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ffxiv: dawntrail has consumed my life. my opinions on it are complex. it's kind of like a marvel movie, where you have a fun ride but if you look too hard at the plot, things sort of fall apart. for you non-players, massive spoilers ahead.
for sake of my fingers typing, i won't explain the plot up until this expansion. there's been plenty written about it and i have nothing new to say. in dawntrail, our character, the warrior of light, journeys to the American analog of Tulliyolal, in an effort to help our newest friend, a giant lion furry girl named Wuk Lamat become king in a giant competetion to determine the next ruler. the ultimate goal: to find the City of Gold. Wuk Lamat is a shounen anime protagonist. she's incredibly powerful, feels her feelings deeply, and she is definitely the hero of the story. her competitors in this competition are her two brothers, Koana (a catboy) and Zoraal Ja (a reptile beast person). Koana is lovely and even though he might not always see the value his culture has, he cares deeply for his people and wants to make their lives better. Zoraal Ja just wants world domination at any cost. There's another competitor, unrelated to Wuk Lamat: Bakool Ja Ja, a two headed reptile beast person that is hell bent on becoming king at any cost. Bakool Ja Ja is a pair of Blessed Siblings, two headed people who, according to cultural lore, are blessed to rule.
you and Wuk Lamat journey across the land in this competetion, where she learns about the value of culture in some sort of Anthropology 101 field school. people have culture! they are different! and that's valuable! obviously, the other candidates don't give a shit about culture, and you're supposed to cheer for Wuk Lamat.
meanwhile, as Wuk Lamat has her cultural anime training arc, (you are a backseat character in this, for better or worse) Bakool Ja Ja releases a horrid monster on the world. why? fuck you. he doesn't even get punished for it. you and Wuk Lamat defeat this monster (a very fun fight!) and bing bang boom the day is saved. Wuk Lamat continues her journey, learns a lot, finds the city, and eventuallly becomes king. she also has her brother, Koana, rule with her, because through his own journey, he learned the value of culture. wow.
but just as everything looks to be wrapped up happily, Zoraal Ja finds the City of Gold too, and merges what you find out are two separate dimensions, yours and the City. this is terrible! Zoraal Ja has gone mad with technological power, seemingly out of nowhere, and returns to kill his father. you and Wuk Lamat go investigate, accompanied by a grumpy bunny boy that everyone is horny for. you learn that the merged dimension is offset by a period of thirty years, but time has now synched up for some reason that wasn't explained. you also meet bunny boy's mother, who is controlling a cute little robot. Zoraal Ja rules this land along with its original ruler, Sphene, a woman who loves her people more than anything else, and agreed to give Zoraal Ja power in exchange for letting her people live.
blah blah blah, you eventually kill Zoraal Ja, and learn that Sphene's people are all Endless-- dead people whose souls and memories have been stored in data. Sphene herself is an Endless, and so is bunny boy's mother. in order to sustain the Endless, Sphene needs people's souls, and plans to collect them from your world. so you come up with the genius idea that, if you delete all the Endless, Sphene will have no reason to collect souls. (i personally think that this would make her angry and give her nothing to lose, but.) you shut off the Endless, and Sphene doesn't even know. You never actually... tell her? You and Wuk Lamat fight Sphene (also very fun!) and save the day.
it was a very fun ride. my explanation is very casual, and glosses over a lot of random plot-adjacent explanations (such as why Bakool Ja Ja is such a dick), but the core points are there. dawntrail reminds me a lot of Stormblood, where you have a leader who isn't really qualified go through an anime arc to become qualified. Wuk Lamat is endearing, even though she lacks substance. the villains are easy to hate, and it's kind of nice that the entire world isn't in immediate danger, like the previous two expansions. i can't really rate it out of ten, but i can at least say that, if you play through it, keep your expectations low and enjoy the ride.
