalker’s patch content material — turn into the subsequent chief of Tuliyollal, in any other case generally known as the Dawnservant.
This goal is the primary focus of Dawntrail’s early story, with the participant accompanying Wuk Lamat throughout the assorted zones of Tural as she competes within the Dawnservant competitors. Her rivals within the race to the throne are her brothers Koana and Zoraal Ja, together with the loudmouthed two-headed Bakool Ja Ja.
It’s a far cry from the world-ending stakes that always accompany the Warrior of Gentle’s journey, with solely a touch of hazard alongside the way in which. This was one thing I used to be greater than effective with because it virtually mirrors the calmer starting of A Realm Reborn. When you have plenty of achievements beneath your belt, you’re comparatively unknown on this new area
Wuk Lamat is totally the primary focus of this growth, making her presence identified throughout most of your time in Tural. The Warrior of Gentle finally ends up taking a backseat, appearing as extra of a mentor determine however nonetheless getting their time to shine once in a while.
Whereas I can completely see why this setup would annoy some individuals — we have now been saving the world for over 10 years now — I used to be personally on board with this completely different type of story.
Nevertheless, there are some things that I believe Dawntrail will get fallacious that squander this narrative’s potential.
For starters, Wuk Lamat is supposed to be handled as somebody meaning nicely, but doesn’t have that a lot life expertise. However at occasions she typically comes throughout as a bit of too ignorant, mainly not understanding issues that the Warrior of Gentle learns inside a number of hours of arriving in every space.
The method of turning into a Dawnservant additionally finally ends up being a bit of uninteresting. Every a part of the problem is designed to have the members study extra about Tural, corresponding to working with the locals to tame an alpaca or prepare dinner a regional dish. I get the thought behind it — it’s a simple method to give the participant extra information on a brand new area.
My subject with it’s that you just typically study issues that ought to have been fundamental data to somebody in Wuk Lamat’s place. If she was so lifeless set on turning into the subsequent Dawnservant and following in her father’s footsteps, then naturally you’d additionally wish to study extra in regards to the place you’d prefer to rule forward of time.
Once more, her lack of understanding will not be one thing that’s utterly ignored by the story. The issue is that, with how shortly she learns issues throughout Dawntrail, the truth that she mainly knew nothing beforehand comes throughout as unusual.
One other subject that additionally pertains to Wuk Lamat is that, frankly, she’s current for much an excessive amount of of the story. Certain, she’s primarily the primary character of the growth, but it takes away display screen time from mainly everybody else.
That is most felt with each Erenville and Krile. For Erenville, this growth may have been a great way for the sport to offer extra time to a personality that was solely briefly current in Endwalker. For Krile, you’re led to imagine that she’ll find yourself being an necessary character that ties into upcoming occasions.
In actuality, neither actually will get the time they want for his or her respective arcs. Erenville no less than has a while to shine, although he’s largely relegated to commenting on Wuk Lamat’s troublemaking — satirically, you get to spend essentially the most time with Erenville through the one part the place Wuk Lamat is barely current.
In the meantime, Krile’s entire plotline is seemingly ignored for 90% of the primary story. Her objective of discovering out the reality behind her grandfather’s journeys in Tural is pushed to the facet exterior of the occasional point out. And when it does turn into the main target, it’s all resolved with out that a lot fanfare.
With out going into spoiler territory, Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail’s fundamental plot additionally finally ends up falling into Stormblood’s acquainted pitfall: it tries to inform a number of tales with out having sufficient time to cope with every. Conflicts are began and resolved inside a number of ranges, as a result of that’s all of the story construction has time for.
The Dawnservant part comes throughout as an abridged model of a earlier draft as a result of ending partway by the growth. The truth is, this could be why the competitors plotline is used at al,l because it needed to be crammed into half an growth.
From there, what comes after can be not fairly given the time it wants. This partially performs into the issues I discussed earlier with Erenville and Krile — the previous does get a piece of their very own, but it surely’s tied to a zone that nearly appears like filler on the similar time.
In the long run, I did like seeing a few of the new zones and characters throughout Tural, even when the precise plot didn’t do a lot for me. Even Wuk Lamat wasn’t that unhealthy, regardless of the overexposure and a few questionable voice path for the English dub. Nevertheless, it’s undoubtedly one of many weaker facets of Dawntrail for me, and I don’t suppose the patches will enhance issues.
Higher Battle Content material, Regardless of Some Unusual Job Design
On the extra constructive facet of issues, dungeon content material is best than it’s ever been.
For some time now, it’s felt like dungeons in Remaining Fantasy XIV have been taking part in it a bit of too secure. Not simply by way of their layouts (dungeons are nonetheless primarily only one lengthy line), however in mechanics. Many bosses in Endwalker would throw out a number of completely different mechanics, after which simply loop the identical factor once more.
In Dawntrail, many of the bosses have extra going for them. Mechanics might be remixed for the second half of a boss encounter, and lots of of them require you to suppose a lot sooner than earlier than.
You’re clearly not getting something too excessive (common dungeon content material is designed to be cleared by most ability ranges) although I’m comfortable to have some extra partaking content material even whereas leveling.
This extends to the 8-player trials as nicely, or no less than the latter two. Relatively than simply having a few mechanics that don’t evolve, you’re required to keep watch over how issues change later within the fights. It undoubtedly looks as if the design crew for battle content material is attempting to problem gamers a bit of extra, even when it took 5 expansions to get to that time.
I’m particularly trying ahead to Dawntrail raid collection The Arcadion, which has the potential to be a few of the sport’s greatest battle content material if dealt with proper. Hopefully, it lives as much as the enhancements seen throughout battle content material within the base model of the growth.
Then again, job design is in a wierd spot. For some like Summoner, they mainly stayed precisely the identical (I do not know what the thought was behind Photo voltaic Bahamaut.) Others bought some noticeable modifications. For Astrologian, the cardboard modifications convey it a bit of nearer to the unique Heavensward design (with much less RNG).
Within the case of Black Mage, modifications to rotations and MP regeneration have put the job in a wierd spot. A lot in order that modifications are already deliberate for an upcoming patch, which additionally consists of tweaks to Monk and tank enmity technology.
The general design selection behind jobs in Dawntrail is generally simply so as to add further expertise that don’t require any further buttons in your hotbars. Most simply rework present strikes into new ones, including the top of present combos or buff expertise.
Basically, I believe most present jobs aren’t a lot better or worse than in Endwalker. It’s shocking to see that strikes with positional injury bonuses are nonetheless within the sport — for a time, it appeared like these would go away solely — and I do like a few of the additions yo jobs like White Mage and Warrior acquired.
In the case of the 2 new jobs, Pictomancer and Viper, it’s a blended bag. Pictomancer has ended up turning into considered one of my new favourite jobs to play. The portray mechanic offers it an identification with out being overly difficult to grasp, with plenty of massive injury assaults to make up for downtime.
Inversely, Viper is considerably underwhelming (although nonetheless sturdy.) Its combos are distinctive within the sense that you just change backwards and forwards between two buttons that rework after every hit. You even have speedy assaults in an identical vein to Monk and Ninja, with many buttons to hit throughout your burst phases.
However exterior of animations — together with some cool mixed dual-blade assaults — I largely really feel that the reworking combos don’t add that a lot new to the desk.
A Realm Reborn, Once more
One other key side of Dawntrail that applies to all gamers is the visible modifications which have began with the growth’s launch. Character fashions have acquired noticeable touch-ups, the brand new zones have extra element than earlier than, gear units are extra detailed, and you may even dye (sure) tools between two dye channels.
That is nonetheless a piece in progress, as most earlier content material continues to be but to obtain these modifications. It may be a bit of jarring seeing the brand new character fashions mixed with older gear — in reality, even a few of the new characters are utilizing gear with pixelated textures. However for essentially the most half, the crew has accomplished job of touching up a decade-old sport for newer audiences.
Whereas it would nonetheless be a number of years in the beginning is improved, and it clearly will not match the visuals of modern-day non-MMO titles, I like what I’ve seen to this point.
Oddly, whereas the sport improved visually throughout the board, the audio appears to have suffered a bit of bit. Not by way of music, as Dawntrail’s OST is persistently glorious and retains up the standard proven all through every growth. As a substitute, it’s the English voice appearing that I’ve some gripes with.
Early Remaining Fantasy XIV was a bit of bizarre with English voice appearing, some have been nice however largely a bit inconsistent. This has improved through the years, with solely the occasional outlier bringing it down. With Dawntrail, we appear to have gone again to the inconsistency seen from the early days of XIV.
That’s to not say there isn’t some glorious voice appearing, particularly on the subject of characters from the non-playable races. Mamool Ja like Bakool Ja Ja and Zoraal Ja are excellently voiced, and lots of facet characters get some high quality voiced scenes.
However as talked about earlier, Wuk Lamat has some bizarre path within the English dub. Regular voiced traces are typically fairly good, however on the subject of shouts and emotional scenes, she simply falls flat. For different characters, there’s occasional unusual dialect selection, mispronunciation of phrases, and even poor audio high quality.
Naturally, numerous this won’t apply to the opposite languages (Japanese presumably being essentially the most constant because the supply materials.) It’s only a disgrace to see the English voice appearing regress in some methods, when different areas proceed to enhance.
Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail Overview | Remaining Ideas
Endwalker was all the time going to be a tricky act to observe, and I’d say that Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail falls quick within the story division. Although with the primary conflicts wrapped up, it does no less than imply that the patch content material may convey one thing completely different to the desk.
On the very least, battle content material appears to lastly be attempting to problem gamers, even ones that aren’t trying the Excessive-tier encounters and past. I’m trying ahead to seeing extra dungeons and trails within the following years, together with a few of the teased facet content material that’s set to launch in later patches.
Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail was reviewed on PC with a duplicate offered by the Developer over the course of 70 hours of gameplay – all screenshots have been taken through the technique of evaluate.