Revelations from Dawntrail (7.0)

[Alleluia]

Regarding lalafells:

Tthe milala you talk to in the air themed garden’s msq, right next to the aetheryte. He says that he comes from xyz village and that the people there greet each other with “lali-ho”. I cannot see any way a greeting that specific could evolve independently twice, so I can only conclude that this means some of the milala dimension hopped again at some point (as krile’s parents say they were trying to do) and became the ancestors of dwarves.

[Fenral]

I cleared a while ago and might have spent too long digesting this one, but let's see what I can cough up.

WoL dialogue choices (MSQ clear)

I second the feeling that Wuk Lamat stole all my lines. I get that she needs someone edgy to play off of to seem more idealistic, really not thrilled about it being me.

Also, when Gulool Ja is asking the WoL about family, I wanted to outright namedrop the Scions or at least mention something to the effect of found family (given the direction he was about to be taken in), but it wouldn't let me. Endsinger did happen, right? What's with the aloof card?

That Final Zone

I think some variant of Memoria was inevitable. Where FFIX's was the heart of the FF multiverse (!?!?) and included some surprise bosses from earlier games, this one was trying to serve FFIX nostalgia except, as many times as I've played that game, I don't actually remember riding a gondola. That definitely happens in Fantasian, though.

I liked the plausible deniability gondola date. G'raha has no way of knowing this, but the Exarch's timeline did actually survive, but it was still nice that he was around to point out the elephant in the room after seemingly ignoring it through Endwalker.

I could have lived without Amaurot 3 as the final dungeon, though. It's a good recipe for a setpiece dungeon, but I miss the sheer spectacle of the Aetherochemical Research Facility.

All that grumbling aside, I really like Sphene. I feel like the story is usually pretty naive with how it throws about phrases "at any cost" when there's not much cost to be paid, but the entire Alexandria arc goes there. I think she might have actually improved on FFIX Garland by having a slightly more tangible objective than weird metaphysical terraforming. An Ascian was definitely involved in the groundwork here, but I'm curious how and why it got cut short. To be continued in 7.X?

Good Boys All Around

Like, seriously, though. Did the NPC team wake up one day and suddenly remember that Hyur boys are cute? Between the Viper storyline and MSQ post-95, I ate really well, but had no idea any of that was going to be on the menu. That's on top of Bakool Ja Ja earning his card and keeping it, and the surprise Gulool Ja we didn't even know existed.

I was totally expecting Zekowa to live up to his character archetype (the "young gun") and win the duel but die anyway because his opponent was using live ammo, but he circumvented that possibility entirely by drawing faster and shooting the gun. We're not in Heavensward anymore, Toto.

I'm glad that extradimensional lookalikes aren't limited to Rowena and Gerolt.

Shepetto... just kind of exists? You can check in on him after certain events and his position and dialogue changes, but I still don't know why we have a unique face model on a character with only 5 lines in the MSQ. That entire settlement was strangely underutilized.

Overall, I'd put this one around Stormblood tier. Good, but not the best. I think it knew it had the thankless task of being a breather episode after Endwalker and did the best it could within those parameters.

[SannaR]

MSQ

The story was fine. Did I tear up in some places? Yeah, but not as much or as often as in Shadowbringers or Endwalker. I didn't expect the mamool ja bath dancer to be on the boat. Nor any nods to the silverbacks from Wander's Palace Hard. I really wanted to be able to have an option when we 1st met Bakool Ja Ja that he's not as special as he thinks due to us having beaten up a different two-headed mamool ja. Also didn't expect Krile again to be the only one to bring up you being a respected healer (if you were playing as one) or that you have culinary skills if you at least unlocked culinarian.

At one point when Koana was still super focused on his belief that only future innovations were the way to go if the story wasn't some kind of allegory for Japan. As many a time the country has needed to find its way and a middle ground of going forward with innovation while also understanding why some still prefer the older ways of doing things. While also having a part of the country's ruling power seeking war for one reason or another.

I do wonder if those who followed Zoraal ja or placed their hopes for him to win really understood what it meant when it came to things like more territory to trade or more farm land. As I'm not certain any of them thought that meant what it really would have meant.

I was fine with Wuk's involvement in the story even in the 2nd half. In the 1st we're meant to be a mentor. After all everyone who knows us has told Wuk Lamat that not only are we a very experienced fighter, but that we're world traveler. In the second half it makes sense to me for her to come along and jump into things. Even at the end of the 3rd trial. I'm not sure if you're supposed to use a healer LB for the 2nd count down or not. I just know that when my group got to that point both times due to us wiping we used it to raise about half the group or more. If that's actually what you're supposed to do then wow.

But I also felt bad for Krile as she barely got any screen time and any time she tried to ask more about her earring or why Gaulf had been there she got told "sorry it's not my place to say." I also felt bad for Erenville as even tho he was our narrator I got the impression that someone didn't like him as the poor man just kept on having the worst time except when he teamed up with Thancred for one part of the feat of repast.

I also expected him to blow up at his mother sooner than he did with all of the "My fussy little bunbun." and the constant use of his birth name despite him telling her and Iyaate of his chosen name.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was starting to become suspicious of Wuk Evu as he kept on showing up everywhere only to give us exposition or a help of some kind. Didn't expect Ketenramm to still be alive l, but he looks good for an old man that's been asked to keep an eye on the mamook mamool ja and the gate. I did think that he had died when his full set of tablets had been stolen.

It does feel a bit strange that Bakool ja ja didn't get punished for all of the crappy things he did until he got beaten by Wuk Lamat. Yet I don't think he would have even tried to become a claimant if he hadn't been conditioned to think the way he had by his father and those who were staunch believers in Blessed Siblings. I also find it sad, but hilarious that only in the Japanese version Bakool the mighty's laugh sounds like donkey/monkey laughter. Which to me makes it feel as the devs were trying to hint at much more about him by giving him that laugh.

Um when did Vrtra have kids? Or are we to assume those were actually Azdaja's kids? Cause all throughout Endwalker it was only the dragon or a dragon. Even Vrtra himself never mentions having a brood of his own and most of the ones shown were way bigger than what you'd think his would be if they were fairly young.

Also where are we sure Galool ja isn't a clone of Zoraal ja? We get zero mention of his mother and those two are the only mamool ja we ever see in Heritage Found, Solution Nine or Living Memories. That and it feels strange that the body Otis is in is of a blue skined Hoobigo. Especially if he supposedly has been in that machine for a few hundred years.

Sphene is the poorest villain ever and that's even putting her under Grynewaht. For me she just felt like a worse version of Meteion. I get that she's an AI, but you're going to tell me that there was no way to convince her even a little bit to change her ways? Cause yes death and loosing friends, family, lovers sucks but it doesn't mean that they're gone the instant they died.

Normally I'll go and poke npcs to see what they said, but when I reached Living Memory I just couldn't be bothered to clicked on any of the ones the msq or the few quests we get in the zone didn't have us interact with. Cause I couldn't care less. I tend to be very empathetic, but if you can't even get me to care enough about some random npc I'm about to delete the memories of then there's something wrong.

I haven't done any of the Doh/Dol stuff outside of the initial quests. I did however like that if you're a Viera the non quest giving Viera for the Bnt/min quest mentions that they think it'll be fun working with two other Viera. I also liked that if you at least have blue unlocked that you could mention knowing Martyn in the fishing quest.

I have also only done the caster and healing role quests. The caster one took til the lv98 one to start to annoy me. The healing one annoyed me the instant we meet the antagonists. We at least learn why the guy in the caster is doing what he is doing, but the two in the healing never say why Ellerete and Kokonowa are doing what they are doing outside the fact that their mischief was never liked in the past. And I mean in the why do they think their mischief should be seen in a better light. As it felt that their tricks were misunderstood. I also felt the role quests felt like Hildibrand light and that scares me due to knowing we will have more Hildibrand later on. I used to not mind Hildibrand until Godbert for the relic quests revealed that the secret ingredient for one of the steps was literally sweat.

Oh and why was Estinien even in the MSQ? He felt so out of place. Yes we knew he would be somewhere in Tural due to the cutscene in 6.55 and the trailer, but he just felt so disconnected from everything else. I'm pretty sure you could have taken him out of the MSQ and it wouldn't have changed much except for when he could show off that yes he is fully capable of taking care of all the hover bikes.

[Cleretic]

Regarding lalafells:

Tthe milala you talk to in the air themed garden’s msq, right next to the aetheryte. He says that he comes from xyz village and that the people there greet each other with “lali-ho”. I cannot see any way a greeting that specific could evolve independently twice, so I can only conclude that this means some of the milala dimension hopped again at some point (as krile’s parents say they were trying to do) and became the ancestors of dwarves.

That part's probably more joke than anything, but my read:

Perhaps dwarves are just more common than lalafel across the shards, for whatever reason; maybe the Source's lalafel would've been like that too, but constant calamities meant that the lalafel eventually lost that culture through much more cycles of migration, integration and diaspora, until eventually winding up in the South Sea Isles among other places.

Really though, it's just a joke relating to the fact that FFIX also had the 'lali-ho'-style dwarves off in their own community; Conde Petie didn't survive, so we're not exactly able to visit.

WoL dialogue choices (MSQ clear)

I second the feeling that Wuk Lamat stole all my lines. I get that she needs someone edgy to play off of to seem more idealistic, really not thrilled about it being me.

Also, when Gulool Ja is asking the WoL about family, I wanted to outright namedrop the Scions or at least mention something to the effect of found family (given the direction he was about to be taken in), but it wouldn't let me. Endsinger did happen, right? What's with the aloof card?

They're going for vagueness in a few places, and I personally liked it.

In both this scene with Otis and Gulool Ja, and the gondola scene with G'raha, we're given choices that we never would have before; I can easily see a world where the Gulool Ja scene isn't a question and just shows us a freeze-frame of one of the Scion gatherings, and similarly where G'raha's question about if we have someone we'd want to see again with a flashback to Harchefaunt (there's realistically like a dozen characters they could pick from there, but let's not kid ourselves, it'd just be Harchefaunt).

I think it's a good angle; for all FFXIV likes letting us define the WoL's verbal responses to things, they've never been this willing to define their emotional responses, and I found it really refreshing that this time they actually let me choose that. I liked being able to say 'yeah my WoL feels they have a found family' (without the game declaring one for me) and 'no my WoL doesn't want to revisit the dead' without the game butting in and going 'no your WoL still mourns and regrets the death of this one specific man and nobody else'.

[17cupsofcoffee]

They're going for vagueness in a few places, and I personally liked it.

I feel like there were a lot of moments in DT that were handled with a bit more subtlety than normal, and it was a really nice change of pace. The one that stuck in my head was...

The scene between Wuk Lamat and her real dad, after we save him from Bakool Ja Ja - so much of their interaction was left to subtext, and I feel like the scene hit a lot harder for it.

The gondola scene was a big one for me as well - I was immediately bracing myself for the Hauchefant freeze-frame, so it was a pleasant surprise that they let you just... read into it whatever you wanted. More of that, please!

[Fenral]

I feel like there were a lot of moments in DT that were handled with a bit more subtlety than normal, and it was a really nice change of pace. The one that stuck in my head was...

The gondola scene was a big one for me as well - I was immediately bracing myself for the Hauchefant freeze-frame, so it was a pleasant surprise that they let you just... read into it whatever you wanted. More of that, please!

I don't disagree with this in principle, but...

...for my WoL it's a really awkward question considering it's G'raha asking. Both times the subject came up, the "good" choice felt like it was phrased in such a way as to specifically rule out the intent I would have gone for. A vague "I already did" might have preserved the intended segue while not clearly specifying any particular miraculous rescue.

To me it felt like the choices were between "I don't have people I care about" or "Yes, I would absolutely tarnish Haurchefant's memory with necromancy" and neither of those really fit. Even G'raha's response ultimately led to "but not like this," and after Amaurot it kind of already feels like the WoL could have landed at that conclusion. An option to acknowledge that I haven't been sleeping in class for the past five years would have been nice.

("Call his name" was such a good option in Shadowbringers. You didn't have to pick it, but it was perfect for the people who wanted to.)

[SannaR]

Wild speculation about races.

I wonder if all the races used to be bigger the closer to the sundering we get. As if you talk to the High Luminary he says that most Yok Huy aren't able to grow as tall as he is after they retreated from the north. That his people used to be his height on a regular basis. Which got me thinking of well what if the other races also used to be a lot bigger than what they are today? Just with all the wars and whatnot no one else has been able to keep as continuous record of their history as the Yok Huy have due to seemingly a lack of interference by the Ascians. I know it's just one example and that the illness they encountered seemed to be the culprit as to why they're no longer able to reach such heights and it would be a tad far fetched if that is also the reason why no other race retained a part of them that made them stand out.

I doubt it's sheer coincidence that

A post sundering world expanding empire didn't exist and didn't somehow have the ability to cross to the other reflections. As we find isn't Ronkan but looks the same structures at the end of the "It belongs in a museum." dungeon including a serpent of not Ronka. We also see the same structure in the floor 70 area of Heaven on High which we know was made if not repurposed by the Allagans. Along with it showing up in the 1st as Ronkan great serpent and all.

[Iscah]

Level 98, arrived in Solution Nine.

I said at some point in the past that I didn't want S9 to be an evil empire because it would be too similar to Eulmore, and it seem that prediction has turned out right. So far it's feeling like the same vibe dressed up in sci-fi tropes but Vauthry's a pretty girl and the citizens know what's in the meol.

I've also written, perhaps a little too fervently, about the alternate (now thoroughly debunked) possibility of it being "just another town" with an unusual aetherial situation and architecture to suit, and I still think I would have preferred that low-stakes approach to make it just a fun town to arrive in, not feeling wary and ominous.

I'm assuming Sphene is some kind of aetherial construct or equivalent.

Also the whole "calamity in the reflection" thing goes against everything that was explained to us in Shadowbringers about how calamities work; doubly so when it sounds far more like they caused a Flood of Lightning, which the Ascians should have known about - which they briefly let us suggest, then skimmed straight over. Maybe it could work if the accelerated time in the shard means the Flood happened really recently by Source time, to the degree that it hadn't yet occurred in Shadowbringers, and everyone there is now using the term "calamity" generically to describe a disaster and not an Umbral Calamity.


On the general subject of redoing things that Shadowbringers did first, it feels like the writers now feel obliged to have some kind of "all your past allies come together to help you get to the important objective" scene every time. It was great in Shadowbringers, probably necessary in Endwalker as the grand finale of everything, but now it's feeling a bit formulaic.


I'm bothered by the logic of how Cahciua has an American accent and not the same as Erenville. Also figuring there's a strong chance she's actually dead and it's just her memories in the bot.

Still waiting on an explanation of how Erenville actually came to be regular friends with Wuk Lamat as kids if he was living over in Yyasulani and she was in Tuliyollal. Parents were friends, I guess, so maybe some regular visits where they were playmates by default, which would explain the mismatched "we're best friends since childhood" / "we're just acquaintances" attitudes. But they make it sound more frequent than that.


Finding exact copies of the Ahm Araeng railroad team is also a bit jarring, but I guess now we can know what Magnus's wife Agna looked like. I was hoping they might go and redo some of those flashback narrative screenshots to actually show her, though I guess that would ideally require them to make a child Hrothgar model as well for their son. (They should use it as an excuse, and finally make all the other races' child models as well.)

This expansion's character modelling budget has evidently gone into filing out the Mamool Ja though, with two types of female characters and the children as well - which (come to think of it) is perhaps why we've ended up with recycled beast tribes for the other village groups.


I'm going to guess that the Hhetsaro tribe is going to be one of our "society quest" groups in the patches. Unless they're suddenly going to get some big role in the finale, it seemed a bit weird to have us detour to a town just to say "hello, nice to meet you, goodbye" and then have no further plot with them. Or are they involved in one of the role quests?


Nice to see Alisaie finally saying "Raha" in line with the Japanese version. I wonder if they can go back and edit the previous recorded lines too?


On a minor note, the cities are huge and it takes too long to walk anywhere. Tuliyollal absolutely feels like we should have access to mounts, being all outdoors and probably as big as a field zone, and Solution Nine could do with some more of those fancy teleporter pads positioned along the streets so you can speed along the pathways without just teleporting through the aethernet. It would let them give that sense of scale without making it tedious to traverse.

[Denishia]

Re: Erenville's accent

they needed just one line where they pointed out that he had adopted an Othardian Viera accent to go with his Viera instead of Shetona name

Child models and Hrothgals

reminding myself that we have no baby Hrothgar model is why Wuk Lamat's backstory with the cenote is unshown and unresolved. I did like seeing the trolley guys again and expanding it to other random NPCs, though they need to do Source counterparts that are explicitly other races so our WoL and Ardbert aren't the weird outlier. Agna was the female Hrothgar to give the clue about what she looked like if any were, but I do hope retroactively the First gets Hrothgal NPCs and another Viera male that isn't Anden. And Bozja.

Gulool Ja Ja's adventuring party

meet-ups and the original Tuliyollal government is my guess for the familiarity, and glad I nailed that was Erenville's backstory instead of a secret fourth prince. The unnamed Hrothgar in the flashback is probably a grandfather of Hunmu and I have a feeling our Alliance Raid into Vana'diel or the Shade's Triangle or Deep Dungeon will have Ketennram call up the other surviving adventure buddy, probably the Moblin, to be the NPC to start us on the questline.

[Iscah]

Gulool Ja Ja's adventuring party

meet-ups and the original Tuliyollal government is my guess for the familiarity, and glad I nailed that was Erenville's backstory instead of a secret fourth prince.

Ah yeah, that was something I was glad about too.

The theories about him secretly being a prince felt like it would be making him "too special" and I'm glad they didn't go that route in the end.

Krile feels like she might be going somewhere in that direction though.