The new expansion city, Tuliyollal, is better than the last two. I preferred the aesthetics of the Crystarium with the red brick, elegant metalwork, stained glass, etc, but the spaces were huge and the game didn't populate them with enough NPCs, so you felt like an ant slowly running across these oversized empty courtyards which I do not think was the intended experience. Even in the story cutscenes where you had crowds of NPCs, there were nowhere near enough to fill up the spaces. Sharlayan is boring grey mush. Turalyoli does not look like boring grey mush and does not have the conspicuous design issues that the Crystarium had.
That being said, the city feels more like a vacation spot in Hawaii than the capital of a continent spanning empire. It pales in comparison to the promotional art and Dazar'alor from WoW.
Dazar'Alor from World of Warcraft.
I like the big band jazz music for the new capital city, but it feels weird for a distinctly USA genre to be used for a South American/Pacific island tribal themed location, rather than a more modern urban environment like Garlemald. Maybe I will AFK here this expansion instead of at Kugane or my house.
The story is about sailing to the empire in the New World and participating in its succession tournament. There are four candidates, and you back the lion princess. To win, you have to perform seven feats and then find the lost Golden City, which I suspect will turn out to be that futuristic sci fi city that has been shown off in the pre-release marketing and the patch notes. I don't think we will find a classic El Dorado. The first hour or two was boring fluff conversations, but once you reach the palace and the competition begins, the story becomes much more engaging.
I do have complaints about Wuk Lamat, the claimant I am supposed to be aiding. The game railroaded my character into supporting some random girl I don't know about in a succession competition. Given how benevolent the Warrior of Light is supposed to be, you would think he would first travel to the New World and meet the other claimants first before deciding who to aid? And now that I have spent a few hours with her, I want to switch claimants. She is incompetent. Erenville is the one who has to do everything for her. Plan how to achieve the overarching goal, instruct her how to accomplish the task right in front of her. Stop her from wasting her money buying clothes she doesn't need. Teach her economics 101. Etc. Given how fragile this 80 year old, multiracial empire is, I anticpate Tural would collapse under her. I wish I was aiding Koana, who seems to be good and competent.
Another thing too, is that I am really trying to like Wuk Lamat. She is the main character of the expansion, after all. She looks a lot prettier with her hair now, and she sounds cute in Japanese too. Unfortunately, I am playing with the English dub (because it was an unusually good dub)... and her English voice actor is a man. She has a lot of funny scenes, but whenever I hear her dub voice, it makes her unlikeable and I want to skip dialogue. It really brings down the experience. I am baffled as to why Square Enix thought to do this. The voice actor isn't even British like all of the other FF14 VAs.
I like the second zone. From the zone previews, it looked like yet another boring mundane map and was hoping to skip past it and get to the cooler fantastical zones ASAP, but now that I am running around inside it, it's pretty nice. The map is an incline and is surrounded by rocks and drops into the abyss, so it feels mountainous.
It would be nice if Tural's lore was reflected in gameplay. I am playing the new Viper job, which was created in Tural to specifically counter the Vidraal, a special type of monster native to Tural. However, you do not gain any actual mechanical advantage when facing off against the Tural Vidraal, like how the Onymyoji job in Granblue Fantasy specializes in cancelling the Omen mechanic in certain fights, or how Paladin in WoW is strong against undead and demons. The Pelupelu are a notorious merchant clan in Tural who are insistant at parting people with their money, but that doesn't happen to you in gameplay like with Lyle the salesman in Animal Crossing who chases you until you buy from him.
Erenville said that there was a strong storm that has eroded the treacherous, steep mountain roads and made them slippery, and that you can't use a mount in such rugged terrain. You travel to the third zone on a boat floating down the river, but it happens in a 15 minute scripted dungeon you do once. Contrast that with FF11 which had the adventure element represented in open world gameplay. In that game's New World expansion, you could interact with the environment to make it traversible, such as smashing tree stumps or stalagmite blocking your path, climbing cliffs, etc.
Traversing Ulbulka in FF11
They keep making a big deal about how difficult Tural is to traverse on foot, and how hot balloons are finnicky... but this is a fantasy world with countless large, flying creatures. Surely they would have been tamed and bred as flying mounts? If Hien, the prince of the small and impoverished kingdom of Doma could secure flying mounts for us, and was able to fly his small army half way across the world to show up for the war in Gyr Abania, then surely the princes of this rich, continent spanning empire would have access to them?
I am a little peeved by how unoriginal the night themes for the zones are. It is yet more grand piano arranges. 10 years of FF14 zones, and there is a lot of variety in the day themes, but almost all of the night themes are grand piano arranges. It feels like the music team's cheap go-to. Contrast that with WoW's night themes which are much more varied and isn't >80% piano arranges.
I like the regular battle theme. It isn't ear grating like ShB's theme, nor noisy, simplistic, and repetitive like EW's battle theme.
