JP Official Forums are also criticizing the Dawntrail MSQ.

[BakoolJaJa]

I do love see people say, I thing I'm finally free of Wuk, I've just gone to zone 4 and I'm just sitting here, like, Soon Soon.

I wish I hadn't read the "second part of the story get better" promises some people were posting. They probably meant well. But man... Maybe if I didn't get my hopes up, I wouldn't have gotten even more disappointed. Even ignoring Wuk Lamat, I just can't get rid of the feeling that I've already seen this entire story essentially 1 to 1.

[EusisLandale]

Even ignoring Wuk Lamat, I just can't get rid of the feeling that I've already seen this entire story essentially 1 to 1.

"Behold the Final Days of Amaurot Alexandria"

[DarkCobalt]

I wish I hadn't read the "second part of the story get better" promises some people were posting. They probably meant well. But man... Maybe if I didn't get my hopes up, I wouldn't have gotten even more disappointed. Even ignoring Wuk Lamat, I just can't get rid of the feeling that I've already seen this entire story essentially 1 to 1.

My friend was watching along since he doesn't have a PC to play atm, and he says it feels like with the 2nd half Square ran out of ideas and did a playback of what already worked in previous expacs, just squeezed into 2 cyberpunk/modern themed zones with as much rapidfire walk-and-talk world building as they could fit in to make us feel some kind of attachment before the ending. FWIW overall I liked the 2nd half more and thought the world building was at least pretty interesting, but I can't say that it was a particularly original story. Like a 7/10.

[Souljacker]

My friend was watching along since he doesn't have a PC to play atm, and he says it feels like with the 2nd half Square ran out of ideas and did a playback of what already worked in previous expacs, just squeezed into 2 cyberpunk/modern themed zones with as much rapidfire walk-and-talk world building as they could fit in to make us feel some kind of attachment before the ending. FWIW overall I liked the 2nd half more and thought the world building was at least pretty interesting, but I can't say that it was a particularly original story. Like a 7/10.

But this is nothing new for SE. There's very little original story here. So much of it is borrowed from previous games it's not even funny - even down to the main baddies being Ascians. We called them Zilart in XI.

It's a game without an identity beyond being an amalgamation of previous games. Jobs, enemies, hell even our companions. It's like they fed the wiki of every other FF game into an AI chatbot and asked it to generate a 'new' story.

And as for Mary Sues... that's nothing new, either. Estinien is about as Mary Sue as it gets. Somehow the Mamool Ja in charge just happens to 'know' he's the most worthy fighter ever to step off a ship? Yea, Wuk Lamat certainly isn't the first OR the worst Mary Sue we've seen in this game. I'm not saying she's a great character, but I just see her as another character without a real identity... this whole game is in crisis.