Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[Godzillaxpowerrangers]

Wuk Lamat is likely the most insufferable character I've ever come across in any video game, it's quite literally 'Poochie' and I only hope it suffers the same fate

Now now. Wuk Lamat wants our character's to stay in Tural so she can become the player character. That way the devs can save time and money not having to make gear or weapons since Wuk Lamat won't need them. She will also go by warrior of tacos instead of Warrior of light.

[Rueby]

So, I reached the point where the city gets attacked...

Old lady cries for help but help is conveniently too far away, lady dies, guard goes into rage mode, rushes in blind and dies as well.
In the aftermath, a few mamool ja children are supposedly orphaned. One wandering the square back and forth crying for mom and dad, npcs? No one gives a shit. Shop keepers? Yeah business as usual. Alisaie? Standing in the corridor, issues? Wuk Lamat.



I expected this story to give a shit about these children....I wandered around the city after the attack and one of the taco shop keepers gave me a 'these soldiers need some tacos to resolve conflict' are you kidding me? You saw people get butchered in the streets and the writing is like 'yes, food will bring us together'



Really...? They really are taking this taco thing abit too far it's obnoxious.

Dead body at the beach, kept for plot (Wuk Lamat) reasons is left there, meanwhile no one is losing appetite over dead bodies. It's of course time for tacos. I understand stress eating is a thing but come on....




I hate this whole Lamat'yi that Alisaie has latched onto. Wuk Lamat goes to help 2 people, suddenly she needs rest? We had no concept of time passing. Even continuity errors in the throne room. The throne got sliced in half but no debris in the next cutscene...what?

It's so upsetting to see Erenville- who got wrangled into this mess ask about his village and we act like we're in scooby doo. Then Y'shtola, the beacon of wisdom and compassion....tells him that the scions are disbanded in the most passive aggressive way...who wrote this? Why are all characters acting so unlikeable? Why am I essentially rendered into the camera man to watch Zoraal Ja kill his father because of honor? What use is honor when your people are being butchered on the street because your son/brother is delusional? Why didn't Krile tell anyone? Or warn anyone of what she saw, it was implied that he was going to do something to his 'family' in the 2nd jumpscare at the cooking contest- or is it just a fourth wall break?

When Zenos captured her in SB she talked to HIM. Who was she talking to when she got two jumpscares from looking into Zoraal Ja's 'heart' I guess? If it's just foreshadowing it sucks because it kinda spoils what's to come. Just like Y'shtola came in with no knowledge whatsoever and pulled 'gate to another reflection' thanks for ruining any mystery.
I guess Krile's parents were waiting with baby at the gate and expecting random person to accept and raise their child. No questions asked.

I see the writer seems fond of that topic?
Wuk Lamat? Real father puts her in the care of another and ceases to exist as her parent
Koana? Literally abandons/ditches him.
Erenville? Mother favored adventuring over him? And would rather leave him with Auntie over here...damn? (I hope I'm wrong?)
Krile? Mother and Father are from another reflection, leave her in the care of a complete stranger and then run back. Why not stay?
Random kids in city? Orphaned and no one cares, even the so called heroes from across the salt, their promise would rather try her chance with a dead body.
Bakool Ja Ja? Father might as well be the embodiment of asian parent, but at least he came around.

I know this is abit nitpicky but these little things kinda feel awful. Also what the hell is going on with the voice acting? Koana and Wuk Lamat giving a speech from high balcony to whom? No one can hear you speaking softly to each other.

Bomb train....sigh..I have no words.
I just feel sorry for Erenville...one regular guy surrounded by a literal circus. I don't see why Y'shtola and G'raha were necessary. Why disband the scions in the first place when it's meaningless anyway?

I thought it might get better, but it seems like the entire story is getting from bad to worse. I would've liked a Rhalgr's reach like solo duty where we tried to help people, even the attack on the crystarium/lakeland felt more involved. I think it would've been nice to have arrived LATE at the palace because we were saving civilians or TRYING. Instead we just stood there to watch. Even Estinien is getting way more action than us...what the hell?

I believe there's more issues to the story than Wuk Lamat, the fact that everyone doesn't question her dumb ideas and goes along with it.

The most fun I had was getting away from Wuk Lamat and the scions and being in Shaaloani with Erenville, the story was still stupid, but it was at least tolerable. I enjoyed the music there....the story/npcs/voice acting? Pretty bad.

=================

I think the attack on the city was cool, but I think it suffers from Endwalker syndrome, where we just 'watch'. Ahewann got eaten in slow motion as we watched. I would've preferred this be a solo duty, Rhalgar's Reach and the Lakeland solo duty were both good. Yes, it showed you that you couldn't save everyone, even Rhalgar's reach showed you that you can also be powerless. Even Estinien is getting more action than us. When do I get to help people and stop being the camera man? When do I get AWAY from Wuk Lamat.

If you want to make the player feel helpless, this isn't the way to do it. In the Cold was an amazing solo duty prior to its nerf that showed that they can make you feel helpless- that you can't save everyone.

Where are the Landguard? Why aren't they in the city proper helping civilians? All I'm seeing are scattered NPCs being confused/scared some even returned to their duties like nothing happened. It's a jarring experience.

Oh also, the 'speech' was really horrible, I think it might've been the director's fault, addresses the masses from a high above balcony but Koana and Wuk Lamat are talking to people as if they're sitting together in a room. How are these people hearing these softly spoken motivational words. I saw someone say the VAs said that they were given lines to read but no context....if so, it makes sense in this case...

[Allegor]

I know this is abit nitpicky but these little things kinda feel awful.

See, that's how I thought too at first, just me being nitpicky, but when there are that many "little things" to the point you can make a list, then they're not nitpicks, they're a pattern. The whole narrative is just a mess with or without Wuk Lamat.

[CamuiKushi]

See, that's how I thought too at first, just me being nitpicky, but when there are that many "little things" to the point you can make a list, then they're not nitpicks, they're a pattern. The whole narrative is just a mess with or without Wuk Lamat.

Yup. The game has conditioned us to expect a certain level of attention to detail over the years. We wouldn't expect so much if the game hadn't always been about the little things.

I'm playing through the DRK quests on an alt at the moment and I'm sitting here wondering what Fray would think of the stuff we're made to do during DT.

[lolnotacat]

snip...

I've noticed Hiroi loves making every story about parental issues of some sort. It's like he grew up on bad JP dramas (which love the trope as much as he does) and thinks that's the only kind of character motivations that exist.

[Eyrilona]

Yup. The game has conditioned us to expect a certain level of attention to detail over the years. We wouldn't expect so much if the game hadn't always been about the little things.

I'm playing through the DRK quests on an alt at the moment and I'm sitting here wondering what Fray would think of the stuff we're made to do during DT.

What Fray would think? Well.. I imagine that if there was the choice to actually do what Fray would want in the situations we were put through, the part in zone six where your character is suddenly on board with it that a genocide is needed to advance the plot, would have happened a few zones earlier in the msq.

[Carin-Eri]

So, I reached the point where the city gets attacked...

Old lady cries for help but help is conveniently too far away, lady dies, guard goes into rage mode, rushes in blind and dies as well.
In the aftermath, a few mamool ja children are supposedly orphaned. One wandering the square back and forth crying for mom and dad, npcs? No one gives a shit. Shop keepers? Yeah business as usual. Alisaie? Standing in the corridor, issues? Wuk Lamat.

Nice catch! This bothered me too, because it was SO out of character for Alisaie considering her reactions to the very similar circumstances with Ga Bu and Halric!

[Daralii]

I'm playing through the DRK quests on an alt at the moment and I'm sitting here wondering what Fray would think of the stuff we're made to do during DT.

[Kennar]

....I wandered around the city after the attack and one of the taco shop keepers gave me a 'these soldiers need some tacos to resolve conflict' are you kidding me? You saw people get butchered in the streets and the writing is like 'yes, food will bring us together'...

I just got through this section on an alt yesterday, but I didn't talk to any NPCs. Holy crap, that line about tacos is awful. I would call it tone-deaf, but this is something beyond that. And from a practical matter, we figured out pretty quick that those "soldiers" aren't even human and couldn't eat a taco anyway.

On my second pass through the story, I'm fairly well convinced that much of Hiroi's inspiration is a reaction to modern politics and discourse. He's looking at how people treat each other on social media, the vitriol and mean-spirited arguments that infest so much of our daily lives, and saying that if we can just sit down and talk things over we might find out that we have more in common than we think. I think that is admirable and even worthy to an extent; after all, it is more difficult to hate a man once you get to know him. However, that kind of falls apart when it comes down to existential matters of life and death, and the destruction of all that we know.

[CuteBucket]

I thought it might get better, but it seems like the entire story is getting from bad to worse. I would've liked a Rhalgr's reach like solo duty where we tried to help people, even the attack on the crystarium/lakeland felt more involved. I think it would've been nice to have arrived LATE at the palace because we were saving civilians or TRYING. Instead we just stood there to watch. Even Estinien is getting way more action than us...what the hell?

[Spoilers for the last 2/3rds of Dawntrail]
I had a lot of patience for the first half when I first played through. Are there issues? oh GOD YES, there's many, but I was kind of willing to quash my feelings for the moment because I still believed "well, this is kind of silly and stupid, but it's probably building to something cool." There's been some stupid moments in the plot before (like everything with the Lopporits in Endwalker) where I could just roll my eyes and move on because I trusted we'd get to something interesting and good again soon. I was trying to give it the benefit of the doubt so hard. Wuk Lamat is an annoying idiot? That's okay, I bet she'll have a moment of character growth and get better. The people of Tural seem kind of shallow and need some outsider to come solve very obvious problems for them? It's all part of the Rite of Succession, it's a test to see how the challengers approach problem solving, sure, whatever. Gulool Ja Ja dies in a stupid way to his son? Well, they could have handled that better, but I understand what they were going for thematically I guess.

I kept doing that over and over and over again until I got to zone 5 and couldn't do it anymore, because I realized they were building toward NOTHING. Wuk Lamat has the poorest excuse for character development I've ever seen. Lyse had her annoying moments in Stormblood, but she was humbled by her naivete and got better later (even if she didn't quite earn her position in a satisfying way). Wuk Lamat just learns that empathy is her superpower and that somehow lets her win fights and make friends with everyone she wants (not even remotely how empathy works, obviously). The people of Tural apparently ARE just that shockingly clueless and needed Wuk Lamat to solve their problems by teaching them to [checks notes] listen to others and believe in each other. That's great for resolving disputes among friends, but that can't actually solve a lot of political conflict, now, can it? Gulool Ja Ja dies while we just stand there slack-jawed and watch it happen? That whole "siege" felt like a nothing-burger when there was no instanced battle where we had to fight off and defend people in the city, and while we were busy doing Hero Stuff, Gulool Ja Ja dies, and we see it in an echo vision or something to catch us back up.

And then we learn nothing and go to Solution 9 with the same Friendship is Magic mentality in a place it explicitly does not belong because they are a hostile enemy nation! But I'm sure if we all get to know each other and share some food, we can overcome all of our differences and find peace, right?

Can you imagine if the war with the Garlean Empire was handled this way in Stormblood? If we had some tag-along insisting that all we needed to do to end the war was just befriend Varis or Zenos and share some Garlean Pizza and Doman Rice Balls together? If we could come to understand them by learning about how sad it is to be a Garlean, and they just have to conquer the whole world to be able to end prejudice against Garleans or something completely unethical and ridiculous like that? Can you imagine if during the fight with Shinryu at the end, the annoying tag-along came bursting into the fight out of literally nowhere and went "Zenos! Listen to me! I understand you, I really do!" Because that's pretty much how the last 2/3rds felt to me.