I finished Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail this evening. Or its main scenario, anyway; I haven’t gone into any endgame stuff such as the Arcadion raid series or level-cap dungeons as yet, but it’s late and that’s stuff best saved for another day.
I’m going to write something big about Final Fantasy XIV on MoeGamer at some point in the next few days, incorporating my thoughts about Dawntrail and the game as a whole as it exists in 2024, but for now I thought I’d share some immediate impressions.
On the whole, I liked Dawntrail. I particularly enjoyed how it felt like a proper “sequel” to the Final Fantasy XIV story that was told between A Realm Reborn and Endwalker rather than just a continuation of the story. This was always the stated intention, but it would have been easy for them to try and weave in stuff that had come before like the Ascians. They actually do weave in some of that past stuff in the latter hours of the story, but in a way that you would in a sequel, rather than a straight “next episode”.
Dawntrail’s main scenario felt quite long, which is probably a mixed blessing for some people. I went back and forth a bit on it as I played — there were days when I didn’t fancy playing it, so I turned to something else then came back fresh a few days later — but on the whole, I think its overall length and structure works effectively. Since it’s a “sequel”, it’s fitting that it is quite considerable in length — and even has a structure quite akin to PS1-era Final Fantasy games, with a notable tonal shift halfway through that absolutely would have been a “Please Insert Disc 2” moment in the Good Old Days.
One thing I think I’ve touched on in previous entries is how I feel Dawntrail’s narrative is curiously timely, given the overall state of our own world. And this feeling didn’t go away as I progressed into the latter hours of the story — but for different reasons. Without getting into spoilers, the first half of Dawntrail is about achieving mutual understanding and cooperation with people from disparate backgrounds and belief systems, while the latter half concerns what happens when it’s not quite possible to achieve that mutual understanding, based on the enormous gulf in culture (and technology) between the two parties.
It also touches on matters such as the energy and environmental crises we’re facing down — particularly if the techbros in Silicon Valley insist on jamming AI everywhere it isn’t wanted — as well as matters of life after death in an age of technological innovation. It’s no coincidence that the latter half of the game is heavily inspired by Final Fantasy IX, one of whose characters’ iconic taglines was “to be forgotten is worse than death”. I’m actually kind of surprised no-one actually said that line at any point in Dawntrail, because heaven knows several characters had multiple prime opportunities to do so. Perhaps they thought it might have been just a touch too on-the-nose.
I’m actually a little annoyed that the patch notes and promotional material for Dawntrail spoiled a significant feature of the game’s overall setting and tone, because I feel that reveal would have been far more effective had it simply come up without anyone knowing about it beforehand. (I won’t mention anything further about it for the sake of those who have deliberately avoided all promotional material for precisely this reason.) And there wasn’t really even a good reason for them to spoil it, either, aside from, presumably, the expectation from the fanbase that everything is laid out for them well before release. And I guess if Square Enix didn’t spoil it, the dataminers would have done so anyway.
Anyway, on the whole, Dawntrail was A Good. I enjoyed that it was possible to play the entire main scenario, including 4-player dungeons and 8-player trials, with NPC sidekicks rather than having to rely on other players, though it’s a bit of a shame that the final boss is a multiplayer-only affair. This resulted in me spending a good 50% of said boss fight lying on the floor while the two surviving tanks finished it off because the healers were also both dead. Not quite the climactic conclusion I had hoped for, but at least I got a good look at the mechanics without having to actually do them.
So yeah. Good job, Yoshi-P and company. You did another great thing.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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