Over ten years and 4 expansions Sq. Enix explored the story of two warring gods, Hydaelyn and Zodiark, and the fractured worlds created via that, coming to a climactic end in Endwalker. How do you comply with up a decade of storytelling that’s garnered tens of hundreds of thousands of followers within the course of?
Final Fantasy 14’s reply is to do one thing drastically totally different with its latest growth, Dawntrail, adopting a a lot lighter, extra adventurous tone, super visible modifications, and introduces a new forged of characters. It’s nonetheless a Final Fantasy recreation via and thru, however fascinatingly it seems like Dawntrail has drawn inspiration from one other seminal, perpetually unending collection: One Piece.
When Dawntrail was first introduced director Naoki Yoshida described it as a “Summer season Trip” for the Warrior of Gentle, that’s to say, your participant character. And it spawned a operating joke throughout the neighborhood that this was going to be the “seaside arc” — a light-hearted “break” that takes the characters away from the principle drama for a couple of episodes such as you see in lots of anime. Nevertheless it seems these comparisons could not have been utterly off-base because the additional you dig into Dawntrail’s layers the extra it begins to really feel like a shonen anime like Dragon Ball, Naruto, and most significantly for our comparability, One Piece.
No different anime has captured the sensation of journey fairly like One Piece, and Eichiro Oda’s pirate epic has already been inspiring others for nicely over a decade. With that in thoughts, it seems like a pure line to attract for Dawntrail, an growth that wishes to maneuver previous the massive world-hopping story of the final decade, and create one thing extra grounded.
Dawntrail, at its core, is a story about its ensemble forged somewhat than you the participant. Actually, your Warrior of Gentle isn’t even the protagonist within the newest growth. That honor goes to a newcomer named Wuk Lamat who serves because the Luffy of this story. And the 2 share greater than a few commonalities.
Wuk Lamat is a younger starry-eyed hero who desires to make the world a higher place and obtain her dream of changing into the ruler of the nation of Tural, Dawntrail’s new setting. She’s inherently inexperienced and naive, however has a coronary heart of gold, and most of Dawntrail’s story is about her studying to turn out to be a chief, whereas gathering a occasion of various allies in that course of.
Each Wuk Lamat and Luffy have that happy-go-lucky angle that makes them initially appear aloof, however the deeper layer beneath reveals they’re prepared to do completely something for his or her pals. It’s fascinating to see Wuk Lamat’s development mimic Luffy’s, reworking from an unpredictable wild card to a genuinely charismatic and compelling captain.
There are many different parallels you’ll be able to draw between the Scions and the Straw Hat crew, proper all the way down to the participant filling the identical position as Roronoa Zoro; the world-renowned legendary warrior who acts as a greatest buddy and sidekick. However past simply drawing these parallels, Dawntrail ensures that its peppy shonen story nonetheless feels intentionally Final Fantasy-esque.
Whereas Dawntrail’s total narrative construction is sort of precisely the identical as these first few arcs in One Piece — journey to new lands, study the native tradition, and inevitably resolve their issues, all whereas on the hunt for a legendary treasure — however the connective tissue is the themes on the coronary heart of Dawnrail, which converse to what the sport has achieved for years however on a bigger scale.