Dawntrail’s Narrative Missteps: Why Natsuko Ishikawa’s Touch Is Sorely Missed

[ForteNightshade]

She was, and thats why I will still consider Dawntrail Ishikawa's work, she had the power to course correct, but she didn't.

Not to mention, while this may be a hot take of mine. I don't think Endwalker's main story (i.e. 6.0) was great either. It's certainly a mile above Dawntrail, but that's not exactly a high bar. Endwalker suffers from its own pacing issues, predominantly the 81 split where Thavnair, in particular, really starts to drag on. I have similar criticism towards the Moon with the whole Loporrit plot angle reaching a point where I couldn't wait to leave. Another point of contention for me is how much EW relies on poorly timed jokes to break tension. Perhaps the best example is the Puddingway scene after the Final Days hits the Garlemald camp. You have an emotionally charged scene, especially with Julius finally coming to terms with years of brainwashing, then you have the chaos of people becoming monsters all juxtapositioned with a bunny pretending to act like a zombie because he's that obsessed with pudding. It wrecks of current day MCU not letting the serious moments be serious.

And don't even get me started on how horrendously utilized Zenos and the whole Final Days plot arc is. In the latter case, it literally only impacts Thavnair on screen. Everywhere else is regulated to side quests where it's barely an inconvenience.

Suffice it to say, Ishikawa’s writing is not the gospel. She's incredibly talented, and Shadowbringers is by far her magnum opus, but she has her own struggles. Of course, the aforementioned criticism of Endwalker is only my opinion. I do think she would have done better with Dawntrail as its lead again, however he still signed off on a good portion of Dawntrail's story ideas even without writing them herself. And a number of those ideas were just bad no matter who wrote them.

[Jeeqbit]

I have similar criticism towards the Moon with the whole Loporrit plot angle reaching a point where I couldn't wait to leave.

A lot of people say that, but it was obviously intentional. They like to have a part where the story stops off and spends time with something silly and lighthearted, be they moogles, namazu, pixies or loporrits.

It's not actually my thing because I don't have a sense of "cute". But I accept they do it because they want to have a "cutesy" moment in the story like "here's a moogle out of nowhere, look how cute it is" or "here's a loporrit, look how cute they are". I suppose it must appeal to a lot of players that like that stuff.

Another point of contention for me is how much EW relies on poorly timed jokes to break tension.

I see that in a similar way to the above stuff tbh. Not my thing, but I know I'm not the only audience.

[Hallarem]

Snip.

Yeah, I appreciate her for her efforts, but like any people, including Yoshi P. They aren't perfect, the track record just isn't there.
Ishikawa and Yoshi P still (supposedly) had to okay everything that happened in DT, including that horrid SMILE song.

And I agree with the fact that Endwalker was just the downhill start point in terms of storytelling. It was clearly two expansions packed into one.
The pace just wasn't there and the cartoon/anime humor started to rear it's ugly head there, they tried to cutesify Y'shtola and I remember Yoshi P reeling them back on that, because that just wasnt her character. Some clear anime brains were let loose in that writing room.
Zenos didnt have a place in that expansion, he felt like a plot dishrag that they had to force into the scene because they couldnt come up with a plot for him.
The Puddingway scene made me actually mad. Loads of people died and they sign in for a puddingway zombie gag? Disgusting.
You could've honestly deleted the whole of Labyrinthos and maybe even Sharlayan.
Woo guess we have a spaceship that Sharlayan invented out of nowhere, wooooo. What CANT Sharlayan do?
Woo guess we have a magical energy called Dynamis that can legit be used as a writer crutch when a character isnt powerful enough and we can skip the training montage.
Woo guess Thancreds aether deficiency isnt a deficiency anymore. Hello I'm random scientist and just happened to invent a teleporter for people that can't channel their aether, how do you do
Garlemald, all that political scheming with the royal family, the populares and getting to see our antagonists city and how they live.. NOPE, destroyed OFF SCREEN

Now I like the expansion for wrapping a nice enough bow on scenes, I liked everything with Venat, it had powerful scenes with presence, thats what I loved. But the aforementioned traits just soured it for me and left me happy, but worried for the future of this game. AND LO AND BEHOLD DAWNTRAIL happened, they rushed two expansions into one, for a horrendous lackluster expansion with juvenile storytelling.