This post is a April 2026 transcription of this video. The text has been edited for readability while preserving my original sentiment.

I want to talk about Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail because I’ve really enjoyed the game. So I’m going to break it down into the dungeons, the themes, and we’ll talk about things that I don’t like as well, the characters, the story, and… As she mentioned, at the end, I’ll also be ranking all the Final Fantasy XIV expansions.

Locations

Tuilyollal: We have these lush greenery, we have these bright, beautiful colors, we have this amazingly vertical city. This was something that we haven’t seen yet in this game. It has this great blend of the different cultures that we get to visit throughout the game. And being able to see that all be united in this area is just absolutely beautiful. So I freaking love the scenic views of Tuilyollal. It was a tremendously fun thing to explore. I really enjoyed it. Definitely, it’s up there with Old Sharlayan. The night music is such a freaking jam. I love it.

Urqopacha: It’s like half rocky grasslands, but further up the mountain, we see just pure, plain rocks and dead grass. There is a previous attack that Valigarmanda did. So we see scratches on the mountains as well. Really great storytelling. This is the home of the Pelupelu and the Yok Huy. And this was a lot of cool to see, just because I think what’s really important about Dawntrail over some other Final Fantasy XIV expansions is each of these areas represent a group of people & their own unique culture. And that culture is meant to symbolize different aspects of what people want from a Dawn Servant.

It was really cool to see how their environments affected what they did. If you see the Yok Huy, they have all stonework because that’s all they see. They’re big, bulking creatures, so obviously the easiest thing for them to do is to move around stone. They also have murals & graveyards. For the Pelupelu , they have a lot of rocky grasslands. So easy things to do is maybe for traveling because they’re merchants. So they have a lot of llamas and all that stuff. So I did greatly enjoy kind of seeing all those cool things.

Kozama’uka: We are in a tropical rainforest and this is absolutely beautiful. We see all these bright, beautiful colors when it comes to the plants. We see a lot of water rushing through, a lot of beautiful trees. And all this color and beautiful trees represents the Hanu Hanu. Their feathers are all colorful. They have a harvest festival where they’re trying to grow crops. Like all this stuff was absolutely beautiful. It was very exciting. And one of the things I really love about Kozama’uka is when you get to the half side of the region and you look up, you just see all these beautiful waterfalls flowing down. It was like so gorgeous.

And when we get up to the waterfall, we see even more beautiful flowers, more beautiful plants. It was just a gorgeous area. And off in the corner, as you head towards Urqopacha, you will see the Moblins there. And they have all these beautiful Clay pottery, all these beautiful Clay buildings, because that’s what they’re good at. And then if we continue to travel closer to Urqopacha, we see a stone tower built in a very similar way to the Yok Huy representing the journey the Yok Huy had across the region. It’s just really cool to see. Now, there is like a tiny door on that tower, so it doesn’t really make sense why the Yok Huy would build a tower with a tiny door.

Yak T’el: It’s a tropical forest, not a rainforest, but just a standard forest. This has a mix of people the Mamool Ja and the Xbr’aal. On the surface, it was like this very cool tropical forest. Everyone seems happy, but as we explore, it devolves into a barren wasteland. And we’re familiar with this wasteland, because we’ve seen this with The Burn. Areas where the ether from the ground has disappeared, and it’s the same here. It was one of those cool types of storytelling where we don’t need to know what happened. We understand that some sort of war happened here. We even see charred weapons throughout this battlefield. Charred trees! From this beautiful, lush forest to this destroyed area.

And as we keep adventuring further and further down, we get to this dark, shadow forest. The canopies over everything. It’s so dark. The only thing we see are these really cool bioluminescent meteors and bioluminescent plants. And once again, I was like, okay, you guys are really showing off. You’re really showing off your lighting system here, because this is absolutely beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. And as we continue to go further down, we meet the Mamool Ja and they refuse to talk to us. They don’t care about us. And I thought this was very interesting, because by the time we get to the shadow forest, we learn that this was a battle between the Xbr’aal and the Mamool Ja. The Mamool Ja lost and they retreated to the shadow forest. And as we learn more about them, they want to be free. They can’t grow anything, but bananas. They’re kind of stuck there. And the environment, I’m already getting into too much of the lore aspects of it, but I just love the storytelling of this bright, beautiful environment going into this war-torn environment, then moving down into this dark, sunless environment.

Shaaloani: It resembles the American Old West. It was very funny, when I was playing this game, and I first got into Shaaloani, I looked up at the sky. And I was like, this looks familiar. And I don’t know whether it’s because I understood this to be America or that they actually took into consideration an American sky compared to other skies. Shaaloani also looks like a location that I can drive 30 minutes to get to. We got to see saloons. We got to hear the American accents for the first time, which sounded a bit weird in Final Fantasy XIV, but hey, it’s here. Also if any casting directors are reading this, call me!

Anyways, I digress. Shaaloani was really cool. It had tumbleweeds, saloons, it had cowboys, and it included oil derricks, which are cerulean derricks. It was really cool to see all of this stuff. Seeing this beautiful environment being drained of its natural resources, it felt so American. The outskirts of those small towns were Pueblos. And if we continue to travel maybe further north, we see this isolated patch of grass with tipis. I continue to be be surprised by seeing all the indigenous people of the Americas. It was something I wasn’t expecting from this game. And for Yoshi-P and the team to take that into account when we’re going to the American Old West, and to have the indigenous people who used to live in America be isolated from the resources that are being drained from their land, it’s quite fascinating. Now, they don’t get too much into that in the story, but the it is told through the environment.

Heritage Found: This is the worst of the locations because it’s Shaaloani, but darker and more grim, and there’s lightning everywhere. It doesn’t look cool. However, one thing that did look cool was in the far, far West Side of Heritage Found was the destroyed Alexandria. That was really fascinating to see.

Solution 9: I hate Solution 9…okay maybe not hate, but what’s really cool about Tuilyollal is this blend of all the different cultures that we visit throughout Tural. And the way they’re able to bring that all together into a single city and still have each of those cultures represented in some way was so fascinating and beautiful. But then when we go to Solution 9, it’s kind of the exact opposite. It’s, it’s just stale and boring. Sure, there is the Arcadian & whatever that entertainment district is called. That’s pretty cool. But I wish more of Solution 9 had the life that the entertainment district had.

Solution 9 feels sterile and I can’t tell if this is purposeful or not. If you look at it through Sphene’s perspective, this makes sense. Stripping everyone of their culture so that they are one entity that feels one thing. It makes sense, especially when you include the regulators. But it’s definitely the weakest of the cities in Final Fantasy XIV for sure.

Living Memory: It is an AI-generated illusion of Alexandria. And I don’t mean AI-generated in like the negative sense, it’s literally an AI-generation. You are literally in a computer. Everything that is happening in the living memory is AI-generated. This is actually really fascinating because this is a beautiful & peaceful place. It’s so confusing because this looks so much better than Solution 9 that I’m wondering if they intentionally made Solution 9 so boring and sterile.

The different regions of Living Memory that was fun to explore. And even after we turn off the terminals, the lifelessness of Living Memory felt better than the sterile Solution 9. I really hope that maybe in the future we can turn back on the terminals. I know you can New Game Plus and I think story-wise, I would have wished that we could have had some way to experience Living Memory. I am surprised that they decided to destroy such a beautiful environment by the end of the game.

The reason why I wanted to kind of take my time to go through each of them is because what matters a lot to me is the immersion aspect, is the feeling that I exist in this place, in this game. And if the locations feel boring or bland and the locations just don’t grab me, it ruins my immersion. So props to the Dawntrail team for really making locations very interesting and fun…beside Solution 9.

Dungeons

Ihuykatumu: We start off on an awesome jungle cruise, chasing down Bakool Ja Ja’s group. And in the middle of chase, Bakool Ja Ja is throwing obstacles at us to the point where our cruise ship essentially crash lands. Erenville has to go repair it, and then our team is all adventuring. And I really love this, because this dungeon really makes the Rite of Succession feel like a race, feel like a competition. Because not only are we battling against Bakool Ja Ja’s group in the dungeon, but at the same time, we see Koana, Urianger, and Thancred also in this dungeon. There’s also these really cool enemies that were slimes that transformed themselves into us. That’s pretty cool. It was really funny because we had like a giant Krile fighting us at one point.

Worqor Zormor: Honestly, this dungeon really is just meant to showcase the new lighting system. There’s a lot of different rocks and crystals that are shining, really making the environment light up, but there isn’t much else to teh dungeon. It was weird though that we were killing a lot of cute creatures. I did really love the boss, Gurfurlur. Basically, the introduction to how insane dodging patterns and the way the boss mechanics work in future dungeons and trials. This was so much fun. I had a huge blast.

The Skydeep Cenote: This is lore heavy, and it’s that excitement and depression that you get. It’s a mix of emotions because the dungeon is layered into three different aspects. The first aspect is the Blessed Child. It is the graveyard of all the dead children. As you’re walking through this haunted graveyard, you look down at the rivers below. You can see all these broken jars in which they try to breed blessed children. It was so freaking depressing.

As we dive deeper, we begin to see quarries build by the Yok Huy by jumping down an elevator shaft. We start recognizing a lot of this architecture that we have seen before when we visited the Yok Huy. It is such a cool place and then we start to see automatons, and that was something I was like, oh, damn. They’re hiding things from us. I was so excited and so happy. And one of the coolest moments is when you start seeing the stone quarry rocks start turning black. And then this was when, at least for my game, Alisaie was like, hey, these rocks are imbued with aether. And I’m like, what are you talking about?

The further we go, the quarries looks less like the Yok Huy made it. This is one of my favorite aspects in video games of, like, revealing some grand thing. We are ascending up the stairs. We don’t know what’s on the other side of the room, but as we ascend, we start to see the room on the outside. The room is glowing. We see all these black rocks that we haven’t seen before. And as we approach the top of the stairs and our view to the room is slowly revealed. We see the amazing golden pyramid that’s just shining this gold and purple. And we’re like, holy, we found the city of gold. Like, that moment was so freaking amazing. These were one of the moments where I made sure to go watch a bunch of people’s reactions to the reveal of the city of gold. It was just so beautiful. And they really showed off the lighting system in that one. It was absolutely incredible.

The boss for was a giant hammerhead boss. And I believe this was also the first time we got to see a new warning sign. It appeared in the center of the screen. It had hazardous symbols around it and very red. It threw me off a little bit because I didn’t understand what was happening at first. I hope that they do a lot more of this stuff with different layers when it comes to the dungeons. Something about this felt really cool to have from burial grounds to a quarry to now the city of gold stuff. It was just really awesome.

Vanguard: It has a really soft place in my heart because you freaking start this dungeon ramming a train into a military base after they have attack Tuilyollal. And you start breaking into the military base. One of the best music soundtracks in Final Fantasy XIV begins to play. And you are just wrecking a bunch of automaton guards. They’re bringing the reinforcements. Motorcycles are showing up and you’re like, oh, we’re gonna see Erenville’s mother. You better get the hell out of the way. And we’re just slashing and breaking everything. It was just so cool.

Boss 1 is a boss. It wasn’t really that cool, but Boss 2. I want more Boss 2 in more Final Fantasy bosses. Because Boss 2 is just insanity. You are fighting this sentry drone and not only does it brings up other sentry drones to attack you. It places walls around itself. And then shoots out lasers out of itself. And eventually, at some point, the boss decides to use them all at the same time. I couldn’t even dodge at a certain point. It was just so funny how ridiculous the game was expecting us to dodge all these mechanics. And I absolutely loved it.

The environments of this new military installation, these new automatons are… It’s actually, like, pretty freaking cool. It looks nice. And then, eventually, we get to the final boss of Vanguard. I would say the final boss isn’t that exciting. But, it does give us a first glimpse into a beast master. I mean, because they are literally the final boss. You defeat the boss. He comes back to life as this weird serpent creature because of the regulator he had storing a beast soul. Very interesting! And we knew it because we saw it from Zoraal Ja in a cutscene before. Curious if that also means Zoraal Ja will turn into an animal? It gave us a lot of cool story context. I do enjoy Vanguard a lot.

Origenics: This wasn’t the most exciting dungeon that I played in Final Fantasy XIV, but I do appreciate all the lore. We learned so much about soul processing and it was just actually enjoyable to explore the dungeon more than it was to actually play through the dungeon. Because none of the bosses really stick out to me. I can’t even remember any of the bosses in Origenics. We fought a lot of the beasts that were potentially used to combine souls together. The music is still a banger.

Alexandria: This was awesome. Like I mentioned, with the Skydeep Sunoh, I really loved the progression of moving through this dungeon. It’s not only my second favorite music next to Vanguard for the dungeons, but it also presents us the lore of Alexandria. First, starting off with the prosperous city of Alexandria. The Queen Sphene telling her people how much she loves them.

We go to the second phase of this dungeon, and we’re at wartime. We’re seeing the Alexandria that we just saw before being destroyed. We see one of the royal blimps crash and burn. The third phase is the restoration. It’s the attempt to bring everything back to life, and bring Alexandria back to where it once was. And I just love that storytelling because it makes it very easy to follow especially as someone who doesn’t pay attention to much of the lore outside of the MSQ. The dungeon is very much a show & not tell style of storytelling.

You’re being attacked by these antiviruses that are just trying to stop you at any moment. And it’s really cool! I really enjoy it! It was a lot of fun of just like, oh, this makes sense because we are in the Meso Terminal at the moment, and we’re considered like a foreign entity and we need to be eradicated sort of thing. So there’s obviously the antiviruses going crazy and trying to kill us. I love that aspect of it. Of course, I hate the turtle in this. I don’t understand why they have this turtle here. It’s not even a boss or anything. It has so much health. So I wish they don’t do that again. The Exterminator, the final boss of this dungeon. Very cool! Very difficult. It has a lot of really unique patterns and mechanics that really took some time to get used to. But it is very exciting. I was very happy to have this amount of challenge for the way we have to dodge and weave through things. So I really love the Exterminator. Once you start understanding how to fight it, like the patterns and mechanics were actually a lot of fun.

Trials

Worqor Lar Dor: The Valigarmanda fight made me so happy! This was the first time we got a duty trial. NPC characters fighting with us in this trial. We have our viper boy, Zoraal Ja. Koana shooting guns. It was just so cool to have story relevant character fighting the boss! The boss basically transformed into three different elements. Fire, Ice, and Lightning. And every element changes the environment around it. When there’s ice, we get an avalanche warning. And we have to look back behind us and watch out for the avalanches showing up. That was super cool. In Lightning, we’re jumping, elevating different levels. And watching out for the lightning hitting certain levels. Or the wind sweeping us off the top of the levels. It was crazy! And the fire is us just watching out for the fire steps and everything burning. It was just such a cool fight and a great way to introduce Valigarmanda. Which is a really cool Final Fantasy VI Esper.

Typically, in Final Fantasy XIV, I’m here for the story so very rarely am I celebrating the gameplay itself, but that is what surprised me about Dawntrail. They added a lot of really fun dodging mechanics. It’s not so much about how hard you can hit or making sure you use your spells or your skills at the right time. It’s a dodge, a jump. Oh, it’s cool this avalanche is coming. Avoid it! There’s a lot of unique mechanics that were just a lot of fun to play. I think that’s something that I really hope they continue to do more of.

Everkeep: The fight against Zoraal Ja is broken up into two phases. I don’t really care honestly about the first phase. The first phase was fine, but the second phase is when the fun of the mechanics enter the playing field. And it’s because of that weird sword attack. As you’re fighting Zoraal Ja on a center stage. And around you are four other stages in the cardinal directions each of those stages have three different lanes. And those lanes have lasers that point to another aspect of the stage that you’re standing in. So when Zoraal Ja attacks one of those outer platforms, you then have to trace where on the center platform that will appear. And I thought that was so cool because it required quick thinking. An awesome highlight to the fight!

The Interphos: We’re fighting against Sphene in the Meso Terminal. And this was a great boss. First, we’re playing Takeshi’s Castle where we’re weaving and dodging through holes in walls that are trying to push us to our deaths. There’s platforms that keep shrinking and we have to cross over. We were really fighting in an ever moving obstacle course. I freaking love these mechanics. Also one of the first mechanics when you’re fighting Interphos is the entire floor turns into a grid. And you start to see one side of the grid begin to have waves. And those waves look like they’re slowly going towards the boss. And it’s an indicator we’ve never seen before in this game because it is an indicator that is built within the environment of the boss. It’s a lore/world friendly indicator! How cool is that!! It makes sense for this computer AI that we are fighting. I would love to see that in the future.

Lastly, the second phase of the final boss was a joke. But I kind of appreciated that. The second phase wasn’t like oh you’re going to die here. It’s like a celebration phase where Wuk Lamat breaks in and screams at the top of her lungs! It’s just one of those phases of like congratulations you beat the boss, you don’t have to worry about dying. Just enjoy finishing the boss off. They did something similar in Endwalker, but there was still a threat of the boss wiping the party during the second phase. I will say in my experience of playing through Endwalker’s final boss the in-game chat was very excited, but during Dawntrail, just crickets. Both bosses were fought within the first 5 days of the expansion so I don’t think people were very excited about this expansion.

They were a lot of fun obviously. They’re a little bit of a mixed bag. I think that there’s still a lot to improve on. And honestly the things that they do need to improve on. I feel like they already are. I mean what little I’ve seen of the Arcadian. It looks like a lot of fun. There’s a lot of cool mechanics that are just really fun to explore and do. So I’m tremendously excited to actually give a shot at going through the Arcadian. But at least for here we are just talking about the base game MSQ.

Characters

Wuk Lamat: I love Wuk Lamat so much. She is a shonen anime protagonist. Someone constantly growing, constantly being super uplifting and positive. Her story is about her not having the confidence to do much of anything. She finds her brother Zoraal Ja to be super powerful like her father. And she finds Koana to be just as smart and intelligent like her father. So she always felt inferior. So seeing her grow into such a strong leader, capable of leading a nation was absolutely awesome. And the fact that she was interested in learning everyone’s culture and story.

Each of the quests had us learning about everyone in every single region. Even when we got to the Mamool Ja, she strived so hard to help understand and to help improve their living conditions. It was so awesome to see such an amazingly well written character be this loving and caring. And spreading that love and care throughout the entire game.

Koana: What another amazing character with amazing growth. He starts off as this standoffish, intelligent, cold character. Who really believes that technology is the future for everything. All your problems can be solved with technology. But we notice throughout the way he communicates with his people. He doesn’t care about his people. But he cares about solving these issues for his people. It’s a little bit different, right? Because if we look at Wuk Lamat, she cares about the person and their culture. And how we can uplift those people to improve their conditions. Whereas Koana is like, I got some cool tech that’s going to help you out. And although he’s not trying to exploit or scam anyone. He lacks consideration to those people.

During the Harvest Festival. Where there’s still a crop of land that wasn’t grown. And Koana kind of got his little aether jar and pours the water there and it solves everything. And he makes some kind of weird off-handed remark about why did they perform this dumb festival? He doesn’t understand why this festival is so important. Luckily, thanks to Thancred and Urianger. We begin to see Koana start to notice things about Wuk Lamat. He starts to notice that, oh, he should start caring about people. And as we get further in the story. We start to notice more and more that he’s caring more about the people. He sees how much Wuk Lamat cares for the people. And I love that aspect of it.

It really demonstrates how much he cares about Wuk Lamat. Because when Wuk Lamat gets kidnapped. Koana is upset. He is frustrated. He wants to do everything in his power to rescue his sister. And we finally start to see the human side of Koana. And I just, I love it. And when the final moment where he gives up his right of succession to fight alongside his sister. Was absolutely brilliant and amazing. And I love it. And the fact that now they are both the successors of the Dawn Servant. Was so awesome and fascinating. I love this game. I love this story so much. So Koana, absolutely incredible.

Sidenote, but if Koana were to be the successor of the Dawn Servant & didn’t learn from Wuk Lamat. He would have created a Solution 9. Where it is basically a homogenized, sterile city. Where everyone is happy. Everyone is enjoying themselves. They don’t have any issues. Because technology has solved everything. But no one has any personality.

Gulool Ja Ja: The original Dawn Servant. The one who brought Tuliyollal together. We get introduced to him fighting Estinien. Like that is crazy introduction to a character. And when we fight him ourselves. That was such an epic fight as well. I love that he was a past adventurer with Ketenramm too. They both found the City of Gold, which is super cool. I love that he’s currently sitting on the throne. The fact that his second head was already dead for the longest time. He was teaching Wuk Lamat about the balance between being peaceful and using self-defense. Which Wuk Lamat definitely uses in the future. I love Gulool Ja Ja a lot.

Bakool Ja Ja: I wasn’t expecting his turn. But I love Bakool Ja Ja. It is hard to forgive him for what he did with the Valigarmanda because he nearly killed a bunch of people. But hey, aside from that aspect of it. I really enjoy his story. H e is a character who is not evil to be evil. He is a character because he has had this expectation set upon him as the Blessed Sibling. We see the torment on Bakool Ja Ja’s face and the tears. When he fails the rite of succession. He feels like he failed all his dead siblings. There’s so many dead Blessed Siblings that didn’t even get a chance to live a life. It was a really powerful story.

Zoraal Ja: He is a very weak villain. He’s not that interesting or engaging. I do understand him being a villain? It is explained that it is because of all the expectations put upon himself. And he doesn’t know how to handle that. I mean, the fact that he was succeeding in all of these different challenges for the rite of succession, to only fail at the last two, he feels inferior. He failed at the fight against his own father made all that suppressed anger and that those expectations grow and fester into this anxious, angry ball of lizard flesh. He is so upset.

Then to be trapped in Alexandria for 30 years directly after that moment. Definitely allowed his hatred to fester & grow. So when he does return, he can get his revenge against his father & prove he is worthy. It makes sense, but who cares? He has a son, Gulool Ja, who was really cute. I love that Gulool Ja even calls out his father about how Zoraal Ja never wants to hang out with him. I hope we get to learn more about the child. Also currently Gulool Ja is the next king of Alexandria.

Krile: I love the growth that Krile had, starting off from the post-patches of Endwalker, where she was just like, I’m unsure if I’m capable of doing these things, to being this fully grown, amazing character with her own story arc. It was a lot of fun. The fact that we got to learn more about the Lalafells in this expansion was super cool. She finally gets to meet her parents and learn about her parents, about where she’s come from. The fact that she now is able to connect to the greater world of Final Fantasy XIV, I really loved Krile.

Erenville: He is an awesome character. The beginning of the game of him wearing a backpack to the end of the game without one. Really illustrates him being unburdened by all the trauma he was carrying. He experiences so many emotions, excitement, loss, anger, confusion. I’ll explain more about Erenville later when we talk about the themes of AI in this story.

Sphene: Is a complex antagonist. She’s an antagonist who cares desperately about her people at the cost of other people. And one of the awesome things about Sphene is that they don’t try to redeem her. She is going to different civilizations and killing people so that her people can live for eternity. That stuff is freaking messed up. I love this conflict between her and Wuk Lamat. Wuk Lamat is trying to find a way to exist in peace together and allow the dead to rest in peace. But Sphene is like, no, no, no. I’m protecting my people and all my people, dead or living. Even if that means I need to kill everyone in Tuliyollal.

She has one of the best lines in the game. And I’ll be paraphrasing here, but she essentially says to protect my people, I will become the cruelest queen in history. That line goes so hard and despite me hating her. She’s a really great villain and a perfect foil to Wuk Lamat. The fact that each of them are head-to-head competing against each other, both wanting to protect their people in different ways. I love the fact that even Wuk Lamat came to realize that she has to destroy Sphene. Very powerful. I’m also glad they didn’t give her a redemption arc.

Honorable Mentions: Mablu is great. I love her story about her going from farmhand to merchant. I love Wuk Evu for being as goofy as can be every time Wuk Lamat says, you don’t have to do that. And then casually says, oh okay. Gurfurlur being also an amazing character and fun to say.

Story

Rite of Succession: I won’t be going super deep into the story, but I do have a series of posts covering my 6 day playthrough of the MSQ. The Rite of Succession is a great introduction to all the people that exist in Tuliyollal. We’re going to a completely new region of the world and having the story take us to these different cultures. Is really cool. We’re understanding all the issues that they may be facing and may lead to future quests and future expansions. I think that stuff is like so interesting.

I really love that they really made me attached to Tural as a whole place. I want to build a house in Tuliyollal because of the story, because of all the cool characters we met. I feel like this was missing in Final Fantasy XIV. Even in Shadowbringers, we got to learn about these different cultures and different areas but I feel like it was never to the extent that Dawntrail really is showcasing all of this.

I love that we had a competition against the Red Giants and the Red Giants were upset at us. But we still found common ground about fighting Valigarmanda. I love our aspects of talking with the Moblins? Talking with the Hanu Hanu. There was just a lot of cool moments in the story where we were really utilizing our ability to talk with people. It was just really cool to meet all the different cultures in the game. We even had a moment where we were trying to understand why the Mamool Ja are so frustrated. Why they hate outsiders. Trying to help them with learning that they can grow more than just bananas. Finding out that if we import these specific seeds that they’ll be able to grow in the Shadow Forest. All this stuff was just so cool. And the themes about unity and understanding and accepting other people was just awesome.

Now I’ve heard and seen a lot of criticism about this half of the Dawntrail expansion being very slow. And although I do agree it is slow, I personally don’t see slow as bad. I found that it’s very important for understanding the story that we need to learn about each of these different cultures that exist in Tural. And I’m very grateful because it helped me learn more about Wuk Lamat.

Shaaloani: Despite me liking the location of Shaaloani the story was trash. Like it was actively bad. This is the biggest criticism I have of the expansion. After the Rite of Succession we go to America & it is just boring. It feels like filler. I wish the attack on Tuliyollal occurred during the Rite of Succession so we can skip to attacking the dome.

Alexandria: Luckily, Alexandria slowly starts to pick back up when we start going through Vanguard and all that stuff. I enjoyed Alexandria because the story is playing with the idea of if Sphene is good or bad? Masking who the true villain of the story could be. Understanding why Sphene is working with Zoraal Ja trying to understand why they attacked. There were so many mysteries that the game brought up for us that I was curious to learn more. Learning that Heritage Found is from 30 years in the future was such an amazing reveal! The Living Memory & the Alexandria dungeon was awesome too. I really enjoyed it and it kept me going.

That being said, Zoraal Ja & even Sphene don’t feel like the best villains. I think more time building up both of these characters as real villains would have been awesome. Honestly, I would rather have enjoyed it if we got to see Sphene command the army to attack. Instead of building a twist, just make her a villain outright. Regardless, this was a great story and it helped us understand the way different nations lead. Helped grow Wuk Lamat into understanding peace & protection of your people. Striking a good balance is kind of what we learned in Alexandria.

Also the biggest aspect of the Alexandria storyline is the potentiality of the future. We have a key to the rift. We might be able to open up another reflection very soon. So there’s a lot of cool aspects about the future of the Final Fantasy expansions and what we potentially could go see and go visit and go do in future games. So that’s very exciting.

My overall thoughts on Dawntrail, I think the first half is the strongest because we get introduced to Tural. We get introduced to all these amazing different people and cultures. However, after the Rite of Succession, Shaaloani was absolutely terrible. It was just filler content for us to get to the attack on Tuliyollal. Even then, the story in the second half wasn’t as engaging as the first half because now we’re just trying to stop Zoraal Ja. Learning about Alexandria and its people was really cool. I didn’t really care about the Oblivion stuff because Oblivion was both against the city, but for the city. They didn’t really feel like a resistance group. I was thinking of Star Wars Rebellion where we were going to attack something but they were more like… people just laying back and going, man, that sucks.

Themes of Unity & Acceptance

The theme of unity & acceptance was felt throughout this story! In part one, the Rite of Succession, the story asked us about different cultures. The story was all about meeting and understanding the people of different cultures and how they live. And how we as a society can unite all these different cultures with all these different feelings and opinions together to create a peaceful nation. It was so cool, it was so fascinating. Very similar to Endwalker where the story could be related to the Internet. About people from different aspects of the Internet coming together to create this amazing place we call the Internet. But that’s not the reality of the Internet. The Internet is a toxic hellhole. Everyone wants to one up each other, ratio each other, hate on each other. I mean, our hate is completely monetized. Whether you’re on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, it’s all monetized to hate each other.

Even in the real world, hate still is existing and is still the best way to get people’s attention. But the cool thing about Dawntrail was it tried to have a message of positivity. Tried to have a message of hopefully changing someone out there from being a little bit more positive on the Internet. From being a little bit more accepting of other people. It’s one of those aspects that I really love about Dawntrail. I believe that games are a great way to introduce people to concepts and ideas that they’re not normally used to. And Dawntrail does a great job of kind of telling the story of positivity and unity. Of coming together as people to exist. And I think that is just so amazing.

Themes of the Root Cause

The other aspect that I really love that Dawntrail asks is the root of an issue. There’s a moment in the game where Koana mentions taking down a group of bandits in Kozama’uka. And he says, I’m gonna call in the Landsguards and we’ll get rid of all the bandits. And one of those most surprising things that I heard from a video game character. Wuk Lamat says no, we shouldn’t do that. Instead, we should understand why they’re stealing in the first place. And that was something I never expected any video game to ask that question. They just dropped one of the most progressive thoughts and ideas in their game. And it’s not even out of place. It doesn’t even feel weird. It simply asks the question that throwing more police at crime isn’t a permeant solution to crime. What a unique perspective I never expected from any video game, to be fair. Any video game, any movie.

Themes of AI & Death

Dawntrail tackles AI in a very unique way. Dawntrail does not make the assumption that if you like AI, you’re a piece of garbage. Instead of push people away, Dawntrail asks tries to share a unique perspective. The Living Memory is AI generated. The terminal has grabbed all the memories from all these once living people and is simulating what their life would be in the Living Memory. Resulting in the creation of new memories from these not real people. This was fascinating.

Originally when I first got into Living Memory, I was annoyed. I was like, why the hell are we caring about these fake AI characters? Why is it okay for us to continue using AI to make our deceased loved ones still live? This is an abomination, but then we get a moment where Krile gets to meet her parents. Even though I know these are AI simulated parents. It was a moment of closure for Krile. She got to experience hanging out with her parents and have ice cream. It was beautiful to see!

Now, I’ll add a disclaimer. Currently in today’s society, people are using this exact thing as a way to exploiting death for money. So the Living Memory could not happen in the real world without it being a free service by the government. However, the idea of a Living Memory could be seen in the next 100 or 200 years. And we will have to face a true battle with the question of whether the person in the Living Memory is truly a person or just a simulation of that person. And to Krile, to her they felt like her real parents.

The same can be said about Erenville. I found this relationship between Erenville and his mother so realistic. So fascinating. Since the beginning of us finding Erenville, he’s been adventuring. He’s been trying to find the City of Gold. We end up learning this towards the end of the Endwalker post-patches. And his journey to now finally find the City of Gold. He’s excited to tell his mother about it. And all of a sudden this dome gets created over it. He can’t speak to his mother anymore. He’s stressed. He’s anxious. And the time he gets to meet her, she’s this robot.

Erenville has slowly been more suspicious that maybe his mother is dead. And it wasn’t until we get to the Everkeep where it’s finally confirmed for him that she is dead. But he still plays it up like she’s fine. And we go into the Living Memory and he sees her for the first time in three to four years. He sees her just as he remembers her. But he doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to respond. Because to Erenville he sees his mother. But he knows that’s not his mother. But she sounds just like him. She has the memories just like her. He can’t. He’s struggling with separating what his mother is in his mind to what this AI simulation is. And he can’t. He’s struggling to speak because he knows this is not his mother. But he desperately wants to pretend it is his mother. And he struggles so hard through the entirety of the Living Memory, trying to figure out how to feel, trying to figure out his emotions, trying to figure out what he wants to say to her. And I just found that so beautiful.

It’s someone who is struggling with the loss of his mother while still seeing her in front of him. He is so emotionally conflicted. It was one of my favorite moments in the entirety of the game. So it sometimes annoys me when people complain why Erenville didn’t talk for most of Living Memory. He is so emotionally distraught and he doesn’t know how to express himself. And it isn’t until the final moments where he’s able to express himself. He’s able to tell her that he just doesn’t know how to feel. He’s able to say things to her. And then we get the moment where she starts to cry. This entire time, I was annoyed that these were AI simulations of people deceased. It’s exploiting our own emotions. But at the same time, I see what happened with Krile. I see what happened with Erenville. And I saw how important meeting their parents, despite them not being their parents, how important it was to them. How important it was for them to finally say goodbye. For them to be able to have that release is something so powerful. And for that is why I love Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail. Thank you.

Ranking FFXIV Expansions

I am the one of those weirdos who prefers it in reverse chronological order. I do think that after each expansion, the game gets better, but allow me to explain why.

A Realm Reborn: It’s the weakest of the bunch. I skipped most of the story until the escape of Ul’Dah, which as someone who starting area was Ul’Dah. I enjoyed it, but curious how this Ul’Dah-centric story hit for people who like Gridania or Limsa Lominsa.

Heavensward: This is where I really started to pay attention to the story of XIV. We have a lot of cool environments, a lot of cool characters. I mean, our first important death, Haurchefant was really sad. The fight against Nidhogg and the music of Dragonsong was super hype. Post-Heavensward, we got the Ardbert’s team showing up. That was really cool. And the fact that Minfilia peaced out was wild. Crazy that this story bit doesn’t get tackled until Shadowbringers.

Stormblood: I enjoyed Stormblood. The politics were really interesting. The whole story is about a group of people, the Ala Mhigan, who were pushed out of their home by an invading army. It’s a story I just never expected a game to tell. And especially, a Final Fantasy game to ever tell. And this was so fascinating. I was like, damn, you guys are hitting on some pretty tough stuff about war refugees, and what it means for a war to take over another region and territory. And to the point that even in Stormblood, there’s an aspect of it where we hear the Garlean theme is just a stolen copy of the Ala Mhigan theme. The music and everything in this is so freaking incredible. And of course, the Doman stuff is also really cool, but my enjoyment came from the Ala Mhigan story being so close to reality.

Shadowbringers: Is when Final Fantasy XIV truly goes from a good FFXIV story to an incredible story PERIOD. I caught up right around the launch of FFXIV. This story introduced us breaking away from the Source, which was very interesting. So it felt like its own secular story being told. We meet a lot of my favorite characters. Emet-Selch, who I named my cat after. Which I absolutely love. What an awesome character. This story also told us and helped us understand the story of the Ascians. It was so fascinating. I began to care about Elidibus & Emet, despite them being the enemy. It was just really cool. And the moments with Ardbert were so wonderful! I was crying my eyes out during his moment. Learning the fate of Minfilia too was so heartbreaking. I greatly enjoyed Shadowbringers.

Endwalker: Endwalker is a story that really hits for me. Look, I’m a cheesy dude. I love my power of friendship stories. Endwalker was basically the entire world coming together to stop the end of days. It was awesome. We built a freaking spaceship to go to this amazing place. The walk in Ultima Thule and seeing all the spirits of past characters and seeing all the spirits of people encouraging us to keep fighting, to keep going on. All this stuff really lends to an emotional moment where we’re on the flower field and I’m just bawling my eyes out as Emet is telling us all this information and me trying to come to terms that we are about to end this. The fact that the story is based on a character named Meteion that is kind of describing to us the toxicity of the Internet and how growing up on the Internet could tear you apart. This poor creature saw all the hate and was like this world needs to be destroyed.

It’s like a lot of this heartbreaking moments and these very powerful real world. analogies that you can relate. It’s just so perfect because look, I’m a sucker. I love when you have strong connections to the real world. I feel like not a lot of people enjoy being told politics or being told ways to think. I think games are a great avenue to help people understand different sides of a story, different sides of an argument or different sides of an opinion through a way that’s engaging and interesting and helps you understand. And for me that’s something that I find really important in stories. And this story was that. This story told us the seriousness of toxicity. And I enjoyed it a lot. It was great. And of course we get the freaking dope scene where not only do we fight Zenos but we also get Zenos calling us my friend breaking through and we’re literally riding on the back of Zenos. It is pure cinema. I loved it. I freaking loved it. Also, we got to learn more about the Ascians as well, which is freaking amazing. Finally, a positive look at the Ascians, which was so much fun. Loved it.

Dawntrail: Lastly, it’s Dawntrail. It’s my number one favorite expansion. There’s a lot of things people don’t like about Dawntrail. The reason why I like Dawntrail is very similar to what I mentioned in Endwalker. There’s analogies to the real world. The whole purpose of Dawntrail is uniting. It’s being together. It’s understanding that we all have our differences, but we should exist in this world for peace. We should be together as one and be able to still have our own personalities, but at the same time, be caring to one another and have that positive outlook on life. That’s something that I feel like it’s missing in today’s Internet. It’s missing in the real world of just positive vibes, positivity, of coming together. This is what this game is about. And I greatly appreciate the optimistic story this game told through the lens of someone else. It was something that I really love.

And so, where Endwalker kind of represented the toxicity and the destruction of how the Internet could go, Dawntrail was how we can make the Internet better. How we can make our world better. How we can unite in positivity. I love that. And the second half of the story told us the importance of loss and told us the importance of AI and the dangers of what it would be to resurrect a deceased loved one via AI. Like, these stories are very poignant to real world history and real world events that are happening right now. And it’s something that I truly love the messaging whether it be the message of unity, the messaging on the use of AI.

All of this stuff is just so so important for people to know and learn and grow from. This story really relates a lot to me. And not only what I wanted from the Internet. You know, back in the day you can be a part of communities. Like, for me, I was a part of Newgrounds for the longest time. You go to Newgrounds, there’s some pretty awful shit there. You can meet some pretty awful people. But, it’s also the place that I met so many amazing different people that I never met in my life before. The fact that I learned what it meant to be queer. The fact that I learned that I am queer from Newgrounds. All of that stuff is because Newgrounds was this place that was a community of people of so many different aspects of life coming together for the love of making other people laugh. That was Newgrounds. And sometimes it was people trying to vent their frustration about whatever it was they were feeling. It was an amazing community, but now the communities on the Internet are really meant to hate each other. You’re really meant to like, you know, I don’t know, what is it called? Ratio people. It like sucks. People want to hate each other. You are now monetized and incentivized to hate each other. That freaking sucks.

And Dawntrail is that story that goes against the common trend on the Internet. It’s a story that I love hearing. And quite honestly, it’s a story that I don’t think we’ll get in the next expansion. I honestly don’t believe the next expansion is going to be better than Dawntrail. Because Dawntrail isn’t just better in terms of the dungeons, and the fights, and the bosses, and the story. It’s really how the story relates to me personally. What I want to view in a story. And the positive aspects. The understanding that we should come together, despite us having our differences, we should still come together and create a positive world. Because we all live in this hellscape of a world. So why not just make it better for each and every one of us?

I hope you have a great day. Enjoy it. Try and make your life better. Try to make other people’s lives better. Let’s try and not be toxic on the Internet. Thank you!