Dawntrail is the first expansion where I started skipping cutscenes. The story is bad

[chizLemons]

i found the first part of the story to be alright, it wasnt amazing but it still kept my attention however i just got to heritage found and the story has done a 180 on me, iam seriously contemplating on whether or not i should just skip the rest of the story or if it gets good at a certain point and i should just rough it out. everyone i seen complaining about the story all seem to hate the first half and liked the 2nd half but for me its the opposite

The second half at least has better pacing, which is probably why more people enjoy it better. The story is so full of holes and problems, and treats its themes so badly, that thinking back I think it's actually worse than the first one, but for different reasons.
I also really dislike where they seem to be wanting to with it it and the aftermatch of that. They said it was "lower stakes" and I felt lied to.

[Derio]

I never skip cutscenes and didnt start now. But gosh this MSQ was very hard to take in because of how poorly paced it was. Similar to Endwalker start I wish the expansions would have a more dynamic start like SB, SHB and HW.

The music is great and encounter design is much improved. However with the lackluster job updates and MSQ being you babysitting a character most of the time I think DT deserves the mixed review score.

[Laerune]

BTW do we know why Ishikawa is not writing anymore?

[Malthir]

The second half at least has better pacing, which is probably why more people enjoy it better. The story is so full of holes and problems, and treats its themes so badly, that thinking back I think it's actually worse than the first one, but for different reasons.
I also really dislike where they seem to be wanting to with it it and the aftermatch of that. They said it was "lower stakes" and I felt lied to.

I agree the second half is slightly better, but I think the first half has created so many issues it drags the second half down. The only other issue is the second halves big bad has just a purely evil motive, but they try to play it as morally grey.
Spoiler

Talking about Sphene, her end goal is basically eat all life in the universe, which make it impossible for you to have any kind of feeling about destorying her people because there's no good end to her plan. Take the Ascians as comparison, they want to destory the world, but the reason is they want to restore it to the paradise it was. All of us that will die are actually just fragments of the people that lived back then, so in away we're not really dying just becoming whole again, in a twisted kinda way. That makes you feel something, there's a good end goal to their plan. The endless are basically just a fatal parasite that the writers are trying to make use feel bad about removing. If there was a certain amount of souls she needed to consume before her people would be restored to life etc it would be slightly different but nope just consume all life in the universe. It's basically a juvenile attempt at exploring nihilism and consumerism.

[SwadTheFrog]

BTW do we know why Ishikawa is not writing anymore?

I believe she took a managerial/supervisor role in the writing department. And if she did, the fact that she didn't see any this and go "wait, what are you doing?" is a little worrying.

[Doriann]

And somehow that's still the stronger part of the expansion

[Aurumis]

I skipped the entire Living memory zone except the part with G'raha, Krile paren'ts and Erenville.
I didn't even care about Sphene. You can't sold me someone being a good person but also wanting to kill everyone her friends loves just to justifiy their people to keep being zombies, and data zombies. Not even for surviving, just because she was selfish. All the time making me see her as a good person but, the thing is: she is not, stop trying to force it.

I also skipped half of the entire Wuk Lamat rite arc, I never did this before but it's just I couldn't take it anymore. And the missing opportunity that they could do something cool with references and the same theme as ff9? Just not used.
Recycling all the music of ff9 and expansions from before when this is suppose to be an entire new saga?

I'm just so dissapointed. Bring Ishikawa back.

[ryouma17]

so basically i can skip the rest of the MSQ and miss nothing of value if so then thats definitely what iam gonna do

for me it was zone 4
when we finally get to open the seal and then walk away into another filler zone instead

zone 4 is the wild west area right? if so thats when my interest started to wane, the quests where so boring, i didnt care about the generic western movie plot of the sheriff is actually the big bad gang leader and i had no interest in helping baby face save his friends from being falsely imprisoned, also when they had that duel with rubber bullets i rolled me eyes so hard they almost fell outta me skull, also the cutscene where they was working on the train what in hydaelynns name was with that choice of music

[ryouma17]

I also skipped half of the entire Wuk Lamat rite arc, I never did this before but it's just I couldn't take it anymore..

even during the most boring parts of the game i've never skipped any scenes or dialogue but dawntrail is really making me want to do that and is the first time making me not care about the story, most people hate ARR but i find it enjoyable, yes the pace is slow but it adds so much world building that without ARR the expansions wouldnt be nearly as epic, my most hated expansion up to this point was stormblood but even then i still was invested in the story and stuck through it to the end, yes STB has moments i lost interest and didnt care but it also had some really good moments (i really loved the yotsuyu plot leading up to the trial boss) dawntrail is the first expansion where iam contemplating skipping cutscenes and just saying FU to this story cause i just do not care about it anymore

EDIT: "most hated" is too strong a word what i should say is stormblood is my least favorite expansion cause in the end while i liked it the least i did infact not hate it

[BakoolJaJa]

so basically i can skip the rest of the MSQ and miss nothing of value if so then thats definitely what iam gonna do

zone 4 is the wild west area right? if so thats when my interest started to wane, the quests where so boring, i didnt care about the generic western movie plot of the sheriff is actually the big bad gang leader and i had no interest in helping baby face save his friends from being falsely imprisoned, also when they had that duel with rubber bullets i rolled me eyes so hard they almost fell outta me skull, also the cutscene where they was working on the train what in hydaelynns name was with that choice of music

For an expansion that was supposed to set up the beginning of the new arc, there is suspiciously little that seems in any way important. With ARR everybody says "yes, it's slow and boring, but you should try and stick with it, it's important to know the characters, the world, the antagonists, etc for the future" and that's true. If you skip ARR then the transition into HW doesn't do much at all, the character growth is uninteresting and when way later some characters like Gaius return, you'll be scratching your head in confusion.

Dawntrail, the first half is just nothing, the only thing you need to know is that there's a new Dawnservant. Second half, Zone 4 is also nothing. Ending of second half, the antagonist will doubtfully return in the future, so unimportant as well. Really, there is one single item that will likely be of interest in the future, and you can currently explain everything we know about it in less than a sentence. That's it. That's the story of Dawntrail.