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Wuk Lamat could have been a great character. But she felt like an overgrown 8-year-old most of the way through. And then an overgrown 14-year-old the rest of the way. I feel like the story was largely squandered as well, because the direction they took with the first half is something I really enjoy and would like to see more in games. Making it about exploring and discovery. But largely, it just didn't hit right. I still liked it overall, but it's definitely not up to the standards of shadowbringers. Even as a "vacation arc", I have trouble giving it a pass. The second half was pretty solid though. Sphene was a much better character, and I wanted to hug her and let her know everything would be all right, Even though she was a robot, memory construct thingy. Overall the expansion could have been a lot better, but there's enough good stuff in it for me to have enjoyed it, even if not as much as some previous ones.
Ah yes, the game that forced us to adopt the mindset of our enemy from just 2 expansions ago and commit genocide. The Ascians would be proud of what we did in and to Living Memory.
You mean the AI backed up simulations of people's lives? Had to stop the rogue computer program from ending all life in order to power it's hard drives storing recordings of actual people's lives. Sphene wasn't going to just stop with Eorzea they were going to kill every echo. And the AI themselves who couldn't be remembered by the living asked you to help them do it. Only Sphene knew the true plan and wanted to follow through with it.
No? Against both the Ascians and Alexandria/Sphene, we are defending ourselves. They are both obsessed with the past, one with reclaiming it and the other with holding onto it. And both are shown to be wrong to do so, because the past is never as good as you remember it being. Living Memory is about releasing the copies of the dead, essentially ghosts, and putting them to rest. They had their lives. So did the Ascians. They don't have the right to keep living at the expense of those who came after.
@@revanmal Ah yes, pleading self-defense. Let's dismantle this first: For the Ascians, we were the attacking faction. Hydaelyn did the same thing Sphene did, she did "invade" the world of the Ascians, shattering it with the help of some collaborators. Not everyone was on board with the plan and not everybody was asked whether they wanted to be shattered. From the Ascians point of view, their war on Hydaelyn was as much a defensive war as ours is to Sphene/the Endless. "They are both obsessed with the past, one with reclaiming it and the other with holding onto it." while we are obsessed with the status quo, does it make us any better? The Ascian plan of the Grand Reunification was aiming towards the future, not only the past. Yet "we who are stuck in the present" opose it and made it fail. "Living Memory is about releasing the copies of the dead, essentially ghosts, and putting them to rest." And the Grand Unification was about releasing the inferior copies of the original world, putting them to rest to make them reform whole again. Same logic. "They don't have the right to keep living at the expense of those who came after." Well, with how technologically advanced Alexandria was, who says we are really ahead here? Plus, it's not like the ghost repositories were static. They were expanding, growing, and what we don't know about, maybe also evolving. It's easy to judge your enemies with self-rightousnes. Cause in the end, the history is written by the victors. So, looking at the result, the only thing I can say is: 'The only difference between the Ascians and us? We won.'
@@somederp8915 "From the Ascians point of view, their war on Hydaelyn was as much a defensive war as ours is to Sphene/the Endless." The plan of the Zodiark faction was essentially farming lesser races to power their god. Hydaelyn opposed that monstrous plan, while the Unsundered and their ilk wanted to proceed with it. They aren't the good guys, even if Hydaelyn isn't a clean-cut hero, either. So the moral gray of Hydaelyn is basically moot. No Ascian or Primal is the "good guy," but at least the sundered peoples are just trying to live their lives while these ancient cultists attempt to slaughter them all. They don't think of the 'lesser' races as people, which is just them being judgemental, not fact. "While we are obsessed with the status quo, does it make us any better? The Ascian plan of the Grand Reunification was aiming towards the future, not only the past. Yet "we who are stuck in the present" opose it and made it fail." The sundered races are surviving against attackers, they're not obsessed with the status quo. They want to keep living, to have a future. And the future of the sundered under the Zodiark faction would, again, have been effectively slaughter to power a god. The Ascians have no right to just start sacrificing people who had no choice in the matter just because they don't think of them as people. "Well, with how technologically advanced Alexandria was, who says we are really ahead here? Plus, it's not like the ghost repositories were static. They were expanding, growing, and what we don't know about, maybe also evolving." Alexandria/Living Memory is explicitly in the past, regardless of tech level. And Living Memory was a slowly degrading aether-sink. It needed more and more aether as more and more people got added to it, and more and more people would have to die to sustain it. Sphene would eventually use up all the aether of the living to keep facsimiles of those who were already dead around.
@@revanmal - "No Ascian or Primal is the "good guy," but at least the sundered peoples are just trying to live their lives while these ancient cultists attempt to slaughter them all." Good and bad heavily depends on a subjective point of view. Ever heard of 'Every hero is the villain of someone else's story'? Also, given that they face basically an armageddon, they decided to do a sacrifice. Both plans, the Ascian and Hydaelyn's plans both involve sacrifices. Given the tight spot they were in, wonder if your morals would also say it's better to sacrifice your way of life to save those beneath you. I mean, you can virtue check yourself right now: Do you donate money to poor, hungry people in africa, to give those who are economically beneath you a better life or are you keeping everything for yourself/your family? I see the Ascian plan as more Utilitarian than Hydaelyn's and who knows, the Ascians might have found a way to maybe defeat the Endsinger and then no longer needing to rely on Zodiark afterwards... - "They don't think of the 'lesser' races as people, which is just them being judgemental, not fact." So... like you do with the Endless/Ghosts? Dehumanize them so it's easier to justify your genocide? - "They want to keep living, to have a future." 1:1 Sphene's wish, go figure. She also only wanted to continue protecting her people, something you actively fight against with your genocide in the whole zone. - "The Ascians have no right to just start sacrificing people who had no choice in the matter just because they don't think of them as people." And who gave us the right to sacrifice the endless, because you don't think of them as people? Double standards are easy to justify if you see yourself as unfailable and in the right, yes? - "And Living Memory was a slowly degrading aether-sink." Didn't we find a quasi-infinite energy source like... 1 expansion ago? One that might even profit off the positive emotions from inside Living Memory? - "Sphene would eventually use up all the aether of the living to keep facsimiles of those who were already dead around." Again, wasn't 'oh, we need to sacrifice for energy' and 'finding another way' the theme just 1 expansion ago? Again, you don't even entertain the thought that we commit a genocide here and the only difference of it being that we are the winning side. The game told you to "not think too hard about it", so you prefer not to and live in ignorance...
For me, Dawntrail is worse than Stormblood when it comes to Story and music, but the dungeons, trials and raids are far and beyond the best I have seen so far. I love the fights, I love that they are a bit more demanding than the ones of the last expansion. But, other than alot of FFXIV players I really LOVE Stormblood so when I say Dawntrail is a bit below that, it means that its still good and I enjoyed my time with it so far. But yeah ... they dropped the ball with Wuk Lamat a bit.
The endgame content saved this expansion for me. The msq was very meh, and the new companion, Wuk-whats-her-face, is a dumpster fire of annoyance. Could not stand this character at all. Every word that comes out of her mouth is cringe. Anyways, the gameplay content has been amazing, though. Very fun. I enjoyed them thoroughly. If you are a story-skipper, you will have a great time. If you are an msq-enjoyer, my condolences.
so wuk lamat is kind of just fine, she has multiple moments where she seems to grow .... unfortunately the "writers" and calling them that is an insult to everyone who can hold a pen or roll their face over a keyboard, cut her down any time she even takes a step towards a good character, she suffers heavily from what our characters are also suffering which is brainless syndrome aka acting like a sheltered 12 year-old whos never been outside before -.- and then we have the "my friends are my power" or a "by the power of our bonds we will win" speech EVERY. SINGLE. QUEST. not just the main quest but almost every single side quest too, and if its not that its solving an issue that has plagued the person for years, decades ... and we fix it by existing -.- I play ff14 for the story, defiantly not the jobs/classes which they homogenise more and more so none have much identity so everyone can play everything because nothing has any differences (people complaining viper is too busy even though thats the only thing that makes it different to reaper) instead of saying the obvious of "if you don't like the class don't play it its not for you" Ill admit shadow bringers had some bad moments same for endwalker but the managed to cover them up well for the most part even if thing got a bit generic but in dawntrail ? hahaha no they don't even try or they had some sort of "whats the worst possible character/story writing you can do" contest and then cut up all the entries and glued them together to make this abomination -.- then we have people defend it being bad saying "at least the dungeons were good" is insulting and mocks the fact they charged for this I want a refund -.-
I mean... I also didn't like the story, but just because you play for the story doesn't mean the things they do with gameplay are insignificant, no? They do a pretty good job on the trials & dungeons. Personally, I can just move on from this mess by having a blast in the trials lol.
@@Snowshill That's how I felt with Endwalker. Endwalker was an overrated piece of crap and I felt like I got robbed and spit at by Square. Went into Dawntrail with no expectations and it was actually better than I expected and honestly better than Endwalker and close to Shadowbringers imo. The emotion, how they handle the deaths, and the throwbacks were absolute fire.
Oh God, Wuk Lamat, and the power of cringe I can't believe there were so many pointless cutscenes but since the story is so thin, they needed all that stuffing I may have not noticed before DT, because I was actually interested in what was happening but in this expansion, there are specific sections in the cutscenes which are unskippable Those sections are always about Wuk Lamat (allegedly) shouting about something or a npc praising her I still have some days of sub left so I was going to play DT until they ran off but I just couldn't, I made a whole new character, and I'm having a lot of fun actually, I may renew to complete until Endwalker again Edit: Dawntrail is not worth in my opinion After several tries along the years, I finally was able to enjoy FF14 but if DT is the future of how expansions are going to be, sadly, I'm done
Just stop paying attention after 85. It's not fucking worth it. If you care about FF9, perhaps there's some jingling keys you can get entertained by, I didn't give a shit about it. Just watch The Matrix and Cowboys vs Aliens. It's just that. Not fucking worth your time. Wuk's voice actor in Japanese makes her sound a bit more like a comedic relief character and even uses more polite language, like how a princess would sound. I don't mind her personality as much as I mind that her English VA was doing such a shit job in comparison. Glad I swapped over years ago.
@@kendojunson7971 You serious? Dawntrail had more emotion, less forced Scions all over the screen 24/7 with them literally admitting they have plot armor, actual death unlike Endwalker. WAY better music, better fights, better characters minus Wuk Lamat.
Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this, check out...
► My Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth Review ua-cam.com/video/86SdH3_HnaA/v-deo.html
►My Look at Final Fantasy 6 ua-cam.com/video/Q7180CiWpCY/v-deo.html
Great review, well done voice and audio work too
Nice review man, pretty good run down
First half of story was a real struggle but second half is better.
Wuk Lamat could have been a great character. But she felt like an overgrown 8-year-old most of the way through. And then an overgrown 14-year-old the rest of the way. I feel like the story was largely squandered as well, because the direction they took with the first half is something I really enjoy and would like to see more in games. Making it about exploring and discovery. But largely, it just didn't hit right. I still liked it overall, but it's definitely not up to the standards of shadowbringers. Even as a "vacation arc", I have trouble giving it a pass.
The second half was pretty solid though. Sphene was a much better character, and I wanted to hug her and let her know everything would be all right, Even though she was a robot, memory construct thingy.
Overall the expansion could have been a lot better, but there's enough good stuff in it for me to have enjoyed it, even if not as much as some previous ones.
Ah yes, the game that forced us to adopt the mindset of our enemy from just 2 expansions ago and commit genocide.
The Ascians would be proud of what we did in and to Living Memory.
You mean the AI backed up simulations of people's lives? Had to stop the rogue computer program from ending all life in order to power it's hard drives storing recordings of actual people's lives. Sphene wasn't going to just stop with Eorzea they were going to kill every echo. And the AI themselves who couldn't be remembered by the living asked you to help them do it. Only Sphene knew the true plan and wanted to follow through with it.
No? Against both the Ascians and Alexandria/Sphene, we are defending ourselves. They are both obsessed with the past, one with reclaiming it and the other with holding onto it. And both are shown to be wrong to do so, because the past is never as good as you remember it being. Living Memory is about releasing the copies of the dead, essentially ghosts, and putting them to rest. They had their lives. So did the Ascians. They don't have the right to keep living at the expense of those who came after.
@@revanmal Ah yes, pleading self-defense. Let's dismantle this first:
For the Ascians, we were the attacking faction. Hydaelyn did the same thing Sphene did, she did "invade" the world of the Ascians, shattering it with the help of some collaborators. Not everyone was on board with the plan and not everybody was asked whether they wanted to be shattered. From the Ascians point of view, their war on Hydaelyn was as much a defensive war as ours is to Sphene/the Endless.
"They are both obsessed with the past, one with reclaiming it and the other with holding onto it." while we are obsessed with the status quo, does it make us any better? The Ascian plan of the Grand Reunification was aiming towards the future, not only the past. Yet "we who are stuck in the present" opose it and made it fail.
"Living Memory is about releasing the copies of the dead, essentially ghosts, and putting them to rest." And the Grand Unification was about releasing the inferior copies of the original world, putting them to rest to make them reform whole again. Same logic.
"They don't have the right to keep living at the expense of those who came after." Well, with how technologically advanced Alexandria was, who says we are really ahead here? Plus, it's not like the ghost repositories were static. They were expanding, growing, and what we don't know about, maybe also evolving.
It's easy to judge your enemies with self-rightousnes. Cause in the end, the history is written by the victors. So, looking at the result, the only thing I can say is:
'The only difference between the Ascians and us? We won.'
@@somederp8915 "From the Ascians point of view, their war on Hydaelyn was as much a defensive war as ours is to Sphene/the Endless."
The plan of the Zodiark faction was essentially farming lesser races to power their god. Hydaelyn opposed that monstrous plan, while the Unsundered and their ilk wanted to proceed with it. They aren't the good guys, even if Hydaelyn isn't a clean-cut hero, either. So the moral gray of Hydaelyn is basically moot. No Ascian or Primal is the "good guy," but at least the sundered peoples are just trying to live their lives while these ancient cultists attempt to slaughter them all. They don't think of the 'lesser' races as people, which is just them being judgemental, not fact.
"While we are obsessed with the status quo, does it make us any better? The Ascian plan of the Grand Reunification was aiming towards the future, not only the past. Yet "we who are stuck in the present" opose it and made it fail."
The sundered races are surviving against attackers, they're not obsessed with the status quo. They want to keep living, to have a future. And the future of the sundered under the Zodiark faction would, again, have been effectively slaughter to power a god. The Ascians have no right to just start sacrificing people who had no choice in the matter just because they don't think of them as people.
"Well, with how technologically advanced Alexandria was, who says we are really ahead here? Plus, it's not like the ghost repositories were static. They were expanding, growing, and what we don't know about, maybe also evolving."
Alexandria/Living Memory is explicitly in the past, regardless of tech level. And Living Memory was a slowly degrading aether-sink. It needed more and more aether as more and more people got added to it, and more and more people would have to die to sustain it. Sphene would eventually use up all the aether of the living to keep facsimiles of those who were already dead around.
@@revanmal
- "No Ascian or Primal is the "good guy," but at least the sundered peoples are just trying to live their lives while these ancient cultists attempt to slaughter them all."
Good and bad heavily depends on a subjective point of view. Ever heard of 'Every hero is the villain of someone else's story'? Also, given that they face basically an armageddon, they decided to do a sacrifice. Both plans, the Ascian and Hydaelyn's plans both involve sacrifices. Given the tight spot they were in, wonder if your morals would also say it's better to sacrifice your way of life to save those beneath you. I mean, you can virtue check yourself right now: Do you donate money to poor, hungry people in africa, to give those who are economically beneath you a better life or are you keeping everything for yourself/your family? I see the Ascian plan as more Utilitarian than Hydaelyn's and who knows, the Ascians might have found a way to maybe defeat the Endsinger and then no longer needing to rely on Zodiark afterwards...
- "They don't think of the 'lesser' races as people, which is just them being judgemental, not fact."
So... like you do with the Endless/Ghosts? Dehumanize them so it's easier to justify your genocide?
- "They want to keep living, to have a future."
1:1 Sphene's wish, go figure. She also only wanted to continue protecting her people, something you actively fight against with your genocide in the whole zone.
- "The Ascians have no right to just start sacrificing people who had no choice in the matter just because they don't think of them as people."
And who gave us the right to sacrifice the endless, because you don't think of them as people? Double standards are easy to justify if you see yourself as unfailable and in the right, yes?
- "And Living Memory was a slowly degrading aether-sink."
Didn't we find a quasi-infinite energy source like... 1 expansion ago? One that might even profit off the positive emotions from inside Living Memory?
- "Sphene would eventually use up all the aether of the living to keep facsimiles of those who were already dead around."
Again, wasn't 'oh, we need to sacrifice for energy' and 'finding another way' the theme just 1 expansion ago?
Again, you don't even entertain the thought that we commit a genocide here and the only difference of it being that we are the winning side. The game told you to "not think too hard about it", so you prefer not to and live in ignorance...
Interesting review!
Great storylines
I hated dawntrail.. can't wait to waste my money again on the next expac.
For me, Dawntrail is worse than Stormblood when it comes to Story and music, but the dungeons, trials and raids are far and beyond the best I have seen so far. I love the fights, I love that they are a bit more demanding than the ones of the last expansion. But, other than alot of FFXIV players I really LOVE Stormblood so when I say Dawntrail is a bit below that, it means that its still good and I enjoyed my time with it so far. But yeah ... they dropped the ball with Wuk Lamat a bit.
The endgame content saved this expansion for me. The msq was very meh, and the new companion, Wuk-whats-her-face, is a dumpster fire of annoyance. Could not stand this character at all. Every word that comes out of her mouth is cringe. Anyways, the gameplay content has been amazing, though. Very fun. I enjoyed them thoroughly. If you are a story-skipper, you will have a great time. If you are an msq-enjoyer, my condolences.
man the english dub is asssssssss.
It’s not even a dub technically the Japanese and Engle’s voice recordings happen around the same time and they are written together
so wuk lamat is kind of just fine, she has multiple moments where she seems to grow .... unfortunately the "writers" and calling them that is an insult to everyone who can hold a pen or roll their face over a keyboard, cut her down any time she even takes a step towards a good character, she suffers heavily from what our characters are also suffering which is brainless syndrome aka acting like a sheltered 12 year-old whos never been outside before -.-
and then we have the "my friends are my power" or a "by the power of our bonds we will win" speech EVERY. SINGLE. QUEST. not just the main quest but almost every single side quest too, and if its not that its solving an issue that has plagued the person for years, decades ... and we fix it by existing -.-
I play ff14 for the story, defiantly not the jobs/classes which they homogenise more and more so none have much identity so everyone can play everything because nothing has any differences (people complaining viper is too busy even though thats the only thing that makes it different to reaper) instead of saying the obvious of "if you don't like the class don't play it its not for you"
Ill admit shadow bringers had some bad moments same for endwalker but the managed to cover them up well for the most part even if thing got a bit generic
but in dawntrail ? hahaha no they don't even try or they had some sort of "whats the worst possible character/story writing you can do" contest and then cut up all the entries and glued them together to make this abomination -.-
then we have people defend it being bad saying "at least the dungeons were good" is insulting and mocks the fact they charged for this
I want a refund -.-
I mean... I also didn't like the story, but just because you play for the story doesn't mean the things they do with gameplay are insignificant, no? They do a pretty good job on the trials & dungeons. Personally, I can just move on from this mess by having a blast in the trials lol.
@@Snowshill That's how I felt with Endwalker. Endwalker was an overrated piece of crap and I felt like I got robbed and spit at by Square. Went into Dawntrail with no expectations and it was actually better than I expected and honestly better than Endwalker and close to Shadowbringers imo. The emotion, how they handle the deaths, and the throwbacks were absolute fire.
Oh God, Wuk Lamat, and the power of cringe
I can't believe there were so many pointless cutscenes but since the story is so thin, they needed all that stuffing
I may have not noticed before DT, because I was actually interested in what was happening but in this expansion, there are specific sections in the cutscenes which are unskippable
Those sections are always about Wuk Lamat (allegedly) shouting about something or a npc praising her
I still have some days of sub left so I was going to play DT until they ran off but I just couldn't, I made a whole new character, and I'm having a lot of fun actually, I may renew to complete until Endwalker again
Edit: Dawntrail is not worth in my opinion
After several tries along the years, I finally was able to enjoy FF14 but if DT is the future of how expansions are going to be, sadly, I'm done
I like Wuk and she grows as a character but the story felt too stretched out
Just stop paying attention after 85. It's not fucking worth it. If you care about FF9, perhaps there's some jingling keys you can get entertained by, I didn't give a shit about it. Just watch The Matrix and Cowboys vs Aliens. It's just that. Not fucking worth your time.
Wuk's voice actor in Japanese makes her sound a bit more like a comedic relief character and even uses more polite language, like how a princess would sound. I don't mind her personality as much as I mind that her English VA was doing such a shit job in comparison. Glad I swapped over years ago.
Hated the story of SB, why do I have a feeling this one is even worse?
Wuk Lamat is ass but the story is fantastic and better than Endwalker imo, that expansion had WAY more problems than Dawntrail.
I'm actually surprised you can say it's fantastic while disliking Wuk Lamat. Just seeing her parading around my screen wants me to skip cutscenes lol.
The story is better than Endwalker? What kind of shit are you smokin?
@@kendojunson7971 You serious? Dawntrail had more emotion, less forced Scions all over the screen 24/7 with them literally admitting they have plot armor, actual death unlike Endwalker. WAY better music, better fights, better characters minus Wuk Lamat.
bruh this is literally the worst expansion we ever got id rather play 1.0 again over this awful story
@zackt3288 sooooooo endwalker was not better than dawntrail....it's just a prankbro