It’s been 11 years since Final Fantasy XIV emerged from the ashes of its disastrous version 1.0 with A kingdom is reborn. Four subsequent expansions saw the player base reach new heights, surpass its MMO competitors, and (thanks to the incredible Yoshi-P) ride a wave of good vibes.
But every wave must eventually crash against the shore and recede, and Dawn Trail could well be proof that XIV is now slightly outdated.
At the end of Final walker, You’ve crushed two entirely separate cosmological apocalypses – it’s time for a vacation. Enter the New World of Tural, Final FantasyThe perspective of Mesoamerican and South American culture, history and architecture.
Gulool Ja Ja, the nation’s beloved servant (aka the King), has decided he’s too old to rule and needs a successor. The four candidates are his biological son, an arrogant fighting champion, and his adopted children Wuk Lamat and Koana. You’re part of Team Wuk Lamat, helping a good-natured cat lady with self-confidence issues as you travel the land, battling your rivals in challenges posed by various distinct cultures. At the end of your path? The legendary City of Gold.
Those expecting the Warrior of Light to take center stage may want to think again, for Wuk Lamat is unambiguous. Dawn TrailThe protagonist of ‘s. She follows the hero’s journey, grows as a character, deals with emotional conflicts, and drives the narrative. As for your Warrior of Light? Well, you’re honestly just there for moral support and to help destroy all the big monsters.
During cutscenes, your character’s role is to stand silently in the background, with the camera occasionally showing you nodding or smiling, just to remind the player that you’re there too. Sometimes, this very peripheral role in this story gets a little absurd. In one early quest, Wuk Lamat has to tame a troublesome alpaca. You help her secure the special saddle she needs to calm it down, but you’re told that only she’s allowed to do the taming. So Wuk Lamat goes off on her own to do the fun stuff, while you sit around camp twiddling your thumbs and wondering if she’s okay.
If Dawn Trail were a typical Final Fantasy In this game, you’ll play as Wuk Lamat (and you do from time to time). For many players, spending 40-50 hours as the passive cheerleader/bodyguard of the real hero will be a disappointing experience, but to be fair to the writers, there’s not much you can do with a generic hero with no personality. That said, if the lovable Wuk Lamat gets on your nerves, you’ll have a hard time getting over him. Dawn Trail.
Reducing your active role in the story has the effect of highlighting XIVThe prehistoric approach to quest design. In other words, after 11 years, designers should really be able to think of more creative quests than talking to three people and going back to the quest giver or, if you’re lucky, fighting three monsters inside a purple circle. EndwalkerThe tedious follow-up missions also return but, frankly, even if they’re bad, they’re at least something different.
For me, MSQ quest work is the plain bread that wraps around the delicious sandwich that is dungeons and trials, i.e. the content that forces you to sit up and pay attention. There are no structural surprises here for XIV veterans: each dungeon contains three bosses interspersed with monsters. but while creativity may have been lacking in quest design, Dawn Trail always looking for awesome and difficult bosses to fight.
Most of these dungeons leave little room for error and require you to quickly figure out their mechanics. If you fail to figure out what’s going on in time, your adventurer will end up as a miserable pile of dirt hoping for a healer to revive you. When you reach the level 95 and above dungeons, the bosses don’t hold back, throwing quick mechanics at you that they layer on top of each other. They’ll all be mastered over time, but expect to die in later dungeons until you figure out what’s going on.
Dawn Trail also ushers in a new graphical update for the entire game. Materials, faces, and clothing resolution all get noticeable improvements, though it’s the improved lighting system that really shines. There are firelight conversation scenes that quickly pass by “this looks good… for XIV“to say outright “it looks good”.
Final FantasyTural’s long history of musical excellence is also on full display as soon as you arrive in Tural and the driving rhythm of Tuliyollal’s big band begins. The theme of each area is great, though a later piece led by a blues guitar had me exploring the map just to hear it play.
As for the story as a whole? I won’t get into spoilers, but the emphasis on appreciating unfamiliar cultures and the need for a leader to understand the people they’re leading is a good point. 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 settling into familiar surroundings Final Fantasy The rhythm of bad guys screaming and transforming into godlike beings in the middle of battle is a tried and true formula.
Maybe Dawn Trail was intended to be an anticlimax. Endwalker wrapped up eight years of dangling plot threads in truly thunderous fashion and there was no way Dawn Trail could reach those heights. Still, it’s ultimately a story in which your character is barely involved – things would probably play out pretty much the same way if you weren’t there at all, which isn’t particularly satisfying.
And, while the graphic glow indicates XIV There are still a few years left before it feels obsolete, they need to 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 it might be time to think about slowing down and slowing down gently XIV and to put that experience into a sequel that isn’t built on PlayStation 3-era technology.
Dawn Trail is not XIVIt’s the most creative, interesting, or well-written expansion of , but it’s still packed with personality, vibrant scenery, great music, and incredible bosses. So unless you have a serious problem with being looked after by overly optimistic catgirls, you’re going to have a great time.
The reviewer purchased his own copy of the game.
Final Fantasy XIV: Path of Dawn
“Dawntrail” places your character so far into the background of its story that you might as well not be there. That said, Tural’s drive and personality are a breath of fresh air, and dungeon bosses have never been more satisfying to defeat.