Missed gameplay opportunities in DT MSQ (spoilers)

[Daralii]

I was fully prepared for it to be something, but it was just...a cutscene. Very odd and anticlimactic.

You can say that about a lot of story beats.

[Powercow]

The play at the end, Otis mentions we shouldn't be worried if we mess up the lines and that it's all part of the fun.

We then have absolutely no input on how it plays out, either as a mock battle (which would have been a fun callback to the stage play fight at the start of FF9) or even as just dialogue choices where we can (intentionally or not) royally screw up the scene, or play it straight.

[jadan2000]

I like the amount of cutscenes

[Basteala]

I like the amount of cutscenes

The cutscenes are totally fine. I think most of us would have just liked a little more solo duties or gameplay to alleviate the percentage of cutscene to gameplay. STB and SHB really had a sweetspot going for that and we've drifted off slightly.

[TaleraRistain]

I agree with every single suggestion in this thread. The train scene absolutely should have been an instance. Fighting in the city should have been an instance. Like Mikey_R said, we are the Warrior of Light. We are not going to just run by innocent people being attacked. We're going to put ourselves between those people and what is attacking them. Even in times we moved on in past expansions, it was when our friends and companions were there to hold the fort and told us to keep going.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The most they probably could've done with the Train cutscene was turn the train run into the first third of Vanguard. Although I suppose it wouldn't really make too much sense functionally that the train's trip from the station to Vanguard's wall would be exactly how long it takes for trash mobs to die.

[TheMightyMollusk]

One that sticks out to me is the scene where Bakool Ja Ja hires mooks to capture Wuk Lamat. We get an obviously suspicious messenger saying the moblins have a message, she takes off alone, and we just kinda stand there for a while. I feel like it would've been more interesting if just the WoL had gone with her, leading to a solo duty alongside her against Bakool Ja Ja. Show him actually fighting, maybe have him hit like a truck but with very telegraphed moves to sell the "strong but not skilled" vibe he gives off. Then when he starts flagging, Sareel Ja interferes, using magic to stun the WoL and knock Wuk Lamat out. They decide that taking the WoL is too dangerous, but the rest of the party is finally arriving, so they don't have time to finish us off and just grab Wuk Lamat and high-tail it. I feel like it would not only sell Bakool Ja Ja as an actual physical threat (which, considering the only other times we see him fight before his heel-face turn are getting one-shotted by Zoraal Ja and then losing to Wuk Lamat, the story doesn't really manage), but it would give the RP duty in Yak'tel more weight as a rematch.

[Turtledeluxe]

Missed gameplay opportunities: the whole expansion outside combat

[Striker44]

Does anyone else feel they are leaning too much into cutscenes at the cost of player interaction?

With one exception, I don't feel like the issue is "at the cost of player interaction," just that there's so many unnecessary cutscenes, often occurring back-to-back. In quite a few cutscenes, I was left wondering why it even was a cutscene in the first place instead of just dialogue, as there didn't seem to be anything in particular happening that needed it to be a cutscene.

For me that prime moment was just before the vanguard unlock. I couldn't help but think this should be a minigame where you use the aether cannon to shoot down the enemy aircraft.

This is that one exception. I was so expecting that to turn into the "Air Force One" mini-game they already have in the Gold Saucer. The basis for it is already built into the game...why not use it? Even if it cut out of mini-game mode at the end for Erenville to also take a cannon, we could have still had a good chunk of the ride played out as a mini-game.

[aTanpopo]

I absolutely hated the Sapphire Weapon duty so I wouldn't have enjoyed if they brought that back, but I think if the train was a multi part solo duty, playing as different characters + WoL defending the train it would have been fun. I think the cutscene itself was cool, but definitely could have been better if we took part in it. If you could have played as Krile, they could have shown off pictomancer. In previous expansions they show off new jobs released in that patch through solo duties (Hien/samurai in stormblood, Thancred/gunbreaker in shadowbringers & Alphinaud/sage in endwaker) so I think that was a bit of a missed opportunity.

One for the returning invaded Tulliyolal too, since they do it for Solution 9 later on anyway. Might have been a better way to introduce the enemies/show them taking souls from the dead bodies (instead of showing Krile seeing them do it and then never mentioning it to anyone), and they could have briefly let you see Sphene so her turning up later on has more of an impact. We (the player) know she was there in the invasion, but do any of the characters (WoL included) actually bring up seeing her there? I don't remember at this point.