Final Fantasy 14 players are at a crossroads as we wait for Dawntrail to launch, which gives us an opportunity to reflect on what Here at MMORPG, I actually gave it a 9.5 in our now-well-quoted review to reflect the complexity of the story, the engaging dungeons, and innovation and interplay between gameplay and story.
However, there’s one more Endwalker thought to get off my chest before we step into the new expansion. This was expressed as a “con” before, but in hindsight, I find this particular bit to be a “pro”: If you’re mad at the Loporrits, the Loporrits won.
Everyone missed the point of the Loporrts. The way this arc plays out is a massive art of intentional frustration, and the fact that everyone was mad about them means it worked.
While I’m loath to reintroduce this, there is a games criticism term called “ludonarrative dissonance,” in which the urgency of the game’s material doesn’t quite match the actual gameplay occurring. For example, if Bahamut were before you, waiting to blow up Hydaelyn again, and you didn’t have items of the proper level, so you buy some stuff and do a duty to catch up, that would be ludonarrative dissonance.
The Loporrits essentially flip this situation onto you instead. The intentional tonal slowdown of the plot isn’t even subtext; it’s the entire reason for the Loporrits’ existence!
Loporrits are designed to be cute and comforting—to the point of distraction in times of extreme intergalactic distress. You want to get off the moon because, by way of their own narrative and rationale for the spaceship, the world is at peril. But that doesn’t matter, because you have all these poor little things with their mundane chores and errands to do until you take off, per the little bunnies’ vibes. And they won’t let you leave until you accept their pleas for help! And so you spend quest upon quest dealing with their attempts to soothe you out of the urgency you just escaped from.
In fact, the whole point of each mission is them asking you, what will simmer down that urgency to leave? What will make you stop thinking that the world is going to end, and that you’re about to escape the planet you love (and leave millions, or billions, of people behind), despite the fact that that choice is being made by a group of largely-unsympathetic elites? Why are you trying to get the hell off the moon so quickly? There are carrots and fashion here!
To get deeper with it, the Bestways Burrow arc also is a direct response to both that intense pace and Endwalker’s overall themes of power, hope, and despair. By way of existing, the moon spaceship is a backup—a “just in case” scenario by Hydaelyn. But its implications are dire, and the Loporrits are essentially a symbol of resignation to a grander fate. Our point is to break away from that predestined attitude they carry, that their awakening signifies doom and that mankind should survive in this very sanitized manner.
Both morally in context and as a player, this entire arc was written to piss you off. As endearing as the Loporrits are, they are proactively in your way, and you spend the entire time trying to convey the stakes, when they don’t actually care! It’s a perfect response to believing fully that you might have saved the world by killing Zodiark.
In both the immediate and long-term aftermath of this story, it’s been funny to recall this as “killing the momentum.” If anything, I think a change in pace and a bit of levity were especially necessary after the hectic “three acts in one” act we just endured, leading up to the death of the very demi-god we spent a decade hearing about. Plus, it wasn’t like it was an immediate death of momentum, with a good amount of time spent learning more about the moon before we found Bestways Burrows.
A point in Endwalker that I think deserved the frustrations that the Bestways Burrows received is the heavily-mocked spaceship preparation arc in Labyrinthos. That “ludonarrative dissonance” actually exists here, with that rift between the looping “urgent music” and the odd, extensive fetch/NPC-finding quests you’re sent around the area to do.
Here, you really could dip away for a long time, and it just wouldn’t make sense for the narrative that the game attempts to convey here. Like, don’t you have the spotlight on you while you’re trying to save the world? Why are we getting food now?
I do believe Loporrits got plenty of love, but it always came with the caveat that “the arc was bad.” It doesn't need that caveat! It’s one the massive risks that Endwalker took, such as the In From The Cold mission that I kicked off the post-expansion cycle by discussing, and its divisive nature created a sort of metanarrative irony that I’m enjoying looking back upon. Hopefully, we get something of an actual break at some point during our Dawntrail journey to Tural—though based on the trailer, any relaxation may not be for long.
