This story is really underwhelming - it's opened to mixed reviews.

[missybee]

I had to pop in to also express my disappointment. To preface this, these opinions are coming from someone who has had an all but unshakeable love for the game since ARR. Been playing since 1.0's beta, and even though I left that early, ARR onward has captivated me, with Shadowbringers being my favorite narrative in any medium (vidya, TV, books, or otherwise).

The long and short of it is that both the writing and pacing of Dawntrail are not good, and in some places are actually really bad.

And here's the thing - I actually enjoyed Wuk Lamat and the gang's quest for the Infinity Starbursts. I am not going to say that it was absolutely captivating, but I enjoyed learning about the different cultures of this new area, and it just felt cozy and nice. I appreciated that we were working hard to defeat racism and promote acceptance.

Basically the SECOND Mamook wraps up, however, I can't help but feel that narrative just takes an absolute tumble. The player has been teased about the Golden City for over a year now, annnnnnd we're just going to turn away and leave. Obviously I understand now that there are narrative contrivances for why we couldn't cross through the gate, but for us to instead have to pick up poop and have the remaining Scions shoehorned back into the story...it just feels so bad?

In the interest of being fully transparent, I am still progressing through Alexandria, but even this is boring me to tears. Certainly each of the game's previous expansions have had ups and downs, and lulls in their narratives, but I have NEVER felt this way about the story in XIV - raid storylines and post EW included.

I don't really know how coherent this rambling is, but I guess I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who feels so disappointed. I keep thinking of the "look how they massacred my boy" gif from The Godfather....

Edit: Music still absolutely slaps though