As someone who has only been playing Final Fantasy XIV Online since it arrived on Xbox, I am definitely a new player. Even after nearly 150 hours, I still have the new adventurer sprout icon, and I show it off proudly.
But the call of Tural in the new expansion, Dawntrail, is too much to ignore. So, armed with a Tales of Adventure, I am venturing onwards.Â
To those that this offends, I have every intention of going back and playing the other expansions. Final Fantasy XIV has its claws in me like no other game perhaps ever has. But I had heard good things about the tacos on Tural, and wanted to experience it all first hand.
Seen as the beginning of the next ten years in Final Fantasy XIV, Dawntrail arrives as the fifth major expansion to the MMORPG. It feels like a lifetime ago since Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 launched to some stinking reviews, but the game is now in an amazing place. Each expansion is rightly lauded, and Dawntrail feels no different, but doesn’t quite reach the heights of previous expansions. Still, a good Final Fantasy XIV expansion is still head and shoulders above most other releases this year.
The first surprising addition came as I was logging in. I had Sudoku all loaded up on my phone expecting to be sat in a virtual queue whilst the servers quaked under pressure. But there was none of that, unlike previous expansion Endwalker. The promises that the servers would cope seemed to fall on deaf ears but they really have handled the surge of returning and new players well. When the 7.0 patch went live I was in a queue of around 400 people but since then the numbers haven’t been any higher than I usually got pre-patch.
Instead, it is perhaps the opening moments of the expansion that will leave players sat twiddling their thumbs more than if they would be in a virtual queue. Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail takes place on an entirely new continent to the west of Eorzea, and the opening moments are all about you setting sail and getting there.
The other major issue – on Xbox at least – seems to be the freezing issues when transitioning between areas. However, as someone who plays on an apparently less congested server, these issues have not affected me at all.
Your Warrior of Light is accompanying Wuk Lamat as she returns to Tural. During the last MSQ of Endwalker players were introduced to her as she looked to recruit the Warrior of Light to help her in her succession attempt as her paternal father looks to vacate the throne.
Your arrival on the new main city shores of Tuliyollal doesn’t come anywhere as soon as you would hope. Dawntrail keeps you on a very tight lead for a good few hours at the beginning. But, I get it though. There is an entirely new continent, cultures and more to learn about, and it does an awful lot of this upfront. Normally, those warnings in previous expansions stating that there will be a series of cutscenes to sit through are found towards the climax of their individual stories. Here, in Dawntrail, they are at the beginning.
During your guided tour of Tuliyollal, you learn that Wuk Lamat’s father is planning on vacating the throne, but isn’t sure who is the best fit out of four candidates to succeed him. So, he plans a little tournament that sees prospective successors searching for the fabled city of gold in Tural.
Wuk Lamat is up against her two brothers and another entrant who is there on merit. She, unlike the others, wants to continue her father’s work of maintaining peace across Tural and keep the different races aligned under the one banner. However, she isn’t seen as the most popular choice, and the Turali bookies would have her way down the pecking order.
Now, Wuk Lamat is very much the star of the show in Dawntrail. Your god-like Warrior of Light ends up taking a back seat throughout most of the new expansion, acting in a support role for Wuk Lamat. But, support her you must, as she is very naïve. Early cutscenes show her aversion to boats and alpacas, but her love of tacos. She is a bit of a goofball, but provides levity at almost the right moment every time.
This isn’t to everyone’s taste, and two of the biggest criticisms of Dawntrail are Wuk Lamat herself and the Warrior of Light playing second fiddle to her. This doesn’t change throughout the main story, even when the game tonally shifts to arguably more familiar territory around two thirds of the way through.
But getting there can be some thirty hours into your Dawntrail adventure. And if you are one of those who Wuk Lamat grates on, then I am afraid I have some bad news. This large portion of Dawntrail focuses on the ongoing tournament, and can at times feel like you are watching a shonen Saturday morning cartoon. This shift in tone isn’t a bad thing, but it does make an alarming change of pace.
At times, it reminds of Final Fantasy X. You and your entourage are the Guardians to Wuk Lamat’s Yuna. You travel from town to town not to collect an Aeon but another plot-specific item, learning about the history and cultures of the world on the way. And each member of your entourage has a reason for being there too, such as Erenville and Krile, both getting their moments to shine on this latest journey.
The main story quests are the bread and butter of Final Fantasy XIV, and they are no different here. That can be taken literally as well as many of them involve either gathering X amount of an item, talking to various NPCs or travelling to a specific location. It is MMORPG 101, and Dawntrail doesn’t change up the formula at all.
Interspersing these quests are plenty of dungeons and trials to undertake, and they are some of the best in the series. The first one you will encounter, Ihuykatumu, is instantly one of my favourites in the game. A leisurely jungle cruise quickly turns into something more akin to Anaconda as enemies run amok on your ship before you are forced to travel on foot through the jungle.
But I love how these may be called dungeons, but their settings are anything but. Ihuykatumu is a jungle, The Strayborough Deadwalk includes an amusement park and Vanguard starts out on a train. There is fantastic variation between these, and they feel a massive improvement over some of the early game dungeons.
And they’re a lot tougher than previous dungeons too. This may be partly due to the new mechanics still being fully worked out, but with the sheer number of mechanics, brute forcing these bosses may not be a foolproof plan anymore.
It is a good job then that there are two new DPS jobs available to try out in Dawntrail that have been putting some pretty high numbers up on the DPS charts. Both unlock at level 80 giving you time to get acquainted with them before starting the level 90 Dawntrail main story.
Viper is good, but Pictomancer is better. To be fair though, any other Job would struggle against Pictomancer. Full of bright colours, it’s an all round fun way to smash opponents with absolute joy. The rotation is also a lot easier to grasp than Viper, where the latter’s combo heavy branching attacks can take a bit of time to get used to. And the introductory quest is pants in comparison to that of Pictomancer. But, as some who primarily plays as a Paladin, anything that involves deviating from a set attack pattern is going to confuse me.
Pictomancer has you ‘painting’ up to three pieces of art before essentially manifesting them into existence to absolutely pummel those that stand in your way. There are also more basic magic attacks, but cutely renamed to things like ‘Aero in Green’ to match the artist’s aesthetics.
It could also be down to the graphical update that helps Pictomancer to shine. It isn’t perhaps the major overhaul that some were expecting, but what it does improve, it does so very well. Exploring Tural with its already bright colours and Latin American inspirations allows it to pop. Many textures have been improved, as has the lighting too. That will likely be the first thing you notice when landing in Tural, seeing the rays of the sun brighten up your summer vacation.
One special moment occurred early on when I was viewing the stone pillars that depict the history of Tural, just as the sun was rising in-game. Graphically, Final Fantasy XIV still doesn’t compare to more modern titles, but there is no denying that the update has improved things significantly.
Many older areas have also been improved, with more to come. As is tradition, Patch 7.x promises much more during its cycle including new raids and another special Job, plus whatever surprises we haven’t yet been told about.
And what would a summer vacation be without a new soundtrack? Well, once again, Masayoshi Soken has delivered with a wide plethora of genres to accompany your adventure. Metal, synth, blues and more are all on show throughout the different areas. You know you are in for a treat when you first dock into Tuliyollal and are welcomed in with some jazz. This piece alone sets the standard for the rest of the soundtrack and when you spend a long opening section running around this place, thankfully this music doesn’t grow old.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail will forever be divisive. And that is primarily down to where you stand on Wuk Lamat. To some (rightly) she is a loveable yet naïve goofball whereas others may see her as the first nail in the Final Fantasy XIV coffin. But there can be no denying that she is the star of the show, and your Warrior of Light is but a support character for the majority of the story. There is still a ton of other stuff to do however, where you are front and centre including new Job quests, dungeons, trials and more. But it is going to take some time for the dust to settle on Dawntrail to see where it ranks amongst other Final Fantasy XIV expansions.
