Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail - Easy Allies Review

Dawntrail sets out to disprove the notion that Final Fantasy XIV's best days are behind it. It's a solid foundation for the next era, but several areas need to evolve and improve if it hopes to maintain its success.

Written by Michael Damiani
Video Edited by Don Casanova
Reviewed on PC
Available on PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S

#EasyAllies #Gaming #FFXIVDawntrail

[cloudkitt]

Great reviews as always, Allies. Thanks <3

[BOTCHED]

If there's one man who knows this game, it's Damiani.

[chrisadair]

The first half of the msq was very slow, but I thought the story picked up the second half. I'm hopeful they will deliver.

[heronoverdose]

Love my fishing game with bonus story and distractions.
Hope they bring in golf in the patches as former CEO suggested.

[patsg]

Great review as always, guys! :)
Now, go talk to Wuk Lamat.

[dreamer]

Nothing can beat EW, but I really enjoyed DT. New zones, music, battle content and graphics update are sooo nice 🎉

[patchtactic]

MSQ Dawntrail makes me realize how boring and dull the game is when progressing through the content. It didn't bother me in ShB and EW because the story was engaging and interesting, but during DT, I kept saying to myself, "When is the next dungeon?" and "When is the trial?" because I was so bored with the story, the 2nd part was slightly good tho.

[larrywilliams]

Solid review. I expected it to be arr style setting because of the whole world building, which dosen't bothers me. I honesty enjoyed the 1st half the msq.

[pedroramos]

Hey, I didn't see any review about Chained Echoes. Have any of you people played it? If so, pls post a late review. It's definitely better than Sea of Stars!

[legacyreaper]

This review is as engaging as the DT expansion.

[_Gamer]

Great reviews but I miss Gametrailers.

[fayte]

100% there is just such high expectations that people just cant see the forest for the trees

[BenRiley]

I liked the MSQ so far, but it definitely took forever to get going

[slayermate]

Stellar review and masterfully written with excellent prose and a well punctuated iconic verbal delivery. Just like when you guys were doing the game trailer reviews, still a cut above the rest in the industry.

[Uhcip]

so the dungeons are still largely hallways?

[Velrikk]

Dawntrail introduced a new setting, cast and plot threads to make a new saga for the next years, really enjoyed the themes the story brought up about family and culture, not to mention the dungeons, trials and raids are all stellar, crazy to think people believe its the worst state the game has ever been.

[Mrstephen]

“Is Dawntrail the answer?”
Easy answer. Nope.

[UGOTNUKED]

Comparing DT to ARR does ARR a disservice. There was endless potential in the world building of ARR, dozens of conflicts introduced, varied cultures and setups for many plot lines later explored. DT has none of that. The new world is exceptionally bland. These "diverse cultures" seem more like cartoon stereotypes or a theme park ride. There is no conflict anywhere, and if there is, we solve it in 5 minutes (the mamool ja). There is nothing in the new world to effectively build upon. Instead - Spoilers - all the build up is for the travel to other shards and interdimensional adventures. The writers apparently realized themselves that there is nothing interesting in this world.

Overall, the writing in DT is so much poorer than anything we've seen before. It's be far the worst expansion in a narrative sense they have ever done. However, the world and encounter design is the best yet. Which leaves us with a very middling game.

[Dwesk]

As someone who absolutely sold his soul away to FFXIV for two years and played practically every day, it does suck that the general MSQ consensus is that it's the worst it's been since ARR and a lot of people even say the general lows are lower than Stormblood and highs aren't high enough either. Besides that there's also the issue of predictable content distribution, not enough job/dungeon changes. Sure we can agree that FFXIV is still operating in decent quality but 7.0 should've been THE expansion to shake things up hard rather than feeling mediocre like ARR. Seriously hope the writing room realize this and completely scrap whatever was cooked for 7.1-7.5 patches, the 6.x patches were already genuinely awful compared to everything that came before.
On the bright side, the Arcadion as well the ex trials seem to be doing good though, but that's still the predictable aspect of the game, the thing I'm personally most excited for is the Bozja/Eureka type region, that is THE saving grace of this MMO, and I think that Eureka/Bozja might be some of the most fun I've had with any mmo ever.
Oh also, the fact that we had two really well done solo duties in Endwalker but none of that here fucking sucks. I thought they're going to have more of those in coming days since it's perfect amount of gameplay and storytelling in a completely different way but lol lmao of course that didn't happen.

[gregjones]

It's unfortunate that eza tiptoed around the truth. Whether it be because it's been talked to death already or because they don't want to ruffle any feathers, saying the story has been divisive amongst the community is not review content. You are supposed to be reviewing your experience, not reporting what you're witnessing in the community.