Game Review: Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail (Story through 7.0)

Two huge reviews so soon after one another is a lot, but I wanted to get my full Endwalker review out before I started my Dawntrail review and the Endwalker review didn't count as my July game for my "one game a month" project because I wasn't playing Endwalker in July. The Dawntrail early access came out at the end of June so I spent July in Tural. After the end of the "ten year saga" with Endwalker and with the trailers they put out with a very summery vibe, like Thancred chatting with people in the market or Urianger literally drinking some kind of mixed drink out of a pineapple, people started talking about Dawntrail as the "beach episode" of FFXIV where the Warrior of Light would go to a new world and just have a good time. This despite that the very end of Endwalker that led up to Dawntrail telling us that we were going to participate in a succession contest and the trailer showing the Warrior of Light fighting a giant two-headed mamool ja and getting set on fire. When that didn't happen--because of course it didn't, literally the very last story had a similar "we're just going on a silly adventure" premise that immediately turned into a save the world plot--some people got annoyed. And then some people got annoyed in a different direction, that the early part of the game didn't immediately have world-ending stakes! You just can't please everyone.

I can tell you some things that would have pleased me if they had changed, though.

Better than a farcical aquatic ceremony at least.

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