Kicking off a brand new story arc in a brand new location, Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail opens with you joining Wuk Lamat in her quest to complete the Rite of Succession, a grand quest to decide the next to ascend to the throne of Tuliyollal as Dawnservant. It’s an adventure of great discovery for players, as you’ll follow the various exploits and successes of the current Dawnservant, Gulool Ja Ja, journey across the continent of Tural and learn about its many peoples, while also striving to discover the legendary golden city.
What Dawntrail focuses on is putting the Warrior of Light (that’s you, by the way) into a mentor role, allowing other characters in the story to become the focal point of the narrative. It doesn’t mean that you are pushed aside, as everyone you meet clocks you immediately as someone to not mess with, but you often work to help others reach their potential as others like Louisoix, Minfillia, or Hauchefant (sorry fanbase) did for you.
The result is that new characters like Wuk Lamat, Koana and others from Tural are really given the space to breathe in this story that rightfully belongs to them. Not only this, but characters that have deserved further development are explored further over the course of the story, such as Erenville and Krile.
This doesn’t mean that everything is breezy and chilled for the whole time, of course, with Dawntrail having all the classic Final Fantasy trappings of twists, betrayals, and suddenly raising stakes to keep you on your toes. The story introduces certain elements that hark back to previous Final Fantasy games which are handled wonderfully in Dawntrail, but that might be due to my sheer bias towards the specific game that it draws from. Also, the implications that are laid out for the future of the story of FFXIV are both interesting and successfully build upon what we already know in a satisfying fashion.
Dawntrail doesn’t fix what isn’t broken, so the fundamental gameplay of this decade old MMORPG is much the same. You run around the world fighting things, talking to NPCs and occasionally finding yourself instances either alone or with a team to support you. There hasn’t been a brand-new field mechanic introduced this time around, but Dawntrail makes great use of elements and ideas that were introduced with previous expansions  – even the ‘following without being noticed’ one, which I did not enjoy previously.
One thing that has been a topic of debate amongst the fans of the game is with the Dungeons and Trials, which are noticeably more challenging than previous expansions. The bosses themselves hit damn hard, the mobs are relentless at times, and the mechanics of the fights are combined in some interesting and often brain-stretching ways that require some thinking and repeat runs to overcome. They’re not impossible by any means, but tough to parse out on occasion.
Personally, I have loved this increase in difficulty as it has been fun to overcome each challenge the game has thrown at me, and – as a White Mage player – it is always nice to feel needed. Also, by the time you’re pushing past level 90 and have followed countless instances, players should be capable of tackling these challenges. That said, I’m a savage/extreme player; I’m used to far worse than this, so this increased difficulty could push away less ardent players.
Speaking of combat, there are a couple new Jobs, and these complement the others well. Viper, the twin-blade wielding swashbuckler, is your new melee DPS. This Job is great fun and, once you get past the slightly confusing tool tips for the abilities, flows together in a satisfying flurry of slashes. I’m yet to experience the higher levels of this Job, so cannot call myself an expert by any means, but what I have played makes it easy to recommend to those that like being up close and personal.
For those like me that enjoy being a bit further away from the action, the other new Job is Pictomancer – think Bob Ross, but even more magical. This magical ranged DPS uses paint to create weapons, monsters and spells to attack in combat and might just be the most fun I have had with a Job in years. It does take a while to click, as the amount of set-up required to effectively use the abilities is larger than most other Jobs, but once you get it, the rotation of the abilities is just so damn satisfying and colourful.
The changes to existing Jobs, which have changed again since launch with this week’s 7.01 patch, have been a mixed bag as they always are. My precious White Mage thankfully hasn’t changed much, aside from receiving a new little dash, but other Jobs have received dramatic reworks. Some of these reworks have allow for smoother transitions for their fans, while others have basically been completely changed. The Astrologian is one such Job, which I had only just learned how to play again in Endwalker and will now have to start learning all over again!
If changes to your favourite Job have you gnashing your teeth in annoyance, at least you can sink into the undeniable beauty of this game. Every area in Dawntrail is brimming with bright blues, greens and golds, and full of sweeping vistas to gawp at. In fact, I have taken more screenshots while playing Dawntrail than I ever remember in another game, let alone previous expansion of this one. This is bolstered by the graphical update that came with the 7.0 update for Final Fantasy XIV that has greatly improved the lighting effects, many of the textures, and a lot of the character models.
The improved characters models are especially noticeable as Dawntrail has an almost excessive number of close ups on characters. This has happened previously, of course, but pretty much every cutscene in Dawntrail has a “Look how pretty these characters are. Look at it!” moment, and they’re right – the characters look fantastic now. Oh, and of course the most important part of FFXIV, the glamours, has been really given a boost by this update too with some gorgeous new gear to obtain.
Then there’s the music. Oh boy, the music. I mentioned this previously in the review in progress, but Soken is emptying his bag of musical tricks with this expansion. From the incredible jazz background music of Tuliyollal to the lo-fi beats of Solution Nine, every track of this game is infused with the same vibrant life of the core narrative and visual style of the expansion. The field battle theme is one of the best in the entire game, the boss theme is stellar, and the final boss theme – just wow. I’m now eagerly awaiting the release of the Dawntrail OST
