FFXIV Dawntrail reviews are out on Metacritic

[Kaurhz]

If we're trusting Metacritic as completely valid then Endwalker would've been the best expansion, which many people argued it was not.

That aside though... I am generally more inclined to ignore early reviews, just because they don't really encapsulate a complete picture. So it is better IMO, just seeing what changes (If anything) when more reviews come out after the raid.

2 of these reviews are questionable, at best. Not because of the score itself, but the reasoning for the score.

[Roshidon1]

About what I expected, tbh. General consensus seems to be, good gameplay, bad story. When story is one of the highlights of FF, it hurts the game when you mess that up.

[Y2K21]

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

[coffeepotz]

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

Dragonflight: 26 critic reviews
Dawntrail: 4 critic reviews

[Y2K21]

Dragonflight: 26 critic reviews
Dawntrail: 4 critic reviews

Only 4? Still too early?

[coffeepotz]

I'd say so since having so few reviews leads to wild swings in the avg until you get a larger pool of reviews.

[BakoolJaJa]

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

Funny joke. Some people called Dragonflight the "Disney" expansion, because it wasn't about war yet again, but it is a million times less Disney than what Dawntrail delivered. Dragonflight makes you feel like an adventurer exploring new lands. Dragonflight has an awesome new dragon flying mechanic that makes an ancient game feel like something brand new. The new location design got overhauled completely, huge open, vertical world with a metric shit ton of content to do, making exploration the most enjoyable WoW ever had. Daily chores removed letting you play at your own pace. Super alt friendly which is critically important in WoW. New talent trees for classes that people liked. Etc.

Dawntrail has a shallow and childish story. Doesn't make you feel like an adventurer. No new mechanics, same structure of locations, same structure of dungeons. Same everything really, SE never try new things, old stale formula for the win. And that means a filler MSQ followed by running same old Extremes on same old brain dead classes. Wait, no. That IS something that got changed. Jobs are even more brain dead now!

So that's how.

[Y2K21]

Funny joke. Some people called Dragonflight the "Disney" expansion, because it wasn't about war yet again, but it is a million times less Disney than what Dawntrail delivered. Dragonflight makes you feel like an adventurer exploring new lands. Dragonflight has an awesome new dragon flying mechanic that makes an ancient game feel like something brand new. The location design got overhauled completely, huge open, vertical world with a metric shit ton of content to do, making exploration the most enjoyable WoW ever had. Daily chores removed letting you play at your own pace. Super alt friendly which is critically important in WoW. New talent trees for classes that people liked. Etc.

Even then, I would say all of this is opinionated because there is a hefty argument to why each thing you said is bad.

1) The story isnt the best, but then again - the writing team is in transition and the primary narrative guy is gone (Danuser). There is this overarching narrative of family that does play in each zone and in each of the tiers as well, with certain tiers have very weak writing (Zaralek campaign, Forbidden Reach).

2) Daily chores may be gone, but there is a huge argument that there is also no reason to log or to do anything outside raidlogging.

3) Talent trees are contentious for a number of reasons (no real choices, placing abilities we already had on bars just as talent nodes, the usual argument of the majority will just use WoWhead/IcyVeins, button bloat).

Its really who is looking at it at the end of the day (WoW players will call it dogshit one moment, then praise it the next). Someone who plays both might say Dawntrail pulls it off better (story wise) because simply the narrative elements are so more vast and better without retcons.

[Yshnal]

It's the first expansion in FFXIV's history where I've needed to force myself to log-in in order to keep doing the MSQ, which is the main thing that the vast majority of us experience for the first days after a new expansion drops. Some days I just played another game and didn't bother, since it was a slog (even annoying) at times. So, there's that. Don't get me wrong, it has some good things. But overall I would rate the story as a 5. Some parts and characters are terrible, other parts and characters are good. 50/50, so my 5.

In regards to the gameplay, the dungeons & trials were the usual stuff and I had fun with the Viper. But whatever, since it seems that the job might be dumbed down soon. We can't have nice things.

The graphical upgrades (aside from personal taste issues) are also mixed, since some things look better but others look worse. Or better said, they look the same as always but the contrast with the updated features makes them stand out more as ugly. For example, the body poly count and textures, or some pixelated textures that still exist in several pieces of gear and hair. Looks like a half done job, really in the same line as how viera and hrothgar were released. It's inexcusable considering how the expansion took longer to release and how little we got in the last one. I refuse to believe that devs are at fault here, so I have to question SE in regards to where the resources (and income from subs and cash shop) are being spent.

I think that the expansion as a whole being rated as a 6 sounds about right. Not terrible, but neither an enjoyable experience as a whole, despite its good parts.

[angienessyo]

How did Dawntrail get a lower metascore than Dragonflight?

I mean, Dragonflight is a good expansion. Most fun I've had in a WoW expac since WotLK. People can argue that the DF story sucks, but I mean, not many people are playing that game for its story. They also made a lot of good changes in response to community feedback.