The PROBLEM With Dawntrail

Final Fantasy XIV's Dawntrail expansion underwhelms on all fronts. For a follow up to an amazing finale with Endwalker, this disappoints on almost every front. It's easy to say that the biggest issue with all of this all comes down to Wuk Lamat, but there's way more to it than that.

►Follow me for instant updates on new videos!

►Theme Song - "Goodbye Summer, Hello Winter" by FantomenK

#ffxiv #finalfantasyxiv #dawntrail #ffxivdawntrail

[projared]

Tried something different with this one - more of an opinion/rant instead of full on review. If you enjoy and want to see more like it, let me know and sound off in the comments!

Also please like and subscribe and bell smash.

[kunven]

Thancred collapsing a wall to block your path in the level 91 dungeon is the closest thing to a scyon rivalry we got.

[babulbi]

Jared's voice dropped like three octaves.

[kiarantzau]

Having a romance between the Wol and Wuk lamat being the thing to fix Dawntrails msq story is probably the most weird and unhinged take i've heard...

[jacktangent]

"It would have been fascinating to introduce an NPC that falls in love with your character!"

DID ZENOS MEAN NOTHING TO YOU???

[lightninstriker]

"It's all exacerbated by the absolute cascading deluge of proper nouns spouted off in every single sentence... ...you can't go two steps without a single paragraph of someone saying a plethora of names of people you haven't met, places you've never heard of, and titles that are supposed to mean something."

...So what you're saying is, they did a Final Fantasy XIII.

[neh]

English is not my native language. To me, both English and Japanese sound equally foreign. Considering Japanese was how Wuk Lamat's character was meant to sound, given that the franchise is y'know... japanese, the difference is very noticeable.

Japanese Wuk Lamat is a tomboy. Excited, impulsive, naive, and the VA portrays it well enough, despite being relatively new as well. On the other hand, I don't know if it's the VA or the voice direction lacking, but the EN VA is all over the place on that regard. Yes, the Scions are a mess as well, but since Wuk Lamat hogs 70% of the voice acting, of course it's going to be more noticeable with her.

[Tonsofcraft]

Remember they promised inter-scion competition....? Yeah... Going in a solo duty, maybe even a trial against Thancred and Uberdanger would have been the coolest stuff ever, but they chickened out and it makes me so mad.

[marrellhack]

I agree with most of what you said here. You lost me at the "you just like hearing noises you don't understand" dumbass talking point to try and dismiss people who prefer the Japanese voice acting. It's very easy to have an application for the effort and delivery of the jp VAs without fully understanding the language itself. That shallow narrow minded twitter talking point needs to be erased from everyone's consciousness permanently. If you liked the English VA you can just say that without trying to discredit people who prefer JP with a talking point that makes you sound like an uncultured nimrod.

All in all great vid I love most of your critiques and the way you leveled them. Just that JP VA left a sour taste.

[SaphireDragon]

I like how Jared made no mention of Krile's stakes and motivations for being here because ya know... the game puts in the absolute minimum effort in reminding us she has stakes and motivations in being here before resolving it all in like 5 quests near the end of the MSQ.

[Dionysus]

Haven't played or care for FF14, only watched because it's a new ProJared video.

That being said, I do not think that at this point "diegetic" can really be considered a word people use to try and sound smart, because it is frequently used and widely understood.
And Japanese is a beautiful language, there's nothing wrong with preferring hearing JP voices, even if you can't understand what is being said. Saying there's an issue with that would also throw shade at the millions, if not billions of people in the world listening to English music without understanding a word.

[SomeCameo]

my biggest dissapointment was that they hyped up the vacation aspect, and the possible rivalry between the scions and in the end all we got was a rushed contest and a very decent second half that maybe should have been pushed into the patch content.

Also they tried way too hard to make you like Wuk, and every msq step was the same boring "talk with npcs" routine... only to talk with wuk again.

unrelated, why does jared's voice sounds so deep?

[EatitHarvey]

"If you switch to JP voices, you just like listening to voices you don't understand!"

Yes. I do. That's why I turn on subtitles and smile whenever Jotaro's voice comes out of the big lizard.

[ame]

8:50 ah yes, my opinion that I formed by myself, my own reaction from playing by myself, my opinion that I had prior to checking the internet, yeah I definitely got that from someone else. Geez that was offensive af.

[Xaldin]

He went off on some imaginary voice for "putting words in his mouth" about not enjoying world building, then proceeds to put words in the mouth of everyone who genuinely doesn't like Wuk Lamat's voice. "You don't know what good voice acting is, you just like noises you don't understand."

He apparently already decided the imaginary voice he's saying this to would use the "JP is better" argument. I guess I'm not allowed to think the voice itself and the acting is bad of my own accord, I must either be misinformed or be a weeb. Thanks for enlightening me lol.

[duskyer]

The part about not every story needing world ending stakes is spot on. Reminds me of Jojo. 3rd part is about stopping Dio from possibly taking over the world, but the 4th part? Stopping a serial killer in a remote town. And that's one of my favorite parts.

[ononokiii_]

Damn saying that wuk voice is good is wild especially to liking the jp voice or anything thats the biggest hot take some of the lines just aren't there and just suck and i like how he only pointed out the jp voices you should listen to the german its honestly not to bad especially fot sphene

[maximumkorb]

Defending Wuk Lamat's voice acting is certainly a choice.
Could be the voice actor.
Could be the voice direction.
Could be the writing.

Whatever it is, it's not something I would die on a hill defending. Given how Japanese players did not like Wuk Lamat either, I'd say it has more to do with the character. The english VA does nothing to help the character, and if anything, hurts her more.

The bigger problem with this expansion is how much of a bait-and-switch it is. It was marketed as an island adventure. Like "Legends of the Hidden Temple" set in a FFX type world.

Then we end up in Space Paranoids and Twilight Town from Kingdom Hearts 2... what?

Going through Tron was not at all what I was expecting, and to say I am disappointed that I didn't get my awesome island exploration adventure is an understatement.

And not only did I not get that fun island expedition, I got a bunch of tailing quests pulled straight out of Assassin's Creed, and they are just as boring here as they were there.

[Edmund_Christo]

I was surprised to hear Wuk's voice actor was a man. I knew something sounded off, honestly I thought someone had hired an Indian girl with limited English experience because the accent was so funky.

[TheSachiPlan]

The whole wanting a love confession out of Wuk Lamat thing is a hard no. Considering that regardless of player input, the WoL consistently displays sadness and anguish over a certain bestest boy ever from House Fortemps. The WoL has their own opinion on things independent of the player's and having them on the spot to accept/shoot down a love confession would be a disastrous can of worms, especially when it would be smack dab in the middle of all that bad writing like a rotten cherry.

As for the acting....no. Over the course of years I played from level 1 to 93, and Wuk Lamat was the voice that convinced me to switch to switch from English to Japanese. I listened to her a lot before I just couldn't take it anymore.