- Sphene's VA is really good. Wuk is still a fairly shitty performance overall but sounds less...singsongy. I don't know how to describe Wuk Lamat's cadence up til about now but it just this weird delivery that went up and down into different registers.
Granted now you can really hear the 'maleness' slip in.
I'm curious what Rich Evans has to say on the production end of things. Regardless, it is a really stark contrast between the two, made all the worse by the wide range Sphene's VA is capable of with the Simulant and 'Real' Sphene.
- The MSQ is continuing the trend of shooting itself in the foot. Troon Cat says something along the lines of 'There's no substitute for seeing things with your own eyes.' I agree, which is why it is so frustrating that we're being told so much shit that is happening off-screen. Some of it is fine (eg, we probably don't need to see Koana and Wuk agree that we need more Wuk Lamat) but other shit (like uncovering this Snow White coffin that contains the 'real Sphene') probably should've had a bit more involvement from the fucking player.
- This feels like segments of the MSQ saw rewrites. The exposition dump explaining how the game is going to be referring to the 3 Sphenes, for example, just feels really jank even when accounting for XIV's tendency for expo dumping. The end bit where the machines go crazy also feels like a rewrite. I have a feeling Wuk was initially positioned to be more prominent and instead they just jettisoned the character at every available opportunity.
There's other bits of dialogue here and there which seem to indicate a lack of oversight as some bits of dialogue seem off. EG,
"Say, if this Calyx is as brilliant a scientist as everyone says, could he have been the one who erased everyone's memories of Endless Sphene's death?"
Also
"This might not be important, but I found something interesting." Two seconds later: "Oh, I expected he intended for us to find the terminal."
- I think I complained about this before, but the forced nickname thing for Wuk Lamat is annoying and speaks to the earlier problems of with Dawntrail's writing where they try to take shortcuts in making us care about characters. I dunno if this is a Japanese honorifics/etiquette thing leaking through or what but it just comes off so hackneyed.
- Wuk continues being an idiot. Sphene: "I know that voice. Calyx, is that?" Wuk: "What?! You know this man!?"
- The game is stating and re-stating plot points over and over again right after they happened. This is something that was glaringly bad in 7.0 and is rearing its head again here. While I understand the average XIV player is a drooling sped, the amount of handholding to connect the dots on plot points is insulting to the people who aren't.
- The ongoing plot with Real Sphene/Queen of Reason is interesting and seems to be back to the general FFXIV level of 'acceptably bad' writing. It looks like they might be going the Blade Runner route with this story and Calyx is playing the role of Batty.
- There's a great moment of contrast which highlights why so many find Wuk Lamat obnoxious. Real Sphene is established as someone who went away for 400 years, isn't particularly useful at the moment, but knows the layout of the next dungeon we're going to. She has a practical fucking reason for accompanying us that came about fairly organically.
Meanwhile, Trooncat is not only coming along but is also barking orders at everyone, despite a character flat out pointing out that a rival leader sticking their dick hatchet wound into another country's sovereignty is not a great idea. Fucking why.
All in all it feels like the devs are responding to criticism about Troon Cat and given how big this fucking patch was, salvaging the MSQ was probably near the bottom of their list of priorities. 7.3 should be interesting.
