So I won’t try to go into a play-by-play of the entire Dawntrail story, but just the general overall flow of how it went with what I feel about certain aspects of the journey. The whole expansion was really about Wuk Lamat and her journey of not only becoming Dawnservant, but learning about how to make peaceful resolves with other cultures that can potentially have wildly different ways of life. This, of course, extends to us the player as well while we go along with her as her traveling companion and so we learn all they’re willing to share.
Sometimes deducing needs to happen as well to learn about something in a roundabout way to understand one of the cultures. However, for the most part if one is willing to listen and see, then there’s an abundance of really wonderful knowledge to see and hear from all of it. I really loved every bit of this part of the story.
Comparing the beginning of the expansion to Endwalker, this felt a lot quicker of a start than that was. There’s still the introductory traveling part across the indigo blue (with some interaction involved this time), and then the introduction/tour of the new capital city of Tuliyollal.
This city is huge, and it feels like a bustling port town. Upon entering into the city area, the music strongly resembles that of something right out of Sim City 3000. This isn’t a ‘bad’ thing, but it certainly caught us off guard when first listening to it. The night version of the song is a more laid-back smooth jazzy sounding as opposed to it’s more swing-like styled day time theme.
After the tour of the city is concluded, there’s the intro to the right of succession contest with Wuk Lamat, her siblings Koana & Zoraal Ja, and then another contestant named Bakool Ja Ja who is not associated with the royal family. The hints given to us in Patch 6.55 of where Thancred and Urianger are explained a bit later on, but they were hired by Koana to assist with his journey through the contest.
Bakool Ja Ja, in particular, was a unique ‘enemy’ in this endeavor; being another two headed Mamool Ja, but with the pure objective of winning the contest at all costs. Even with a somewhat predictable arc & growth, he turned out to be a character I ended up going from really disliking to enjoying at the end of it all.
The right of succession itself is traveling the southern part of Tural, Yok Tural, and meeting with the chosen folks who are assisting with it to obtain seven keystones that would be used for the final objective of finding/opening the way to the City of Gold. The tasks each one gives a pretty different from the other, but all are enjoyable nonetheless.
Once all these introductions are done, thus begins setting out, seeing the absolutely beautiful sights & scenery, and assisting Wuk Lamat while talking and learning about all the people met along the way.
This whole part of the story was absolutely wonderful! The two initial zones that one are given a choice on what to do first are both just a thrill to go through. I know we spotted at least half a dozen or more little places to explore or just to hang out and enjoy the time passing by. Yak T’el, the third area, was just as much gorgeous as it was interesting and had quite a bit of history of what happened there, and story of how the two headed Mamool Ja are created. Wuk Lamat’s biological father, and things about Krile’s grandfather are also discovered here as well. This is where my feelings towards Bakool Ja Ja start to shift, and continued to from here until the end of the story.
The right of succession itself between Koana’s team and ours was fairly underwhelming as it slowly became more of the two siblings working together against Zoraal Ja and Bakool Ja Ja throughout the contest. Wuk Lamat herself grows quite a bit through this first part, and continues to for the second too, but it’s very noticeable all the way through till she becomes Dawnservant. This part was pretty predicable, but she does ask Koana to be Dawnservant with her as well, which was a nice touch.
The first half concludes with the Dawnservant succession ceremony, and obtaining access to the northern part of Tural, Xak Tural. The ceremony was surprisingly uneventful, but a very emotional one. The fact that it goes so uneventful was a really nice change of pace and looking back now, would have probably made the intro to the second half not as impactful as it was.
The music for each zone, especially Yak T’el, was great as always, and areas felt naturally placed for the most part. Yak T’el’s song in particular feels like its daytime song is paying homage to Rak’tika Greatwood’s. Dungeon-wise, the Level 91 was a lot of fun and introduced some nifty new things, the 93 dungeon was alright (duty support KO’d me a few times), but the 95 dungeon I very much disliked in terms of oddly higher difficulty and the final boss having an arsenal of knock backs that easily could wipe a party if not paying attention.
The first trial encountered very quickly after the level 93 dungeon, was fun and fair. The really nice thing is that both this trial and the second trial were able to use duty support alongside duty finder. All of the dungeons and trials (except the final trial) we used duty support to take these on at a slower pace and to learn them easier.
I can’t think of many issues with the first half of the story that I personally felt. It felt like a full and conclusive story with only a small amount of loose ends and one big one to worry about. It was just a really relaxing and enjoyable story with a few conflicts sprinkled here and there to spice things up. This felt like what would have been a pretty good patch cycle story, but I get that placing it in between Endwalker and Dawntrail wouldn’t have really worked. So with the right of succession all wrapped up, Zoraal Ja is left to be dealt with. This causes a bit of a shift in narrative for better or for worse.
I think that’ll cover Dawntrail for now, I’ll go into the second half in another post that will also have the final thoughts too!