jedi phantom

Sigh. I love this game but this expac ain't it chief. Everything OTHER than the story is Grade A goodness: Gameplay feels good, dungeons are fun and add challenge back to the game, the trials are my favorite fights so far, and I'm looking forward to the Savage tier. Music once again slaps, and the endgame hub music is great lofi vibe music that doesn't grate on your nerves after afking in it (I'm looking at you Raaz, ur music just ERLKJDLGKJDLKFJ) The story tho? The main thing that ff14 is known for? It sucks. Full stop: It makes every beginner writer mistake in the book: pigeon holing every story beat on ONE character (Wuk Lamat), making the NPCs have no personality outside of telling us the plot, all the scions are just mouthpieces for beating you with the story's moral themes, a neverending cavalcade of lore dumps and reading, everytime you get a moment's breath you're walking around with Wuk Lamat (so much so we started making the "only monika" jokes from doki doki lmao). If you dont like her, this story is downright painful BUT even if you do like her, she's the only character that feels fleshed out. It's so one note that if ur looking for normal diversity of personalities, you can forget it. I know the old writer is working on "other things" (cough ff17 cough), but you need to bring her back or replace this one. They can learn from writing some more smaller points like sidequests or class/job quests. But for the love of a multi-million dollar company, get someone in here who knows how to write characters. This was straight up beginner level writing mistakes at it's finest, and I would know. I work at a university teaching college kids creative writing and I see this stuff EVERYDAY.