FFXIV Dawntrail reviews are out on Metacritic

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Originally Posted by Red-thunder

Dude after three expansions of people pointing out legitimate issues with the game being shut down Twitter ratio-dunking style who gives a shit that the tides have finally turned for once??

Like eat your own medicine lmfao

White knights complaining about positive threads meeting negative replies is the MOST HILARIOUS complaint when the opposite have been instigated BY THE VERY SAME PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS FOR YEARS

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You're talking as if you've been on these forums for years but it says you joined Feb 2025. I'm confused, how could this be?? :confused:

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Originally Posted by ovIm

eh, you can call me a big softie cause I usually don't enjoy dunking on people. I'd rather keep dunking on CS3 and holding them accountable for their shit decisions and products.

Now that the story stopped distracting the masses from the rest of the product it at least makes people aware of the product they are being sold. Seeing how the perception of CS3 and Yoshi-PR as a "benevolent developer" has flipped for many, with people finally opening their eyes to the slop to the point of the ffxiv subreddit even openly being critical is very satisfying though.

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That's why the white knights have become ever more unhinged just like the comment above me.

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Originally Posted by Exmo

You're talking as if you've been on these forums for years but it says you joined Feb 2025. I'm confused, how could this be?? :confused:

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It depends on which they decided to create the account. Take me for example. I got the game in Feb of 2014 according to my achievements but I didn't create my account until July of 2015.

I'd sooner trust a starving lion to not rip me apart over journo scores for anything so much as media-tangental.

Back for the free login campaign, it's been a minute.

Score Update: Steam reviews in the last 30 days fell to 27% (Mostly Negative).

Overall Steam reviews have fallen to 49% (Mixed).

I'm aware that something happened in the past few days that may have affected steam scores, but I'll have to do some reading on the forums and the ffxivdiscussion subreddit to see exactly what happened.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Score Update: Steam reviews in the last 30 days fell to 27% (Mostly Negative).

Overall Steam reviews have fallen to 49% (Mixed).

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Fully deserved.

I gave a negative review personally cause its unacceptable that the servers are still locked after a year. It was supposed to be a temporary thing.

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Originally Posted by Eorinn

I gave a negative review personally cause its unacceptable that the servers are still locked after a year. It was supposed to be a temporary thing.

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I'd probably do it too if I had the game on steam. The servers being locked after all this time is some bullsh*t. I don't RP or w/e, I just want to check the prices on different servers/data centers and can't because of the stupid server lock.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

Fully deserved.

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Not sure if your comment was in relation to the mod that got banned recently, but if it was, yeahhh... Did some reading into the third party mod that got banned. That honestly sucks for players who used the mod. I've never used the mod myself but I can still sympathize because it seemed like a good way for players to enhance their gaming experience and to make things interesting. Like why upset the playerbase even more, especially when SE even admits the game is struggling? I guess we will see in the future if this comes back to bite them.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

Fully deserved.

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Nope it's totally pathetic to write a review about something that isn't even in the game, just to try and ruin the games reputation. I hope out of spite they go for the base mods :P

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Not sure if your comment was in relation to the mod that got banned recently, but if it was, yeahhh... Did some reading into the third party mod that got banned. That honestly sucks for players who used the mod. I've never used the mod myself but I can still sympathize because it seemed like a good way for players to enhance their gaming experience and to make things interesting. Like why upset the playerbase even more, especially when SE even admits the game is struggling? I guess we will see in the future if this comes back to bite them.

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I can say I had an eye on the DT section on Steam.
The "recent reviews" have been Mostly Negative for months now.
The total score had been slowly slipping, from 52, to 51, to 50 and now finally to 49%.

There are a bit more reviews this months compared to the last ones (130 this month, average was 70 to 90 each month).
So, yeah there are a bit more this month, but the trend is the same. (right now 27% positive reviews this month, when on average over the last months it was like 30% to 35%)

But what does it even matter with the reviews in that section.
DT sucks according to reviews. For at leats half a year those numbers were similar, now only with a few extra ones.
Not like that would improve when the people are done with their reviews caused by Mare being shot down.

More negative ones will follow. I have subbed for 7.3 on release and not even a month later I was done with what it offered, now I just log in to do dailies if I can bother and... am unlikely to pay for another month of sub. For me, who did the things I wanted of old content already it's another content drought, weeks after the brand new patch...

The only thing now is sub to not lose my house and when a patch drops for one month...
I'll do that till 8.0, depending on if they salvage or continue like this will decide if FFXIV remains installed or not.

Yeah the longer patch cycles have become really unacceptable. The waits are longer and the content feels less.

I've said it before, but it does not help that so many nuanced and more complicated jobs have become bland and brainless. Rehashing content with those different job experiences was a way to kind of stretch out content in the past. That isn't really there, now.

If I didn't have my own active RP community I would have been done back in 7.1

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Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

Nope it's totally pathetic to write a review about something that isn't even in the game, just to try and ruin the games reputation. I hope out of spite they go for the base mods :P

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What you don't understand is MMOs are not just about the game's features, the community plays a big role too. Something outside the game ended up creating a huge community within it, and now this community was destroyed.

I did some more digging into the theoretical reasons behind banning the mod and I'm going to reverse my opinion about the ban being against the better interest of FFXIV. It seems the third party mod was oftentimes being used to display nudity and smut to anyone else who used the mod. People forget that FFXIV is meant to be played by people age 13+ so if a game and its 3rd party mod are being used to display unregulated pornographic content to minors illegally then its no wonder SE put their foot down on it.

Rip to those who used the mod in a reasonable way like putting a hat on a Viera or Hroth, but shame on those who exclusively used it for inappropriate reasons which were more than likely the reason for its downfall.

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Originally Posted by ViinaS

But what does it even matter with the reviews in that section.
DT sucks according to reviews. For at leats half a year those numbers were similar, now only with a few extra ones.
Not like that would improve when the people are done with their reviews caused by Mare being shot down.

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Oh for sure, you won't hear any argument from me about the poor state of DT. DT has been the weakest expansion by far in the history of FFXIV. I'm not even subbed right now. I'm just here for the free login weekend and probably won't be subbing until 8.0.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

I did some more digging into the theoretical reasons behind banning the mod and I'm going to reverse my opinion about the ban being against the better interest of FFXIV. It seems the third party mod was oftentimes being used to display nudity and smut to anyone else who used the mod. People forget that FFXIV is meant to be played by people age 13+ so if a game and its 3rd party mod are being used to display unregulated pornographic content to minors illegally then its no wonder SE put their foot down on it.

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I've never seen any issues ever raised about that mod "often" being used to do that. Does it probably happen on isolated occasions? Yeah, I'd believe that. But it being anywhere close to the norm? Not at all.

Hey, while we're at it, since a handful of people have turned the cars into weapons and driven them into crowds, we should ban all cars from the road for everyone. Right?

Taking a sledgehammer to something because a small subset of its users abuse it is usually a terrible idea.

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DT has been the weakest expansion by far in the history of FFXIV.

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Nah, not even close. It's probably on par with both ARR and SB for being tied at the "bottom." It just feels worse because it came on the heels of ShB and EW, which are widely viewed as the *best* two expansions in the game's history, and it never really had a chance of competing with them given how it's the start of a new direction with nothing really to build on. You can probably amplify it because DT was certainly not written for the segment of the video gaming population that is hard-right ideologically and also disproportionately the ones to do things like proliferate on forums or post reviews and the like. When you actually look in-game, you still see a *ton* of people and they're having a blast.

This expansion was on mixed reviews since its release. Now it's mostly negative for months. It's not going to be better. They ruined the jobs, mid content, people fairly even forgot that they have cosmic exploration due to how its forgotten and bland. The reviews are there for a reason. Plus let's not talk about the main character and Sweet Baby involvement as well that led to these reviews as well.

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Originally Posted by SuperZay

What you don't understand is MMOs are not just about the game's features, the community plays a big role too. Something outside the game ended up creating a huge community within it, and now this community was destroyed.

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FF14 has like no content and the only thing keeping the vast majority of people subbed are the UGC and community. You can get through the content of 7.1-7.3 in just half of the free play period lol.

And the team just does not have any iota of creativity left in them. I don't think anyone other than absolute ghouls could stand playing this game just for the content for more than 2 expansions without getting bored.

Creating an alt used to be fun for me. And Im sure when I have this nebulous void festering in me, I may again, but for now, I am ok.

Going through a ton of skip cutscene, sparkly node clicking madness just to have access to the vast majority of content has just lost it's luster. I haven't gone through 7.3 yet, but the feat of trying to watch the cutscenes of 7.1 and 7.2 took me from just being numb to being very vocally critical to people who ask me about xiv. My advice has been wait for the next expansion or just play something else. And I say that as an active subscriber who helps run a moderately active fc with 20 or so regulars.

A lot of my friends have unsubbed and let their houses (full of nice deco) fall, which hurts because it tells me they have no real intention of coming back or if they do, things need to take a drastic upturn in terms of content and a realization that subpar support will no longer keep them hooked.

I think many "major" systems need a revisit. Decoupling zone access from MSQ progress is critical at this. At least let people get access to HW and Stormblood zones right off the rip. Maybe not the dungeons but let them explore past the ARR stuff and be able to join for treausre dungeons.

The 'roulette' system is hellishly outdated. HELLISHLY outdated. Gating gear upgrades behind tomes is also kind of stale last years' sushi. Let dungeon drops be relevant. You can do this without invalidating crafted gear. The incentive to do roulettes and dungeons for someone who has levelled everything to 100 (usually because they were 90 in everything in Endwalker) is very low. Making the bosses use their moves more randomly instead of in the most formulaic basic scripted way imaginable would work wonders in keeping it fresh for a lot of people.

Give real consideration to the idea of giving someone's alts access to apartments / housing on the same account and world. Perhaps let people give shared estate rights to fc chambers and apartments.

Instead of petitioning a place to take away reviews of your product, go back to the tried and true method of addressing valid criticism. If 40% of the playerbase says your story or music is bad, consider addressing your story writers/ musicians. (Not saying your story or music is bad these are just examples)

Generally, just try to understand where a person who is newly coming to XIV is looking at when they consider giving the game a try. Either make the starting areas relevant again for someone who knows who the Dawntrail cast are, or decouple zone access from MSQ progress. Keep it gated behind expansion purchase. Stop cramming 200 hours of cutscenes most people are probably skipping in the way of playing the actual game or make the cutscenes worth watching.

Let me share my house among my alts on the same account.

Love you senpai.

It doesn't matter what the critics say.
If I didn't like the expansion, and I enjoyed almost everything up until that point (growing from ARR all the way to the somewhat 'meh' epilogue of Endwalker), then the expansion was bad to me. You can enjoy a bad game, or you can dislike a good game, but DT is not worth more than a 1.0 as it stands.
Once they eventually get around to the glamoured, overhyped 8.0 milestone that even the CEO is telling shareholders to hold out for, and we all look back on DT, then the reviews will be applied with critical thinking. But as it's an unfinished expansion, it's not worth reviewing or trusting the scores.
But so far, my time away from it has been more exciting and fun than spending time in it.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

I did some more digging into the theoretical reasons behind banning the mod and I'm going to reverse my opinion about the ban being against the better interest of FFXIV. It seems the third party mod was oftentimes being used to display nudity and smut to anyone else who used the mod. People forget that FFXIV is meant to be played by people age 13+ so if a game and its 3rd party mod are being used to display unregulated pornographic content to minors illegally then its no wonder SE put their foot down on it.

Rip to those who used the mod in a reasonable way like putting a hat on a Viera or Hroth, but shame on those who exclusively used it for inappropriate reasons which were more than likely the reason for its downfall.

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Weeaboo Police detectives have contributed enormous amounts of intel to Square's Special Task Force, citizen. There were many illegal underground ERP Discords that we've infiltrated and have been investigating for months. There is no need to thank us, it is only our duty.





The mountain guides us home.

Honestly Ill judge based on my own experience and no I don't like dawntrail. On the 3day head start. The story was so boring I kept falling asleep. Mind you i completed shadow bringers and endwalker reallly fast on 3 days head start. Dawntrail was so boring it cured my insomnia like bruh best sleep ever.

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Originally Posted by MayuAmakura

This expansion was on mixed reviews since its release. Now it's mostly negative for months. It's not going to be better. They ruined the jobs, mid content, people fairly even forgot that they have cosmic exploration due to how its forgotten and bland. The reviews are there for a reason. Plus let's not talk about the main character and Sweet Baby involvement as well that led to these reviews as well.

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I forgot about the whole Sweet Baby dilemma plus the outrage over Wuk's VA. Both definitely factors in DT's negative reviews.

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Originally Posted by WeebPolice

Weeaboo Police detectives have contributed enormous amounts of intel to Square's Special Task Force, citizen. There were many illegal underground ERP Discords that we've infiltrated and have been investigating for months. There is no need to thank us, it is only our duty.





The mountain guides us home.

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Lmao why do I get the feeling you're not kidding about infiltrating the ERP discords.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Lmao why do I get the feeling you're not kidding about infiltrating the ERP discords.

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Would just call it joining instead of infiltrating but hey, to each their own.

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Originally Posted by Zakuyia

Honestly Ill judge based on my own experience and no I don't like dawntrail. On the 3day head start. The story was so boring I kept falling asleep. Mind you i completed shadow bringers and endwalker reallly fast on 3 days head start. Dawntrail was so boring it cured my insomnia like bruh best sleep ever.

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Funny you mention this. I can't remember the last time I legit passed out while actively playing a game before. Sure, I've dozed while AFKing or getting distracted and just sort of "resting my eyes" but during the Pelupelu split I was so bored I actually fell asleep and had to be woken up by my friend yelling my name. She wasn't much better as I had to all but drag her to the finish line. We did still manage to finish DT in four days somehow, but... well, I'll quote her. "I would rather pay for the $30 skip than ever do Dawntrail again."

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

I forgot about the whole Sweet Baby dilemma plus the outrage over Wuk's VA. Both definitely factors in DT's negative reviews.

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My biggest takeaway from that whole debacle was that the same people that vehemently defend that VA was quick to throw Susan under the bus for things that had nothing to do with the game. Oh well, this is the reality we live in. Hypocrisy is okay as long as you have a backing big enough to deflect the "haters"~!

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

My biggest takeaway from that whole debacle was that the same people that vehemently defend that VA was quick to throw Susan under the bus for things that had nothing to do with the game. Oh well, this is the reality we live in. Hypocrisy is okay as long as you have a backing big enough to deflect the "haters"~!

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Fast forward to now, apparently our lore consultant or english consultant? Whatever her title is, was caught reposting on her account similar political things that the ex-singer allegedly got fired for, and her account was hacked I think?
While the new consultant quickly deleted her posts as she realized the backlash. The two of them reposted things from the opposite sides of the politics in America. Very unprofessional to do from your main account linked to your job, but okay. Guess they get to keep their job?

I will never get America, it's always Team this vs Team that, instead of what is good for EVERYONE.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Fast forward to now, apparently our lore consultant or english consultant? Whatever her title is, was caught reposting on her account similar political things that the ex-singer allegedly got fired for, and her account was hacked I think?
While the new consultant quickly deleted her posts as she realized the backlash. The two of them reposted things from the opposite sides of the politics in America. Very unprofessional to do from your main account linked to your job, but okay. Guess they get to keep their job?

I will never get America, it's always Team this vs Team that, instead of what is good for EVERYONE.

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Eh, I would say it's the loud minority from the west coast. It's like painting all of the EU as subscribing to the nonsense that is going on in the UK. That said, who gave these loud fools so much power?

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

Eh, I would say it's the loud minority from the west coast. It's like painting all of the EU as subscribing to the nonsense that is going on in the UK. That said, who gave these loud fools so much power?

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Its kind of funny with this community, how every opposing view to everyones own point of view is a "vocal minority". But jokes aside, I think people have given the twitter mob a bit too much power. It's like a village fool shouting in the streets and everyone suddenly listens to their opinion like they are an expert. When they clearly have no credentials backing it up. People are way too tribalistic for their own good, its good to have your own nuanced opinions, if you are afraid your opinions will upset your friends ,they werent your friends to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Its kind of funny with this community, how every opposing view to everyones own point of view is a "vocal minority".

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*looks at the latest Lucky Bancho numbers*

I dunno, they might slowly be transforming into the majority since the smarter ones realized what was going on and jumped ship when the game jumped the shark, lol. (I will still never forgive the writers for introducing the concept of Dynamis and the devs for turning Qufim island into a freakin' hallway...)

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Funny you mention this. I can't remember the last time I legit passed out while actively playing a game before. Sure, I've dozed while AFKing or getting distracted and just sort of "resting my eyes" but during the Pelupelu split I was so bored I actually fell asleep and had to be woken up by my friend yelling my name. She wasn't much better as I had to all but drag her to the finish line. We did still manage to finish DT in four days somehow, but... well, I'll quote her. "I would rather pay for the $30 skip than ever do Dawntrail again."

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I was going to take it slow on the story, but I was afraid that I would never get to finish it because of how much of a slog it was to get through. I did get through in the end, though through sheer determination.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

*looks at the latest Lucky Bancho numbers*

I dunno, they might slowly be transforming into the majority since the smarter ones realized what was going on and jumped ship when the game jumped the shark, lol. (I will still never forgive the writers for introducing the concept of Dynamis and the devs for turning Qufim island into a freakin' hallway...)

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EW was the downhill trend in lore and worldbuilding for me, yeah. Including dynamis. 8.0 will be my final limit if they make another toothless msq that is too afraid to tackle any serious subjects and goes too blatantly shonen-anime writing.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

EW was the downhill trend in lore and worldbuilding for me, yeah. Including dynamis. 8.0 will be my final limit if they make another toothless msq that is too afraid to tackle any serious subjects and goes too blatantly shonen-anime writing.

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The Shonen Anime writing has been there since 1.0 and 2.0. Shadowbringers was loaded with it with literally everyone on the continent coming together to take down Vauthry by sheer force of the Scions' charisma and willingness to help others. You're just being pretentious.

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

The Shonen Anime writing has been there since 1.0 and 2.0. Shadowbringers was loaded with it with literally everyone on the continent coming together to take down Vauthry by sheer force of the Scions' charisma and willingness to help others. You're just being pretentious.

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I wouldn't compare DT to a shounen anime, at least not direction... 7.0 and 7.1 was more like a 4kids dub, with the quest stuff from 90 to 95 being just a filler arc.

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Originally Posted by ForteNightshade

Funny you mention this. I can't remember the last time I legit passed out while actively playing a game before. Sure, I've dozed while AFKing or getting distracted and just sort of "resting my eyes" but during the Pelupelu split I was so bored I actually fell asleep and had to be woken up by my friend yelling my name. She wasn't much better as I had to all but drag her to the finish line. We did still manage to finish DT in four days somehow, but... well, I'll quote her. "I would rather pay for the $30 skip than ever do Dawntrail again."

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Why did you need to finish DT in four days? Obviously that was going to be a bad idea. You probably would have enjoyed it more if you had paced yourself properly

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Originally Posted by Dikatis

The Shonen Anime writing has been there since 1.0 and 2.0. Shadowbringers was loaded with it with literally everyone on the continent coming together to take down Vauthry by sheer force of the Scions' charisma and willingness to help others. You're just being pretentious.

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Oh in ARR it was very much visible with the nyahahah ascians and Gaius and more, the english voice acting didnt help much, not that the japanese voices made it any better.
After that they clearly went with writing for more mature audiences, and it worked, does it have some anime fling to it? Yes. But it doesnt have that dumb anime melodrama most shonen and anime in general has, its more subtle and well handled. In EW with the boingo boing sound effects, nearly ruining Y'shtola with their magical girl and clumsy scenes, so far that Yoshi P had to directly stop them from doing it. And Dawntrail? Eesh.

Maybe shonen-anime is the wrong word. Childish writing that tries to hook you in with surface-level morals is what I'm going for. The writing in parts of EW is not subtle while some of it is great, the dialogue is Dawntrail is slop and so is the writing.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

EW was the downhill trend in lore and worldbuilding for me, yeah. Including dynamis. 8.0 will be my final limit if they make another toothless msq that is too afraid to tackle any serious subjects and goes too blatantly shonen-anime writing.

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Tbf, they are tackling serious subjects. It's just that it's been the same ones three times in a row with progressively worse story telling.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Oh in ARR it was very much visible with the nyahahah ascians and Gaius and more, the english voice acting didnt help much, not that the japanese voices made it any better.
After that they clearly went with writing for more mature audiences, and it worked, does it have some anime fling to it? Yes. But it doesnt have that dumb anime melodrama most shonen and anime in general has, its more subtle and well handled. In EW with the boingo boing sound effects, nearly ruining Y'shtola with their magical girl and clumsy scenes, so far that Yoshi P had to directly stop them from doing it. And Dawntrail? Eesh.

Maybe shonen-anime is the wrong word. Childish writing that tries to hook you in with surface-level morals is what I'm going for. The writing in parts of EW is not subtle while some of it is great, the dialogue is Dawntrail is slop and so is the writing.

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I'm not afraid to say that they played it too safe with Dawntrail and that a solid of chunk of the writing can feel hackneyed at times. But Dawntrail's themes of facing grief and reality so you can face the future with the benefit of hindsight instead of retreating into escapism and forgetting the past is handled sincerely and passionately.

There's nothing wrong with disliking the story, but claiming it only has surface-level morals is doing it a disservice.

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Originally Posted by Raoabolic

My biggest takeaway from that whole debacle was that the same people that vehemently defend that VA was quick to throw Susan under the bus for things that had nothing to do with the game. Oh well, this is the reality we live in. Hypocrisy is okay as long as you have a backing big enough to deflect the "haters"~!

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Yeah this age we live in where people's personal moral opinions are injected into nearly every facet of life is certainly... something.

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Originally Posted by Swordsman

Yeah this age we live in where people's personal moral opinions are injected into nearly every facet of life is certainly... something.

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Oh, you mean like how Conservative American Christians are trying to outlaw porn?

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Originally Posted by Exmo

Why did you need to finish DT in four days? Obviously that was going to be a bad idea. You probably would have enjoyed it more if you had paced yourself properly

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Reading a bad story slower doesn’t make it better