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Again in 2021, I used to be requested by my colleagues to take a look at Remaining Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) throughout its sudden burst in reputation when World of Warcraft gamers migrated to Remaining Fantasy XIV throughout the controversial World of Warcraft: Shadowlands enlargement and when Blizzard Leisure was moving into authorized scorching water.
Nearly instantly, FFXIV had me hooked from A Realm Reborn all the best way to the climactic finale of Endwalker (which I beloved once I reviewed it many moons in the past) for a lot of causes. It handled the participant like they’re the primary protagonist of the story, it had a enjoyable tab-target-based fight system that served as an excellent introduction for gamers new to MMORPGs, and compelling storylines and characters that paid homage to Remaining Fantasy’s legacy whereas standing on their very own deserves. To not point out it had a few of the most superior and catchy music in your entire Remaining Fantasy franchise.
This leads me to at present’s topic, Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. This sport is Remaining Fantasy XIV’s fifth main enlargement and is billed to mark the start of a brand new period for the MMORPG with a extra grounded storyline to provide gamers a break from continually saving the world, new participant jobs to grasp, new locales to discover, playable feminine Hrothgar, and new epic bosses to struggle.
Sadly, and it’s kind of coronary heart wrenching to say this, however this new chapter of Remaining Fantasy XIV is just not off to an excellent begin.
Grasp new skills and Jobs to slay the fiends of Tuliyollal
Earlier than we get into the place this enlargement drops the ball, let’s check out what it will get proper. Firstly, Remaining Fantasy XIV has bumped the extent cap for participant Jobs as much as Lv.100, which implies each Job has been given a variety of recent skills and reworked ones to play with. Whereas I have not had time to play with all of them, I do like the brand new explosives, instruments, and drones my primary Job, the Machinist has obtained on this enlargement. As well as, I really like that they gave Gunbreaker Job the “Lion Coronary heart” skill. It initially hailed from Remaining Fantasy VIII, as represents one of many franchise’s strongest and famend Restrict Break tremendous strikes.Â
However that’s not all, Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail brings two DPS Jobs for gamers to grasp that can assist them conquer their enemies – the Viper and Pictomancer. The Viper is the primary authentic Job created for Remaining Fantasy XIV that’s not pulled from a earlier Remaining Fantasy title.Â
The Viper is a enjoyable Job to play for those who choose slicing and dicing at shut vary. It’s a fast-paced, easy however efficient Job the place you string collectively combos along with your twin blades. On the finish of a combo string, you possibly can end with a flourishing execution, the place you mix the blades right into a double-ended saber that can slice monsters to ribbons.
Viper is nice, however its enjoyable issue pales compared to the brand new Pictomancer Job for my part. Impressed by the character Relm from Remaining Fantasy VI, the Pictomancer is a wierd Job the place you utilize your creativeness to color magic spells and monsters into existence and assault your enemies. Their sport plan primarily facilities round making ready paint drawings and bringing them to life on the proper time to type highly effective harm rotations the place you cycle by summoning laser-shooting Moogles, calling forth darkish, pastel-colored meteors, and smashing skulls with comic-book stylized hammers.
Pictomancer is awkward to make use of at first, however when you get the dangle of it, this Job turns into so satisfying to make use of in battle. To not point out it has all kinds of spells that not solely deal harm however can assist the celebration with harm mitigation and damage-boosting skills. It additionally feels actually good to manage as half your toolkit will be solid whereas transferring. Pictomancers have a mobility spell with a brief cooldown timer that can assist you discover areas sooner and escape incoming boss mechanics.
You’re going to want to grasp these new Jobs and talents rapidly as Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail has some somewhat fearsome foes to cope with. The gorgeously detailed dungeons of this enlargement function enemies and executives that may hit surprisingly exhausting and have some mechanics that aren’t instantly apparent to determine. These mechanics require being attentive to your environment and assault patterns to determine the place the enemy goes subsequent and find out how to keep away from getting one-shotted.
That is very true for the epic Trial boss fights as these battles are not any joke. Dawntrail’s Trial bosses are loopy, hit like vehicles, and throw out numerous mechanics directly for gamers to maintain up with. Determining these bosses’ gimmicks whereas sustaining harm uptime to effectively kill them was a jolly good time and much more satisfying than most bosses from earlier expansions.
FFXIV: Dawntrail nonetheless will get a ton of stuff proper, and the fight and PvE gameplay loop stays as rewarding as it’s satisfying. However a lot of FFXIV’s surge to reputation revolved round its characters and story supply, and Dawntrail appears like a step backward in quite a lot of methods.Â
This journey was meant to be a trip, not tiresome work
Quite a lot of my criticism for Dawntrail revolves primarily round the primary story, which is often the most important primary promoting of Remaining Fantasy XIV. The premise is that after saving the world from an apocalyptic occasion known as ‘The Remaining Days’ in Remaining Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, our participant character and their pals, the Scions of the Seventh Daybreak, have been invited by a brand new Hrothgar character (suppose lion folks) known as Wuk Lumat, to journey to the brand new continent of Tuliyollal.
There we should assist Wuk Lamat win a contest known as the Ceremony of Succession the place the winner is chosen to turn into the subsequent ruler of Tuliyollal. She needs to win so she will protect her folks’s peace and happiness, and stop different contestants with sinister, egocentric agendas from claiming the throne. Alongside the best way, we can even be looking your entire nation of Tuliyollal for the legendary metropolis of gold which has but to be rediscovered.
An enormous chunk of Dawntrail’s storyline is supposed to be a low-stakes, chill journey to provide very long time gamers a reprieve from continually saving the world from scheming villains, tyrannical empires, and mighty demi-gods — a summer season trip if you’ll. Whereas some gamers might take pleasure in this extra laid-back strategy, I do not suppose it can ship for everybody.Â
This ‘summer season trip’ got here off extra like a boring enterprise journey the place I used to be assigned to play bodyguard for a princess as they made diplomatic relations with imprecise allies. The Ceremony of Succession arc of the story drags on for approach too lengthy with numerous repetitive scenes of characters establishing new lore. It is tough to elaborate with out heading into spoiler territory, however there are various scenes the place the temper is in every single place, main tonal whiplash that breaks immersion. Dawntrail appears to battle to steadiness its makes an attempt at being “gentle hearted” at instances, whereas concurrently making an attempt to construct up new stakes. Â
To not point out the story devotes an excessive amount of display time to Wuk Lamat’s journey to changing into the subsequent ruler. Whereas I did discover Wuk Lamat herself to be endearing, her character grows little or no past her first look in comparison with different characters you meet within the enlargement, and listening to her continually spouting needs for peace and happiness for hours on finish will get previous quick.Â
I really feel Wuk Lamat’s character arc may’ve been extra fulfilling if she began as a extra flawed character and grew into a greater individual by the top of it, very like how Alphinaud grew from a pompous-know-it-all in A Realm Reborn to a wise however humble hero in Heavensward for instance.
Because it stands, Wuk Lamat simply isn’t compelling sufficient of an NPC protagonist to warrant over half of the story specializing in her quest for the throne of Tural. Personally, I really feel a few of the display time spent on Wuk Lamat may’ve been higher spent on different present characters that desperately wanted it.Â
For instance, with out giving spoilers, there’s a sure new main villain who comes off as very two-dimensional with barely any nuance or backstory to justify why they’re so evil. This might’ve been mounted with extra scenes exhibiting us their previous in larger element and having us speak to them personally to get into their head. As a substitute of partaking straight with the character, we solely hear parts of the backstory in a imprecise, second-handed approach. The funding in including dimensions to the enlargement’s central villains ought to’ve been larger, as a result of the present course feels extra just like the product of getting a villain for the sake of needing one in a combat-oriented online game. Â
Now, I’ll concede with out divulging spoilers, the primary story does begin to get lots extra attention-grabbing as soon as the Ceremony of Succession arc is over. The stakes get raised, and we get launched to wild lore ideas and intriguing plot hooks to arrange future expansions.Â
Nevertheless, this solely begins to occur when you’re over 30 hours into the Most important State of affairs Quests, and even then, the third act nonetheless suffers from the sluggish pacing points from the primary two acts, some big gaping plot holes, and rehashing repetitive story beats of earlier expansions. By the point I reached this level, I used to be so bored to tears from the uninteresting Ceremony of Succession arc that I now not had any funding within the story and I couldn’t carry myself to look after the characters.Â
What compounds the monotony of the storyline is the middling quest design of Dawntrail’s Most important State of affairs Quests. You may be spending almost your whole playtime working round, watching cutscenes, doing fetch quests, gathering information from NPCs, and doing tedious “stealth” missions, whereas sometimes tackling dungeons and Trial bosses each 4 to 5 hours, with very uncommon solo-instance fights.
Now whereas the identical will be argued for earlier Remaining Fantasy XIV expansions, every of them no less than had extra attention-grabbing and faster-paced storylines with a good quantity of solo and group-instanced fight segments to issues contemporary. Even A Realm Reborn and Stormblood, which many followers take into account to have the least attention-grabbing primary storylines, have been extra compelling. FFXIV’s large bads just like the Garlean Empire, Ascians, Primals, and different mysteries have been round to cope with. However now that we have gotten rid of all of them by the top of Endwalker, it feels just like the builders have been struggling for concepts to maintain us invested within the Most important State of affairs Quests till the third act.
No sport shouldn’t demand gamers to take a seat by dozens of hours of tiresome and mundane fetch quests, repetitive script writing, compounded by the sense you are being bounced from NPC to NPC enjoying a very dreary sport of phone. The morsels of good aren’t sufficient sufficient to justify this slog of a journey to get to them.
FFXIV’s Xbox Sequence X|S launch catastrophe
I might be remiss if I didn’t up carry the problems plaguing the Xbox Sequence X|S model of Remaining Fantasy XIV. On the time of this writing, Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail has technical points inflicting the Xbox Sequence X|S model of the sport to be sub par. These points vary from the sport freezing when transitioning to completely different zones, boss mechanics in sure Trials and Raids not working accurately, and animation glitches.
Sq. Enix is presently making an attempt to resolve these hiccups as quickly as attainable however there’s no denying that that is yet one more main misstep for Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. Though, it is unclear whether or not it is Sq. Enix or Microsoft’s growth atmosphere that’s finally in charge.Â
Fortunately, there have been no points with the PC model I performed, no less than, save for busy queues on launch day.Â
I hope Sq. Enix can rethink its story supplyÂ
General, I’ve been disenchanted with Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail. Whereas the brand new Jobs are enjoyable to fiddle with and the brand new bosses are satisfying to beat, they don’t make up for an abysmally uninteresting storyline with many hours of uninteresting cutscenes with little to no fight, bland characters, and pacing slower than a Tonberry.
It kills me to have written this up, as I beloved Remaining Fantasy XIV and the intelligent methods it reimagined tales and characters from earlier Remaining Fantasy video games to suit its narrative. I am not asking Dawntrail’s Most important State of affairs Quests to be an excessively dramatic conflict story like Heavensward or coping with cosmic cataclysms like Endwalker, it is simply that I do know that Remaining Fantasy XIV is able to telling enjoyable and compelling, low-stakes tales that don’t take endlessly to promote. Look no additional than the Allied Society Quests (formally often known as the Allied Beast Tribe quests), Job Quests, Position Quests, and even the hilarious Hildebrand quests for proof of that.
Nevertheless, the writing and pacing for Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail’s Most important State of affairs Quests have been so painfully hole and uninteresting that I used to be truly tempted to skip the cutscenes simply so I may get to the purpose, which has by no means occurred to me earlier than in all my years enjoying Remaining Fantasy XIV.
In the event you’re a diehard Remaining Fantasy XIV fan, chances are you’ll get a kick of this enlargement, particularly when the post-launch raids arrive. Nevertheless, for those who choose JRPGs with complicated plots with quick pacing and excessive stakes that suck you in immediately, then I can’t suggest Remaining Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail to you. In the event you’re in FFXIV only for the PvE, although, the sport is as enjoyable as ever. I think extra folks than ever might be thumbing over the cutscenes by this enlargement, although.Â
FFXIV is well-carried by its core gameplay loop, nevertheless it was at all times the story that set it other than its opponents. I am undecided if I am within the minority or not right here, and I’ve for positive met individuals who have loved what Dawntrail has to supply. However I think many will miss the bar set by a few of FFXIV’s earlier expacs. If Dawntrail’s marketing campaign goes to be the usual for expansions going ahead, talking for myself solely, I am nervous I’ll must completely go away one among Sq. Enix’s Greatest PC video games behind for good.Â
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2024-07-08 18:16:38
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