Dawntrail's MSQ story is a disaster and waste of potential. [full spoilers]

[Remiferia]

Not fun or interactive enough to be considered the 'summer vacation expansion', not serious or well-told enough to hold the weight of its more serious themes. I find it quite impressive how there's a writing team in Square Enix that managed to find the perfect middle ground to create the least interesting story possible.

All of the whimsical moments in the trailer either didn't happen at all or were crammed into the final credits. The entire first half could have been a series of Ninja Warrior courses and tasks and duties but instead we were teaching tribes about cold food and bartering with Pelupelu in a way where none of our decisions affected anything at all.

All of the serious moments were bogged down by contrivances, bad voice acting, moral inconsistencies not only within the game as a whole but also within its own core message of cultural understanding, acceptance and celebrating our diversity. The script is awful, the important moments aren't given enough time to breathe, and overall I responded to nearly everything by saying 'Oh they're just doing this again'.

Sphene is another Emet. Alexandria another Amaurot. Her goals are Ascian. They wanted an 'everyone comes together!' moment like the Golem in ShB, they wanted a 'remember these characters from the last expansion?' moment with Vrtra agreeing to put his life on the line for Tuliyollal from a single phone call. We are just bridging gaps between us and beast tribes again. Trying to force a tear out of me by giving me THREE scenarios where I had to say goodbye to a parental figure in the space of an hour was intolerable. How about you actually write a story that makes me emotional on its own merits instead. Desperate.

I would be embarrassed to have written this, tbh. It's just a rehash of all the moral dilemmas we've already experiences and grown from. The story didn't actually say anything at all, nor did any character arcs except perhaps Zoraal Ja. It felt emotionally manipulative in parts and other moments that tried to be emotional on its own were hilariously bad (I'll never get over that train sequence so long as I live).

Just give up on MSQ if this is how it's going to be moving forward. I've never been so bored and frustrated in my life. The raid tier shows more promise in narrative and characterisation in one hour than the entire main story did.

[Teraluna]

(I'll never get over that train sequence so long as I live)

An advanced civilisation wants to prevent the train from getting to the tunnel.....simply destroy the tracks?

[TheJamJam]

I was reading through an interview when I came across this part:



It's interesting that when you read their responses, there's something absent. Both of them didn't praise Hiroi's writing and focussed on entirely other aspects.

[Raven2014]

I was reading through an interview when I came across this part:

I'm more interested in what Hiroi said, and it looks like Hiroi just failed at adapting to a new medium. Theatrics performance often focus more on the moment to moment emotion, often at the cost of reasoning, and I think it's very clear DT has this issue especially with the Mamook Ja story and the Endless. This is why Shaekespear plays on one hand are considered classical masterwork to those who can appreciate theatrical acting, on the other hand the storyboard often sounds ... stupid to contemporary viewers. Theatrical acting required a certain amount of suspension of belief so that you can immerse in the acting without questioning the what and why too much. But for contemporary story telling like a video game though ... those sticks out like a sore thump. And we can definitely see the ego all right.

[Shaedhen]

Well, it's terrible to realize that what he said was very much correct. But he completely forgot to apply the last part in the end. It's creator's individual ego shoved down our throat all the way, without any care for the "umbrella of FF14"