DT MSQ/Expansion - Thoughts and Opinions *Spoilers within

[Aquaticnaho]

I'm gonna start off by stating this. This isn't a thread to throw unneeded vitriol, either towards the characters, the game or even each other. Debating is fine, but when that debating turns into genuine spite filled ranting, that's when it becomes an issue.

Anyway

So, I'll be completely honest, I was going into this with very little expectations on where the story was headed. Endwalker was the expansion to end a 10 year arc and by god was it definitive and by GOD it was a memorable experience. It would be hard to pull off something of that caliber and quality so I wasn't gonna be surprised with taking a step back in story to reestablish new plot points.

The succession story was....honestly it was simple but decent. Predictable and just the sort of story I genuinely was expecting from a light hearted expansion DT was selling itself as. Yes it's basically a shounen anime plot in terms of depth, but hey I was vibing along and personally I enjoyed my WoL slipping into a mentor like role for Wuk Lamat.

Do I see where the story could have focused on the characters more? Yes.
Do I feel like certain characters could have or should have had more development? Absolutely.

The first half of DT was fine in terms of plot stakes and messaging, but the 2nd half was where things got a bit....insane. And as much as I like Wuk Lamat, I do feel she overstayed her welcome especially somewhat into the solution 9 plot and we should have spent more time with other characters like Erenville and Koana for example. While I do understand what the writers are attempting to portray (aka Sphene and Wuk Lamat's journey and position as Rulers and Sphene trying to relate to us and connect), the further it goes on, the more this message gets really overused. Especially when its an obvious case of Sphene being just like a certain Ascian

Having recently finished through the final dungeon last night as well as the Sixth Story zone, I wouldn't be lying if I said it genuinely should have been handled in a different way to sell the message they were trying to say and I for one was not a fan of the constant shifting of vibes in that zone. While the zone gave some good lore to mull over and that its setting up for the content down the line, I cannot help but feel that there was major issues in its development regarding writing and also direction.

- Cont down

[Aquaticnaho]

Regarding the thing about Wuk lamat having a bad voice, I'll be honest, I think the voice acting director for this expansion wasn't entirely the greatest and it wasn't just Wuk Lamat who suffered from terrible direction as Y'shtola seems to have something going on with her mic. I know she's been off work and likely recorded her lines from home, but you'd think they'd fix up the sound quality for it right? There were also honestly moments where I felt that the npc voice direction was pretty bad or should have at least been given another take, along with the fact that there were so many scenes I felt needed voice acting but was genuinely surprised there wasn't. (Like you meeting with Thancred and Urianger before the first dungeon, that should have been voiced and I'm surprised it WASNT)

So as I write this, I've currently reached the final boss and am currently waiting for the weekend to finish the game with my FC as a team as we've all been watching each other's progress through the story and talking amongst eachother about everything Dawntrail has brought forward. We've ALSO been aware of the criticisms about DT from folks who have already beaten it and have been trying to save our final reviews of the game to the end as they differ in varying capacities.

Genuinely, from what I know so far, I'm eager to see where we continue on from here especially in the later patches, but dear god I really hope they reconsider the writing cause whoever was in charge of the 2nd half (I have my theories) did not do a great job selling the message of this expansion and while I'm usually very flexible when it comes to what my WOL can and will do, this is the first time I'll admit that the game clearly did not give a damn about what my character might say in the situation when this has always been the case even in Stormblood.

Yes the story is linear no matter what, but I feel that the game usually gives you some broad options on how you want to play your WOL. Twice in DT have I run into a dialogue option where the answers were both A. the exact same thing and B. Not something me NOR my Wol would say.

Honestly this last bit is honestly just a tid bit of a complaint from me as I enjoy playing a oc rather than myself and shouldn't be taken too harshly as a critique, but if ill be completely honest, as someone who casually rps, this dissonance is pretty awful and I genuinely just want some of those dialogue options back.

[LunaAldegar]

Apologies in advance if some of what I write is hard to read; English isn't my native language. I agree with your overall sentiments to some extent. I didn't really feel like any kind of mentor to Wuk Lamat, because we didn't really do much outside of mostly smiling and nodding to whatever she did. The second half of the story was more interesting to me, but I would've enjoyed it way more if Wuk Lamat was finally left behind and we had more time for other characters. But since there's Wuk Lamat shoved into everything, it came off as if they had to do many things at once and didn't really succeed at either outside of whatever it is they tried to do with her.

I personally don't like her, but I'm not going to go out of my way to have any arguments with people who like her. She might not be the character for me, but others can enjoy her if that's something to their liking. But that's not even the point; the point is that the overall writing is poor, and there's no arguing about it. What should've had more screen time has been brushed aside just to accommodate Wuk and her unnecessarily large amount of screen time instead. The last area, especially, has been the most depressing through my entire playtime. I feel like that was handled extremely poorly and completely soured whatever positive I might have felt about the expansion's story in the second half. I hope we get something better in the patches. I love the game, and it would be sad if such poor storytelling was going to be the new norm. Also, I'll add that, despite the story being quite bad, I actually really enjoyed the new dungeons, trials, music, and areas.

And I agree about voice acting as a whole being off. Wuk Lamat might be the worst offender since she has more lines than anyone else, but she's not really the sole issue here. Even with her being voiced by someone else, the story wouldn't magically become any better. The last trial's voice acting was VERY bad, though.

Edit: Also agreeing on the point of dialogue options, we might as well be a cardboard cutout with no personality nor any meaningful input via response picking options, which we didn't have that much of nor did they really bring anything to our interactions.

[SwadTheFrog]

So, to not repeat several other points I've made about my dislike of the story, I'd like to talk about the VAing for a second. I think it's a 50/50 on it being the actual VA's fault and the directing. The VAs for the scions genuinely feel checked out - like they do not care, or were not given enough context (Poor, poor Urianger), but a lot of the new VAs are...extermely rough. Yes, the VA for Wuk should have never taken that role, but it's far more then that. So many of the new NPCs are also putting on genuinely completely fake accents and deliver lines in a weird and flat manner -I was hoping we'd get actual SA folk voice acting things, but to be blunt, I think we just got a bunch of Americans from LA putting on bad-to-racist accents, which uh - cool, I guess. Oddly enough, this lack of care for the Voicework transmits even to the final boss - no, I'm not even talking about infamous ˢᵖʰᵉᵉᵉᵉᵉᵉⁿᵉ moment, but the voice modulation effect added to the final boss. In EN, it just sounds like an intercom, but in JP, it sounds great - glitchy and echoy, and it goes with the track so well. I really want Koji to take the reins again, because it feels like Kate's doing a subpar job overall.

Also agreed with the lack of options for roleplaying. Coming from the options given to us in SHB and EW, it felt very, very stifling and disconnected.