Love how in God of War 2018 Kratos only agrees to go do sidequests that make him and his son more prepared for their journey. Makes sense from an in game standpoint to ignore the main missions for a while.
I also like how Kratos & Atreus both have different views on Side Quests; Atreus wants to see & do everything possible & Kratos just wants to finish the Journey
Breath of the Wild has a problem along those lines. I did most of the quests without realizing, then at the end of the game I thought I had a lot more content left than I did. "50% of quests completed! There's still so much for me to do!" ... Until I learned that all I really had left to do was find the person that starts the quest somewhere in the vast world to get a "New quest! ... Quest complete!"
@@Cambroth Well that´s not really the game´s fault. I mean if you really finished most of the sidequests that means you really spend a lot of your time in the game.
@@nidohime6233 I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, but I do think it's a flaw. It would be better if some part of the quest itself would mark it as complete or at least active, so that the player knows in advance that a lot of their 'incomplete' quests really just involve closing them with an NPC.
"Don't put a really good reward after the hardest challenge in the game or the reward itself will be pointless (shows Julius from KH: Dream Drop Distance)". Yes. What's the point of getting the game's strongest sword by killing the game's strongest superboss? By defeating the toughest enemy in the game, the sword becomes pointless, since there aren't any more difficult bosses to kill by using it. This bothers me in games. One of the worst offenders is Zelda: OOT. By finding all of the skulltulas, you can obtain infinite rupees. However, by the time you kill the last skulltula, you're near the end of the game, and rupees become pretty much pointless since you don't really need to buy anything (especially if you did the sidequests to obtain the bigger quivers and bomb bags. You will have so many bombs and arrows, that by the time you're running out of them, it's just easier to cut grass to find more).
The only exception to this that I can think of is Zenith from Terraria, but the reason why it works is because it's a sandbox game rather than an RPG. Even though you need to beat the final boss at least twice to get it, among doing several other things, it's still a lot of fun to use because it just annhilates everything, including said final boss, far faster than (nearly) everything else.
@@ap1evideogame44 One of my favorite Super Boss rewards was just the simple medals from defeating Omega and Shinryu in FFV :p That way I didn't feel I was getting the best gear after the toughest fights for nothing (though they aren't that hard and can be cheesed, and they have a more difficult version in the post-game)
you didn't mention the worst part of the paper mario sidequests... you don't know the rewards unless you look them up! Normally that wouldn't be the worst, but as you pointed out, you can only do one at a time, they're lengthy, and they're almost always not in your next destination so no parallelisation...
I can't imagine how frustrating that must be for new players or folks who don't like using guides! Spending hours on a tedious and slow sidequest only for the "reward" to not be worth it...I don't think quests should always tell you exactly what you're getting, but having a hint or some kind of way for players to gauge if it's worth it would be so useful
@@CreoTan yup, some are truly worthless, and it's not like the journey is fun, forced backtracking in the final quest is tedious enough without side quests doing it.
Ayy CrossCode got mentioned! That game is definitely worth playing. It's worth mentioning that a lot of the later sidequests get a lot more complex, with their own set pieces and unique encounters and boss fights. Some of them are actually pretty funny. It's just that the earlier ones are usually fetch-quests with a script on the side.
It's a direct result of the way Early Access worked, with chunks of the game being developed and released in chronological order. It means the early areas were created while the devs were still getting used to what the possible design space was like. Area layouts, enemy designs, and sidequests all get significantly more interesting as the game goes on because by then the devs had a clearer understanding of what the game could be.
I picked it up on game pass a few days ago and I'm hooked! I'm glad to hear that the side quests will get more complex, even tho so far I'm not being bothered by how "fetchy" they are, since they are basically just an incentive to thoroughly explore the various areas and, like the video mentions, they help with the grinding
I was going to come say this too! Other than the straight up "get X random drops" quests, almost every sidequest in Crosscode offers something new--such as mini dungeons with their own themes, variant enemies, crossovers with other genres, or new bosses. I think the best example for elaboration is two sidequests right after you get the fire element. Both feature enemies who look identical to ones you've seen but can only be defeated by flinging bombs at them (the mechanic you just learned). But one is a frantic area-defense minigame, while the other is a series of arena battles in which those same enemies are also trying to fling the bombs at you, which escalates across several fights.
The skyrim quest: A night to remember. funny, layered, and takes you all over the map, it's one of my favourite quests and really a breath of fresh air from dungeons and straight forward fetch quests. I even ran a dnd oneshot based on this quest
Isn't it inspired by The Hangover movies? But I also really liked that quest! :) Edit: I remember that in Oblivion for the Dark Brotherhood, there was a quest inspired by the Clue movie/board game. Where 5 or 6 characters were locked in a mansion and told that there is hidden treasure.
A thing I liked about some of Bug Fables side quests is that you can sometimes end up picking up the special items in locations you go to even if you haven’t accepted the side quest yet
@@dusklunistheumbreon Ah, too bad. The characters are really engaging and the world is so interesting that you want to keep playing and doing quests to learn more about the world. I think they made the game look cute because bugs kinda creep a lot of people out.
That’s why Majora’s Mask is actually my favourite Zelda Title. The side quests. They give you so much more story and emotions to all the different characters. Something about the mysterious and dark setting combined with all these different stories and how the people are effected through the catastrophe just makes it so special. This game fascinated me when I was a kid - and still does.
And the fact that you know that nothing you do will matter shortly after doing it, makes it a matter of wanting to help the people rather than just helping yourself. Everything you do outside of the main story is about bringing comfort and closure to a doomed people. And I think that makes the side quest more impactful than just a simple item reward.
@@jazzyj7834 And being unable to finish all or even most of the side quests in a single three-day cycle adds to MM's theme of the hero's powerlessness in the face of doom.
“Witch Hunt” is one of my favorite side quests from my favorite game, Dragon’s Dogma. 1. It’s acquired in a cool, organic way by overhearing to a conversation happening in the town square. 2. It involves a character met through a previous side quest from an earlier stage of the game, making earlier actions feel meaningful. 3. It unlocks a previously inaccessible portion of the map, containing new loot & a new version of monster boss. 4. The main reward from the quest is lore that stays relevant to the main plot and ending later on.
I'm kinda surprised that Chrono Trigger wasn't mentioned given how the whole game kinda feels like a side quest to become strong enough to defeat Lavos. Also that each character has a major side quest towards the end of the game which gives great rewards for each character and fleshes them out as well.
Sidequests are optional though. Chrono triggers sidequests only appear right before the final boss (aside from the millennial fair, if that counts as separate from minigames)
See, I didn't really like Tarrey Town in BotW that much because Akkala was one of the last regions I went to. Because of that, when I got to the Tarrey Town quest it was pretty much something that I had to do all at once, and didn't feel nearly as rewarding or fun because I didn't get that feeling of seeing it grow over the course of the game. I think they should've put it closer to the Great Plateau so it'd be easier to find
To be fair you're first exposed to it in Hateno Village which you need to go to really early for the main quest. After you complete your house Hudson will say he's going to Akkala to work. You can also see the area where Tarrey Town will be built from the area behind Zora's Domain which you also need to go to for the main quest. It's a big pillar with a small land bridge, so it screams "something special is here, please explore me!".
Tales of Symphonia has a pretty bad sidequest. Mostly because it starts as part of the main quest, and you don't discover how to complete it until later in the game.
This reminds of how octopath did sidequests, and I never did a single one because of how they set them up. They never actually told you what to do, they would only give you hint, and never tell you where to go or what to do, just go figure it out yourself. It might've been fun for some, but octopath was a game that didn't even have sidequests while I played.
All the tales games at least until xillia( I didn't play it) has bruh sidequest to the point were the ex dungeons are misseable. There are no track list for sidequest and most of them are activated by running around (at least in the symphonia-vesperia era) eternia had at least few sidequest so they are easier to locate for example. But in games like abyss or vesperia you HAVE to use a guide if you want to see at least the most important ones and that is not a good design :/
Tales of was always problematic for me in the Sidequest area because most was missable and also most of the time had no reason to begin. Walkthrough: "After unlocking the third city DON'T ENTER or else you will lock 3 sidequests. Backtrack to the first city on foot to trigger a cutscene" Like... Why would I do that on my normal playthrough?! They have Skits, why not put a cue there having one of the characters go "Hey, I wonder how the people from the First City are" that would make me feel the need of going back already but NOOOOO nothing of the sort.
@@xx_pit_xx8492 People always point out Abyss as having some bad ones but I always thought they made sense when they popped up and had some pretty logical setup points for them with very few I would consider out of place, same with Symphonia especially since most of that games major ones only really opened up at the end anyway. Then again, that might be because i've played the games for a long time but I will agree that Vesperia's just sorta pop out of nowhere and don't have any real logical tells to look for. Not saying that it isn't a good thing that the series moved away from this mind you, it's a good thing that the games keep track of them all and let you know where there at (although I do miss seeking them out on my own to some extent), just felt like relaying my own experience.
@@megasoniczxx I agree that is a good thing to sometimes find one on accident. But there are some like Tear-Legretta in abyss that is important for the characters and while it is easy to get you could lose it without problem. And in these games there are a lot of them that are missable Idk at least in ng+ it would be good to have a diary where you have the accepted sidequest and what was completed alredy via grade shop that way I get more easily the sidequest I missed the first time and who prefers to find it by accident can still do it
You showed it off, but didn't talk about it much. I love the sidequests in Nier/Automata. The way they tie into the main themes of the games is just amazing.
My favourite example is Amnesia if anyone remembers. Where you trace an android’s memories to the moment of a murder to solve who killed the client’s best friend. Not only was it compelling, but the payoff also rewards players with extra lore on the different varieties of Yorha units. After this lore was then revealed as essential to the plot, it was made even more hard-hitting. Whenever I think of Side Quests, Nier Automata ALWAYS comes to mind for revelations like this. Thanks for bringing it up, girugamish👍
I also loved Nier:Automata Sidequests! In most games, I usually avoid most of them, but in N:A, they help you understand more about its world, and make you more invested in certain characters. The fast travel and indications of where the items you need are also makes completing most of them really convenient. I also appreciate how the game makes they seem more important, with voiced dialogue, changing music themes in certain areas during dialogs or after completing the side quests, and also changing the world around you (despite not as much as that town in Breath of the Wild). If someday I ever create a kind of story-driven game and put side quests into it, I hope to make them as interesting as Automata's. Glory to mankind!
@@SparkTFS Agreed. Another game where I like doing the side quests is Persona 5 Royal (the Mementos requests). They're similar in that they add to story and the world as a whole. In fact you can even see one character's development in the real world in game (the stalker girl)
...Thousand-Year Door had side quests? It's been over a decade since I've played it, but I don't recall any time I had to pick up anything from a quest board. ...you can get Ms. Mowz on your team!? Did I even play this game?
Yes it took me a while since I learn that Ms. Mowz can be on my team lol. Younger I found it weird that Paper Mario TTYD have less partner than Paper Mario 64, but I didn't know Ms. Mowz was a secret party member 😂. Also did you know in Chapter 2 (Boggly Tree) you can recruit 1 lonely jabbie in your puni team for the "war" against the 100 jabbies. 😁
This sounds like an awesome episode! What are the things you can think of? I personally think of different themes, skill levels and enemies, all to make gameplay different. Of course every level has to be build around the movement of the player tho, but that just might be something I just assume.
Big ups for the Bug Fables mention! As soon as I heard the Snakemouth Den theme I got excited lol. And the Termite Kingdom music at the end was a nice touch! The game's sidequests are awesome. I 100% agree that you can easily get lost in that game's sidequests and forget to make actual story progress. To make the easy comparison, sidequests are one of the many things the devs did better than Paper Mario on IMO.
Octopath Traveler falls on a weird part of this spectrum. The optional job shrines especially the late game ones with the hard boss you have to beat to get it are amazing. I had so much fun working to get to these shrines so my characters could be that much better in battle. However, in my 85-ish hours with the game, I can count on my fingers how many actual side quests I’ve done. Most happened by accident where I just so happened to have the right info for a certain NPC. Other than that, I would read the prompt for a side quest and realize I have no idea where to even start. Im sure this is great for other people, but for me it felt like a wasted part of a great game. It didn’t feel worth it to pursue the quests so I went through the whole game barely touching them which is a shame because I know the rewards are pretty good.
That makes sense but it was the best part of the game for me because since I loved reading the backstory for all NPCs with Cyrus' path action I'd end up remembering how to do almost all the sidequests and get them done super fast compared go most games where I'd have to go look for some fodder enemies I'd fought but couldn't remember the location of. It's only really hard to do if you put them off until the end where you've gone to alll the cities, then it's hard to find some NPCs. I still only got stuck on a cpuple of quests and I still just waited to stumble back onto the right NPC while doing other stuff because just running around the various cities looking for things to buy was super relaxing so I didn't mind. Plus at least the rewards are good so you don't really need to do all of them and some who need specific NPCs will either tell you where to go or have that NPC be also important to a sidequest so you can find them in your log (the log's nice too, some games have pretty meh ones)
I definitely got my 30 hours worth. It's the Paper Mario we deserve after the undesirable offerings we got from more recent Mario RPGs (Sticker Star was arguably the nadir, and Paper Mario hasn't quite recovered since). And honestly, we need more Mario-style RPGs in general. We've gotten many in the Mother style over recent years (Undertale and Omori are key examples of good MRPGs, and Oddity is currently being worked on by fans of the Mother series), but not quite enough in the style of Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi.
Don’t forget Celeste! The strawberries, B sides, C sides, etc. Are all a good example of creating flavorful side quests out of just the games mechanics. There’s practically no text or story to them, but the joy of finding another red berry around the corner is irresistible.
Those are more of collectibles than side quests, though. I mean, I guess save for the true ending being locked behind finishing everything, which is... Frustrating. Literally one away but I can't beat the summit C-side. Fucking hell.
Those arent side quests those are collectiables. If you're gonna consider them side quests then why not conisder the star coins in the NSMB games side quests?
I’d consider anything that is an objective beyond the main goal to beat the game is a side quest. I think side quest design applies to collectibles and vice versa
I love how the Trails series' lore make side quests a part of the main character's job description and how the main plot is structured to evolve using a cycle of days and chapters so doing side quests is not just plausible but enforced. Each day will start slowly with a list of quests mixed between main and side ones with clear distinction between them on the player's perspective. There is rarely any rush to make the main quest at the start, and by the time you feel rushed, most of the side quests should be done or on the path to the main one. They use clever techniques to advance and halt the story by making each day only end with the current issue solved, left unable to solve or unaware that is unsolved, instead of the classic "now you have to go to X and do Y". Each day will start normally, but is not like a "reset". NPCs move forward with their own private issues, newspapers announce what happened, some NPCs know what you did and react to it (side or main quests). This also allows for a better world building since: - Side quests feel like part of a normal day with a lot of lore in them. - The main story will progress partially by the player's direct actions and partially by giving time for the world itself to move forward.
I like SMTV's sidequests, a lot of them help flesh out the world of Da'at and how the demons that live within it interact and survive, as well as expand little by little the game's lore, plus most of them come with pretty great rewards, like the Talismans that unlock Magatsuhi skills, Essences for learning skills, and new Demon Fusion recipes. And completing a certain set of sidequests that are centered around bettering the survival of the humans within Da'at nets you a hidden ending relevant to that theme.
Another detail I really enjoyed about how Cross Code quests start is the "quest location" menu in the main hub of every city. In there, it displays all quests you have available to you in said city and surroundings, the percentage of quests accepted/completed, where the quest givers are located, and all that. It doesn't show you ALL quests, though, there are a few hidden ones, and they clearly mention it to you, which incentives the player to look for those themselves. Definitely one of the best side quest mechanics I've ever found.
I don't really hate side quests. FETCH quests are what I hate. There's a difference between a contained story that's like "please go get my family and tell them something then go to location B and finish a PvE battle then come back to me" and "please find me 10 red flowers"
Bug Fables might seriously be the best Paper Mario game. An altered combat system that allows for awesome strategies, a cool set of characters, and as the video mentions, the side quests are incredible. I was losing my mind when I found that hidden dungeon, it was an incredible moment.
The Trails series has some pretty good side quests. Most of them usually add to the world building or give some context to the series’s many side characters and have some pretty solid rewards. The ones that don’t offer story related content are usually challenged based and offer you either a large chunk of money or some of the most powerful items in the games. Also, the side content in the Yakuza series is *chef’s kiss*
As someone who has recently played the first 3 games of the series, I must disagree. I don't deny the extra bits of worldbuilding and great rewards you get, but the sidequests barely contribute to the main narrative or characters. Mostly, they're also specifically designed to be tedious and predictable. Oftentimes sidequests are also recycled, such as mandatory fetch/monster quests in EVERY region of the world. The best sidequests are unfortunately also the ones that are "hidden". Usually you can preview sidequests from the Bracer Guild's signpost, but a few handpicked sidequests are only triggered if the player decides to go somewhere or do something at a very precise point in the game, and those are (mostly) the interesting ones.
@@sockknight3927 Just made a different comment on the matter if it appears for you. If you play the later games though, you'd have a side quest involving Armand and Ellie in Azure (the ones you helped with a wedding). Back story of Josette is later expanded upon in Azure and Cold Steel 3 as well, again in side quests.
what i like most are side quests who don't say they're side quests. You just happen to encounter someone who says/do something and you realise how it could (or could not) be an interaction that can be pushed. Finding a quest is a reward in itself
Yo kai watch 3 has an amazing side quest system (you can activate them from your detective agency (where you can fast travel to) so you can find them easily, then they tell their problem and you need to solve them. and they are mostly really fun. The reward isn’t that great mostly, but the quest itself is almost always amazing. It isn’t “I want 10 candy’s” but it is most of the time a mini story. Like: “the main villain that you beat in the campaign, won in a different reality, so it is up to you to save that world from a threat that already won, where you need to work with familiar faces, that are completely different personally wise. To stop an even stronger evil.” And you are not forced to stop with this campaign to do them. You can activate 20 of them and do them when you are in the mood for them.
Xenoblade 2's best content imo is its side quests, particularly the unique blade quests. The issue is that it also has a TON of generic side quests, and a lot of these blade quests are hidden either behind or masquerading as those generic quests. If you're a completionist already then it might not bother you as much, but if you are just rushing through the main story then you'll miss some of the best, most touching moments in the game (as well as the best characters and items). It also doesn't help that you need to gachapon your way into most of those blades before getting their quests, though, so that's another issue with the blade system...
And even your run of the mill "kill 10 of those" serve a purpose as the game wants you to take a somewhat completionist route and those missions help. But some of the rare pickups are disgusting. I spent like 2 hours to get the 3 auroran bones.
I still remember the pig side quest 😅 the one where you go to a cave and choose to either complete the mission by killing the baby pigs or leave them be
One of the things that can make or break a game's sidequests for me is the quality of NPC dialogue/characterization. That's one of the reasons I love Dragon Quest and Yakuza sidequests so much. I love the charm and humor in Paper Mario too, so I'm excited to check out Bug Fables!
I was hoping to see Bug Fables on here. Leif's sidequest is something beyond a sidequest. Sure it's labeled as one and is completely optional and yet is has so many bombshells, secret areas and challenge that it feels wrong to call it a "sidequest!" I also love how the game reminds you of Snakemouth later on with the "find my brother" sidequest. It was a genius moment of "wait, I never looked in those giant doors, did I?" and then you stumble into Upper Snakemouth and stuff goes DOWN. Honestly the theme behind Upper Snakemouth would make for an excellent spinoff/prequel of its own. I know some of the fun is not knowing and coming up with your own theories of what happened... but that doesn't stop me from wanting more and having concrete answers!
Their are several reasons I think the legend of Zelda Major Mask's side quests are the best in Zelda game side quests. 1. The quests fit thematically into the game. MM Zelda is a game about stopping the End of the World and death features heavily in the main game's story. However the side quests serve to show us how the people of Clock Town (and some other places) are dealing with it. Most side quests will have a quiet moment or two as the characters talk about and deal with the possible end of the world. And the NPCs have a wide range of emotional about how they choose to deal with this. It really drives home the point to the player that this is a world that needs saving. 2. All the NPCs are connected in someway to each other. MM uses Clock Town's relatively small size to it's strength as the NPCs interact with each other or are connected to another NPC through a third party and you learn about these connections as you do side quests. For example the Bandits who are robbing a rival milk farm have a struggling brother in town who visits a milk bar. The milk bar is supplied by milk from the rival milk farm and while the brother doesn't know this he doesn't care for the milk served at the bar and his side quest involves getting milk from the bandits farm. Now the owner of the rival milk farm is the best friend to the girlfriend of the mayor's son (she along with the mayor's son also have their own side quest) and the mayor's wife visits the milk bar on the last day before the moon falls. Depressed about her son's disappearance and ready for the world to end. Naturally her side quest involved getting a letter to her from her son letting her know that everything will be ok. And boom that's just one small location but it serves to show how interconnected the NPCs are with each other and in turn it makes Clock feel like a real lived in small town.
14:13 I remember Megaman X Command Missions. Once you defeat the hardest superboss they give you the most powerful weapon of the game, one that is special against "bosses". Yes, just when there are no bosses anymore to defeat. It would be more useful if the game had a NG+...
Design Doc, You deserve so much more. I can't believe that you only have 164K subscribers. Your content is always so professional, articulate and well done. I literally went to school for game design and development and I know that the things you bring up are on point. I wish I had some way of getting more people invested in your work. Please continue this work, it's so good I know one day you will manage to garner the appeal and praise you deserve
13 sentinels aegis rim is interesting in the terms of side quests. By s ranking missions you get mystery files which gives you a clear description of a certain event, character, etc. Some are still more neat things plus you do still get some from the main story
I like when a side quest gives some nice bonus for doing it in a timely manner in relation to the main story. Dragon Quest VIII is an example I like, especially the 3ds version. You get things early on that help clear some of the near upcoming challenges. The first quest just gives cheese that gives you some control over the battle field, something you don't have right away until you get more party members, or find or buy a boomerang. The cheese is outclassed fast, but alchemy makes them useful in different ways. The new Cameron's Codex gives extra items that help if you keep doing them during the story, like granting a holy lance right when you'd want something like that but would otherwise have to spend a lot of money and sacrifice other items to alchemy to get it. The monster arena can be powerful once you gain access to it, spending time collecting monsters can net you four or five prizes in addition to the Call Team ability, a customizable move that can unleash your team's deathmove "triple swords", give access to a once per battle Multiheal extremely early before reliable healing beyond single target is a thing, or just give a few free turns to wait out powerful enemy attacks while getting some free shots in yourself, all before getting the ship. This makes the rest of the early to mid-game much easier without having to grind levels, especially when paired with the mini medals. This can push easily up to the Dark Ruins, where purchasable and lootable and craftable equipment start to finally catch up to the bunny suit and posh waistcoat.
I think for me the thing I'd love to see more games do is give moments where running off to do sidequests doesn't feel like you're putting the plot on hold in the middle of something "urgent". I'd love to see more stories incorporate moments of "here's a little time to run around and do stuff" into them.
yay more bug fables praise. Like yeah it is clearly based on TTYD, but they clearly learned from that game and improved upon it in so many ways, including how sidequests are implemented
Legend of Heroes games always have side quests, which while some say can make the game feel tedious and unnecessarily padded at times, do have some degree of purpose to them. They are designed to make sense with the group's purpose, typically ranging from helping civilians to exterminating monsters, and usually are there for money but can offer equipment, quartz (needed for magic), and other things. I personally love the dialogue enough that I just do them to see the characters interacting, but majority of the time, it adds to the game's worldbuilding in some way. Side quests in these games also give points, so when you turn in completed ones, you get a cumulative value that has reward thresholds to give you really good items as you go (they get better in newer titles compared to older ones). While some might think they don't "respect the player's time", they're ultimately meant to add to the game's worldbuilding as the game is both telling a story about its cast and setting and adding to the ever growing world they all take place in.
My favorite side quests come from Dark Souls (mainly the first one). There is no menu to keep track of the side quests, no indication to further them and you can completely miss them, but going further on them makes you understand more the npcs and contribute to the mood of the game. Plus, it gives a reason to play the game again, to see if solaire is savable for example
BotW and Majora's Mask have some of the best side quests in Zelda. My personal favorite is building Tarrey Town in BotW. It's without a doubt the most impactful side quest in the game. I mean you're helping build a whole motherfucking village from the ground up. And then after that you get to attend the lead construction worker's wedding! The entire thing just felt so wholesome! Also in BotW, there's Kass's songs. They're not technically side quests, but they're still optional unless you're going for all the shrines. I think what makes it so memorable is that whenever you see him, Kass remembers you and is kinda "Oh, hi! Fancy meeting you here. Wanna hear a song I picked up?" Also there's just something so calming about randomly wandering around and hearing that familiar accordion.
There is a side topic in sidequests that I realized some years ago, which is difficult to put into the right words. I was listening to a podcast about PUBG and realized that to a certain extent, as long as the game's ultimate goal is technically achievable but too difficult, all of the game mechanics--grinding, sidequests, levelling up, learning how to play better, and even exploring the storyline itself--become replacement goals that you take on temporarily until you're ready for the real thing. If the game doesn't give you any official task to do, as in survival games, then you set replacement objectives for yourself while you figure out what to do, such as making a pretty or convenient base or exploring an area fully. In a truly punishing game, like roguelikes, your replacement goals may simply be "survive ten floors" or "Understand the difference between these weapons" or "Find that spell again and learn how to use it better" or "Figure out how to kill enemy X". A really good example, of course, would be Breath of the Wild, where technically the path to the endgame is available from the start, and the "main quest" is really a series of replacement quests because a novice player isn't going to have the mastery of the mechanics necessary to beat the boss with minimal health and equipment. The kind of questions and problems around these "optional primary quests" have to be different from side quests, though, don't they? I'm honestly not even sure where to draw the lines, except that it's a question worth thinking about. When I originally wrote a blog post about it, I likened these optional primary quests to the hero's journey, a series of difficulties that you come back from stronger, which serve to highlight the one true heroic quality of perseverance in the face of adversity--where in a literal fashion, the player is the one persevering and becoming stronger, especially in something like a roguelike or a battle royale where canonically the characters die (as opposed to an RPG where the character deaths are non-canonical) and it's only the player that remains to grow stronger from one round to the next. Just something I find interesting.
I love how he goes over the 3 parts of the sidequest by showing "Shoot This Guy in the Face". How it starts: This guy tells you to shoot him in the face. How it goes: You shoot him in the face. How it ends: You get paid for shooting him in the face.
Thinking about various side quests, both Shooty McFace and Claptrap’s birthday party from Borderlands 2 come to mind. They are simple, self contained and memorable.
Really good video! Secrets are just like side quests that never start so you just find something and it ends, but it's like the act of hunting for secrets was the main part of the side quest that you didn't even know you were doing. They're even more alike when an NPC tips you off about something so you go and find the reward, like a side quest/secret hybrid. I like the old RPGs like FF3 and dragon quest that do this, and games today, it's really fun. But it does make NPCs seem like walking loading screen tips if you can't suspend your disbeleif into the fantasy, but I don't have that problem. Walking loading screen tips are cool.
1. YAAAAS, PRAISE BE TO YAKUZA 2. Majora's Mask is the game that made me fall in love with sidequests and realize that I really don't care about dungeons in comparison.
I liked the concept of how side quest completion affects the end of Cyperpunk 2077 without getting into spoilers, there are only three quest lines you technically have to complete. But the side quests are perfectly integrated into the main story in such a way that it is easy to forget that characters like Judy or Panam aren't technically in the main story that much or that attending the funeral of a deceased character is something you can completely miss. What is really interesting is how side question completion affects the ending, because completely different ending scenarios become available based on how much side content you did. It was such a cool concept that I found myself wishing the game had taken it a bit further, maybe other games will copy this.
There's a certain shrine quest in BOTW where you have to trek up a mountain, do some fun stuff to a dragon, then unlock its shrine really fun journey and reward(shrine and weapon)
@@DesignDoc Be sure to stick with the side quests as you do then, they get increasingly elaborate and varied as the game progresses past the early stages that are in some ways tutorializing the systems.
You've PERFECTLY explained why I prefer the side quests in zelda games versus the sidequests in the yakuza series, no matter how hilarious they're written!
I am so unbelievably happy when people talk about CrossCode. It is my favourite game of all time and it deserves more love. Please go play it if you like RPGs (also i think it might be on Game Pass).
I love side quests that actually change the environment of the world, like building up Tarrey Town in BoTW. It makes me think "Nice, gathering those 1,000 carrots actually did something to the world and wasn't a passing moment.
I am so happy Bug Fables was mentioned. One of my absolute favorite games, and the restructure Paper Mario needed. (Warning, I am gonna go on a long rant in a minute, that doesn't exactly have anything to do with sidequests until the very end, and is more on why I like Bug Fables over Paper Mario without talking about the gameplay) Probably one of the biggest things I don't like about modern paper mario, or just mario games IN GENERAL, is that the world building is almost non existent anymore. The world isnt very well structured and different things happen in each game, and the world built in previous games are non existent. Each game feels like it is in a different world from each other, and the only consistent things in these games are the few characters, (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, etc) and a few key locations (Peach's Castle, Bowsers Castle, etc). Because every game's world feels different, special plot point in one game feels so unimportant. There isn't really any world building anymore, because Mario is a franchise designed to simply be a fun game most of the time. There isnt a story or lore, no structure to existing parts of the games, no history to these characters and locations, and that makes it boring for me. Bug fables I can seperate from Paper Mario because it actually feels like a structured world with it's own lore and history. Each character has a place, their own story to them. And they add to the actual world itself. The sidequests only add to that, because we get to learn about how certain adventurers handle certain jobs, what certain denizens of certain locales do for a living, and what impact they have on the world. And Lief's option sidequest is one of the absolute best I have ever seen in a game, and it adds so much to the character, and as a result, the story too. Paper Mario sidequests, Mario and Luigi sidequests, you get an item, a bit of story for that one game, and that bit of story is never mentioned or remembered in any other game, and doesnt do anything to change your view on the story or world. Events happen in Bug Fables because it adds to the world. Events happen in Mario games because... something has to happen in order to make you play the game. Yeah, Mario is fun, but their characters and world in boring, and so I find enjoyment out of other similar games, like Bug Fables. That is the first of this comment.
TESIV : OBLIVION, the side quest with Sheogorath give a lot of choice to complet the quest, its funny, original and the reward is insane. Still one of my favorite side quest. Also the side quest in TESV : Skyrim is nice and original, the beginning of the brotherhood storyline, when you need to kill one of the three person with a bag on the head, yes you can go ahead and do it that way, but you can also just kill the assassin, and start a new kind of story line against the brotherhood. I always thought I was clever. An episode of good and bad design for side quest could be really nice! Their's so many nice, clever, orignal, challenging side quest out there. I would love to discover new one and understand why I like them in more scientif way! Thanks you for the great video, I'm always looking forward your upload!
Every time I finish watching your videos, I'm overwhelmed with a childlike wonder for the gaming world. I can't help but bust out an old console or boot up Steam to play something, anything, because you remind me why I love this creative medium so very much. Thank you for all you do! I'll be looking forward to whatever content is still to come :)
Great video man! I've always loved the way from soft does side quest in the souls games where you can completely ignore and not talk to a single person, but if you do and they ask you for something, it's entirely up to you to remember what they want with no journal entry, no map marker, just your memory. And I love that most quests can end in different ways, like siegmeyer in DS1 can die in Izalith fighting the weird squid things or if he lives he goes hollow and is killed by his daughter at ash lake.
All of these mentions are great. I absolutely agree with you opinions on a lot of these side quests, particularly with stuff like Bug Fables, Majora's Mask, and The Thousand-Year Door. Another game that I would consider having great side content is Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky (and to a lesser extent, the entire series as a whole). Due to the randomized, rogue-like nature of the game's side quests, it causes no two playthroughs of the game to ever be the same. And the rewards tend to be well-worth the effort, including money, items, or even brand new additions to your growing army of Pokémon. The optional extra hard dungeons, such as Zero Isle, are a great way to test your resource management skills and knowledge of the game's mechanics. You can even unlock complete mini-campaigns as you progress through the story, which provide background information on so many of the game's characters. (And don't even get me started on the utility and entertainment you get with the Spinda Cafe.) It's an ingeniously designed game that perfectly aligns with many of the points you made in this video about how to create amazing side quests.
The murder mystery sidequest from Oblivion I think is still one of the most memorable of all time for me. The sheer amount of dialogue and content based on how you decide to go about approaching your mission makes me think it was some intern's full time project to get that implemented.
It's shown but not mentioned, Nier: Automata. The sidequests in that game all feel really good to complete. Sometimes you get a different song that plays, some you get cosmetic changes to your character, but it's amazing how they make you feel good about helping androids and machines. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but so far that hasn't been any humans in it and it still manages to have a real sense of humanity.
Personally, I liked the sidequests in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. They added nothing to the story, but they were quick, easy to do in batches, you get good rewards from them, and the Wonder Mail system essentially lets you play a colossal amount of them, easily being able to reach the max Explorers Rank by the end of the post-game. I also love specifically the Blade Quests in Xenoblade 2, though more for the story. They flesh out side characters who do not have a prescence in the main story, and I love that. Unfortunately, I found many of them tedious to play through (looking at you Ursula), so I ended up watching most of the cutscenes on TH-cam. I would say though, if you have the patience for them, Blade Quests are definitely worth your time. The same could probably be said about Affinity Missions from Xenoblade X, but I haven't played that game, so I can't offer a big opinion on it.
I love how sidequests works in immersive sims. Like, you can basically find yourself in a situation where you can decide to act upon it (or not). Then you talk to a NPC you find later on and he gives you a sidequest related to that situation, and your character is like "oh, I already did that".
I've seen several cameos to the Trails series in the little clips played, but so far I haven't heard it spoken about. Maybe I just haven't found the video that does yet, but in regards to side quests, the series does very well at organizing them and making them worthwhile, even adding extra incentives for completionists as well. Plus, in some situations, if you complete a certain quest, you may find that some NPCs recognize you from before and will react to whatever happened in the previous quest. Like one early quest in the first game, you find a lady's cat. In the second game, you get another quest from the same lady and if you carried your save data from the first game, she recognizes you, notes your partner isn't with you and is sad about that and proceeds to still give you a quest because the cat ran off again, this time, because it had kittens. Adorable!
I honestly love astral chains side quests. they're mostly just random bits of work where you help people out. many of them just kinda flesh out the world a bit more. There's one where you have to find and ask a friend in this massive hospital for one of their stuffed animals, so you could go and give it to a kid who's sick. there's a few where all you're doing is just showing off your cool astral plane abilities. you ask some kids questions, and you play a game with them to get some answers. there's places in the game where outbreaks happen and you have to kill a bunch of astral plane demon zombies to protect civilians, and there's even one where you have to difuse a bomb. There's one where you go down into the slums of the Ark and look for a gang, who you pair up with to learn more about the astral plane, and to visit. There's even a whole series of side quests involving this one over the top police officer, who loves just acting, while tracking people down. you also heal people with your own allied astral plane demons, and there are many side quests where you go into the astral plane to pull people out before turning into astral demon zombies
something i haven't seen much is side quests that permanently change the game (beyond giving you XP & gear or changing the ending) - even if it's only minor. for example, in Everspace 2 there's a 2-part side quests called "Parasite" where you have to deal with a computer virus that hacks ships and evolves over time. At a few points, you'll fight enemies labelled as "infested" (though they behave the same), and the conclusion comes across as "well we dealt with it for now, but who knows if it's still out there?". i thought it'd be cool to occasionally find infested enemies (and have them behave differently), but it doesn't do that. i was slightly disappointed afterward completing it, but oh well.
90% of BoTW can be thought of as side quests. You can fight Ganon at any point, but doing the side quests make the fight easier or are like “true” side quests
Deus Ex is a example of great side quests, they are organic in execution, the characters needing help are just lying around the world, their stories are interesting, they give use to many secret areas, some flesh out the world and side characters more, or even the main character, they have many routes for you to choose, and the rewards are great.
Yeah, I have only actually seen the original Deus Ex last year but rough edges aside it was an amazing game specially by how varied and organic everything felt
Shout out to the NieR:Automata side quests. They seem small and one-off, but they feed a lot into the game's anti-war message: your enemy is as human as you are, though they may look different - and you may even have been indoctrinated via military propaganda to think they are built differently from you, but...
@@griv13 Structurally they're not the most exciting, but I'd say the tapestry of stories they weave is interesting. Can't speak on Replicant just yet, though.
@@griv13 As someone who did all the sidequests on my first Route A playthrough (except the pink moonflower seeds one) I can safely say that I did enjoy the little bits and pieces of lore/story a good number of them gave me and didn't mind most of them, I only really hated 3 of them all. But what you said about the ones that are "worth it" I 100% agree, cuz you can make way more money by selling trash items lmao. It's also interesting that the RepliCant Devs made them tedious on purpose, apparently as a satire of Sidequests. Sneaky Yoko Taro is at it again 🤭
Was not expecting bug fables here. Good surprise ! True that side quests can be chores if done incorrectly, like xenoblade chronicles in general. Great video, as usual.
CrossCode is easily up there among my top favorite indie games. There were legit times where I'd load up the game specifically not to make progress, but to sweep for hidden treasures, areas, and sidequests. Anything to let me hang out in that world for just a little bit longer. Whenever you're on the hunt for secrets, you meet plenty of other NPCs looking for them as well, sharing what they know, waiting at the end to congratulate you, or chatting with their party members about the things they went through to get there. This pseduo-MMO structure gives the game such a unique feeling, like you're playing along with a community even though it's a singleplayer game.
Trails series (Sky 1-3, Zero/Azure, Cold Steel 1-4) This series is known for it's continuity and the development of NPCs. I have a great example of how side quests across arcs complete a story. Minor/vague spoilers The characters that were set as the minor villains in the very beginning of the first arc. Towards the end of the Sky 2, they had their redemption arc. In Sky 3, you learn about their back story. All these are part of main story. Now in Zero, you learn about what they are currently doing from a small detail in a side quest (If you didn't play the previous game, you'd think it's a throw away line. This is about 1 year after Sky 3. In Azure, you learn about how their back story really happened. This is the central plot on a side quest. In Cold Steel 3, you find out that the main town of the game was originally their home town and the villain even makes an appearance. This again, happens in a side quest. Do note that these 3 arc are set in different countries with different MCs so it's mainly a service to player.
In FFXIV’s most recent expansion there’s a moment where a bunch of NPC’s from all the raids show up to help us out with something. It not only canonizes all the Normal Raids, Alliance Raids and optional Trials, but also makes it rewarding for those who went out of their way to do those optional raid stories instead of the Main story for a bit
I love how you made an almost 20 min video about side quests (and it is an excellent video) without talking about games like THe Witcher 3 or AC:Origins with a lot of side quests that are interesting and not "go kill 5 animals", or fallout. Loved it
I actually love how Assassin's Creed Valhalla handles sidequests. They completely got rid of quest hubs and of stucking up more and more quests to be bullet pointed out of existance before you proceed. Instead you got blue markers on the map and everyone is a single side activity (not necessary quests) that can be done in a very brief surrounding of the marker
BOTW did sort of a decent job with sidequests. Especially with exploration; sometimes you've already completed a sidequest without even KNOWING you've already completed a sidequest. Kind of a plus to me. 🤷♂️
One interesting side quest chain in Pirate101 involves Rooster Cogburn in the world Cool Ranch. As the Sherriff of Cooper's Roost his quests naturally revolve around you finding criminals all around Cool Ranch such as "Nasty" Nathan Birdett, Pancho Grilla & Cisco Kid, Libirdy Valance and The Bird With No Name (originally called The Duck With No Name). After defeating them they appear locked up in the Cooper's Roost jail. Froggo Villa, a criminal you meet and beat during the main story, can also appear there, but if you're a Swashbuckler he won't as he joins you as a Companion. While the first few quests offer XP & Gold as a reward after a while the reward is just Gold, like you're collecting the bounty on them. After completing all of Cogburn's side quests and making Cool Ranch safe he determines that it's so safe that there's no need for a Sherriff anymore and decides to go with you, becoming a Companion.
NieR: Automata also has some amazing side quests. Sure, most are fetch quests, but all of the side quests have incredible writing and they give insight as to how the npcs are handling the world around them. They feel very rewarding
Really, really loving these videos. I'm in school but I have a dream of making my own games one day-- and it's so nice to be able to watch series like this while I work. Seriously, thank you!
I think there are two games that do the side quest best are Morrowind's factions and Majora's Mask. Both games have the idea of side quests built into their overall thematics - building a connection with the people/world around you and how the villain has been affecting everyone. And both games also have their SQs make sense to complete during, after, and instead of the main quest. (Compare to Skyrim and doing the Companions questline while you're supposed to be escorting Esbern)
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Love how in God of War 2018 Kratos only agrees to go do sidequests that make him and his son more prepared for their journey. Makes sense from an in game standpoint to ignore the main missions for a while.
I also like how Kratos & Atreus both have different views on Side Quests; Atreus wants to see & do everything possible & Kratos just wants to finish the Journey
I don't play gow soooo
@@mageyplss who is Journey?
What is the game at 0.33?
@@elizabethpower1702 looks like xenoblade Chronicles
Every game that lets me do sidequests before accepting them gets a thumbs up from me
Breath of the Wild has a problem along those lines. I did most of the quests without realizing, then at the end of the game I thought I had a lot more content left than I did. "50% of quests completed! There's still so much for me to do!" ... Until I learned that all I really had left to do was find the person that starts the quest somewhere in the vast world to get a "New quest! ... Quest complete!"
@@Cambroth Well that´s not really the game´s fault. I mean if you really finished most of the sidequests that means you really spend a lot of your time in the game.
Thanks, doc.
Thiccolo
@@nidohime6233 I don't think it's the worst thing in the world, but I do think it's a flaw. It would be better if some part of the quest itself would mark it as complete or at least active, so that the player knows in advance that a lot of their 'incomplete' quests really just involve closing them with an NPC.
"Don't put a really good reward after the hardest challenge in the game or the reward itself will be pointless (shows Julius from KH: Dream Drop Distance)". Yes. What's the point of getting the game's strongest sword by killing the game's strongest superboss?
By defeating the toughest enemy in the game, the sword becomes pointless, since there aren't any more difficult bosses to kill by using it. This bothers me in games.
One of the worst offenders is Zelda: OOT. By finding all of the skulltulas, you can obtain infinite rupees. However, by the time you kill the last skulltula, you're near the end of the game, and rupees become pretty much pointless since you don't really need to buy anything (especially if you did the sidequests to obtain the bigger quivers and bomb bags. You will have so many bombs and arrows, that by the time you're running out of them, it's just easier to cut grass to find more).
a really good reward after the hardest challenge would be something like an alternative ending cutscene, since that's not redundant.
@@karsten69 And another good reward would be something cosmetic, so you can feel cool show off your accomplishments to friends and such.
The only exception to this that I can think of is Zenith from Terraria, but the reason why it works is because it's a sandbox game rather than an RPG. Even though you need to beat the final boss at least twice to get it, among doing several other things, it's still a lot of fun to use because it just annhilates everything, including said final boss, far faster than (nearly) everything else.
@@ap1evideogame44 One of my favorite Super Boss rewards was just the simple medals from defeating Omega and Shinryu in FFV :p
That way I didn't feel I was getting the best gear after the toughest fights for nothing (though they aren't that hard and can be cheesed, and they have a more difficult version in the post-game)
@@conorneligan7694 Terraria works because it essentially lets you New Game+ it... Or well, mainly, redo anything, anytime.
you didn't mention the worst part of the paper mario sidequests... you don't know the rewards unless you look them up! Normally that wouldn't be the worst, but as you pointed out, you can only do one at a time, they're lengthy, and they're almost always not in your next destination so no parallelisation...
I can't imagine how frustrating that must be for new players or folks who don't like using guides! Spending hours on a tedious and slow sidequest only for the "reward" to not be worth it...I don't think quests should always tell you exactly what you're getting, but having a hint or some kind of way for players to gauge if it's worth it would be so useful
@@CreoTan yup, some are truly worthless, and it's not like the journey is fun, forced backtracking in the final quest is tedious enough without side quests doing it.
Didn't even need to watch the video to Know Yakuza will be here.
I was about to say the same thing
Every crime sim needs a baseball sim.
Imagine not doing every Yakuza side quest.
@jocco jhan casoyon It's a masterclass on density. Kamurocho is only 2 square miles.
For comparison, Fallout 4's map is 9 square miles.
yeah, it's in the description
Ayy CrossCode got mentioned! That game is definitely worth playing.
It's worth mentioning that a lot of the later sidequests get a lot more complex, with their own set pieces and unique encounters and boss fights. Some of them are actually pretty funny. It's just that the earlier ones are usually fetch-quests with a script on the side.
It's a direct result of the way Early Access worked, with chunks of the game being developed and released in chronological order. It means the early areas were created while the devs were still getting used to what the possible design space was like. Area layouts, enemy designs, and sidequests all get significantly more interesting as the game goes on because by then the devs had a clearer understanding of what the game could be.
@@Oneiroclast well that makes sense. There was years between the development of early areas and later areas.
I picked it up on game pass a few days ago and I'm hooked! I'm glad to hear that the side quests will get more complex, even tho so far I'm not being bothered by how "fetchy" they are, since they are basically just an incentive to thoroughly explore the various areas and, like the video mentions, they help with the grinding
@@breznev64 glad you're loving it! It has quite a few nice surprises in store. It's also got an epilogue DLC set to release in a few months.
I was going to come say this too! Other than the straight up "get X random drops" quests, almost every sidequest in Crosscode offers something new--such as mini dungeons with their own themes, variant enemies, crossovers with other genres, or new bosses.
I think the best example for elaboration is two sidequests right after you get the fire element. Both feature enemies who look identical to ones you've seen but can only be defeated by flinging bombs at them (the mechanic you just learned). But one is a frantic area-defense minigame, while the other is a series of arena battles in which those same enemies are also trying to fling the bombs at you, which escalates across several fights.
The skyrim quest: A night to remember. funny, layered, and takes you all over the map, it's one of my favourite quests and really a breath of fresh air from dungeons and straight forward fetch quests. I even ran a dnd oneshot based on this quest
Isn't it inspired by The Hangover movies?
But I also really liked that quest! :)
Edit: I remember that in Oblivion for the Dark Brotherhood, there was a quest inspired by the Clue movie/board game. Where 5 or 6 characters were locked in a mansion and told that there is hidden treasure.
Also it's reward is a viable weapon for the rest of the game.
I remember that quest! I did it on accident and ended up with my favorite weapon to get out of tricky fights
Bug Fables quests had me straight addicted. I would spend entire days just doing quests, and I loooooved it
A thing I liked about some of Bug Fables side quests is that you can sometimes end up picking up the special items in locations you go to even if you haven’t accepted the side quest yet
I've heard great things about it and I want to play it, but at the same time...entomophobia makes it a *very* hard theme to bring myself to play.
@@dusklunistheumbreon Ah, too bad. The characters are really engaging and the world is so interesting that you want to keep playing and doing quests to learn more about the world. I think they made the game look cute because bugs kinda creep a lot of people out.
@@avereynakama9854 It does look pretty cute, so it's possible that I may be able to deal with it...I dunno. Maybe one day.
That’s why Majora’s Mask is actually my favourite Zelda Title. The side quests. They give you so much more story and emotions to all the different characters.
Something about the mysterious and dark setting combined with all these different stories and how the people are effected through the catastrophe just makes it so special.
This game fascinated me when I was a kid - and still does.
And the fact that you know that nothing you do will matter shortly after doing it, makes it a matter of wanting to help the people rather than just helping yourself. Everything you do outside of the main story is about bringing comfort and closure to a doomed people. And I think that makes the side quest more impactful than just a simple item reward.
@@jazzyj7834 And being unable to finish all or even most of the side quests in a single three-day cycle adds to MM's theme of the hero's powerlessness in the face of doom.
The side quests are basically the main quest in MM, in the same way the Divine Beasts are optional main quests in BotW
“Witch Hunt” is one of my favorite side quests from my favorite game, Dragon’s Dogma.
1. It’s acquired in a cool, organic way by overhearing to a conversation happening in the town square.
2. It involves a character met through a previous side quest from an earlier stage of the game, making earlier actions feel meaningful.
3. It unlocks a previously inaccessible portion of the map, containing new loot & a new version of monster boss.
4. The main reward from the quest is lore that stays relevant to the main plot and ending later on.
I'm kinda surprised that Chrono Trigger wasn't mentioned given how the whole game kinda feels like a side quest to become strong enough to defeat Lavos.
Also that each character has a major side quest towards the end of the game which gives great rewards for each character and fleshes them out as well.
Yea I was expecting Chrono Trigger too, esp when they started talking about quests that push forward narratives.
Sidequests are optional though. Chrono triggers sidequests only appear right before the final boss (aside from the millennial fair, if that counts as separate from minigames)
Late to the party... I like the fact that Chrono himself is a sidequest. The first time I destroyed the boss I only had Magus, Glenn and Nadia.
See, I didn't really like Tarrey Town in BotW that much because Akkala was one of the last regions I went to. Because of that, when I got to the Tarrey Town quest it was pretty much something that I had to do all at once, and didn't feel nearly as rewarding or fun because I didn't get that feeling of seeing it grow over the course of the game. I think they should've put it closer to the Great Plateau so it'd be easier to find
I had the same experience, so location does matter!
I never found it and hadn't heard about it until just now! 😭
Me too. I never heard of it.
To be fair you're first exposed to it in Hateno Village which you need to go to really early for the main quest. After you complete your house Hudson will say he's going to Akkala to work. You can also see the area where Tarrey Town will be built from the area behind Zora's Domain which you also need to go to for the main quest. It's a big pillar with a small land bridge, so it screams "something special is here, please explore me!".
Akkala was the first place I went, funny enough. The point of BotW is playing at your own pace to anywhere you wanted it.
Tales of Symphonia has a pretty bad sidequest. Mostly because it starts as part of the main quest, and you don't discover how to complete it until later in the game.
This reminds of how octopath did sidequests, and I never did a single one because of how they set them up. They never actually told you what to do, they would only give you hint, and never tell you where to go or what to do, just go figure it out yourself. It might've been fun for some, but octopath was a game that didn't even have sidequests while I played.
All the tales games at least until xillia( I didn't play it) has bruh sidequest to the point were the ex dungeons are misseable.
There are no track list for sidequest and most of them are activated by running around (at least in the symphonia-vesperia era) eternia had at least few sidequest so they are easier to locate for example. But in games like abyss or vesperia you HAVE to use a guide if you want to see at least the most important ones and that is not a good design :/
Tales of was always problematic for me in the Sidequest area because most was missable and also most of the time had no reason to begin.
Walkthrough: "After unlocking the third city DON'T ENTER or else you will lock 3 sidequests. Backtrack to the first city on foot to trigger a cutscene"
Like... Why would I do that on my normal playthrough?! They have Skits, why not put a cue there having one of the characters go "Hey, I wonder how the people from the First City are" that would make me feel the need of going back already but NOOOOO nothing of the sort.
@@xx_pit_xx8492 People always point out Abyss as having some bad ones but I always thought they made sense when they popped up and had some pretty logical setup points for them with very few I would consider out of place, same with Symphonia especially since most of that games major ones only really opened up at the end anyway. Then again, that might be because i've played the games for a long time but I will agree that Vesperia's just sorta pop out of nowhere and don't have any real logical tells to look for.
Not saying that it isn't a good thing that the series moved away from this mind you, it's a good thing that the games keep track of them all and let you know where there at (although I do miss seeking them out on my own to some extent), just felt like relaying my own experience.
@@megasoniczxx I agree that is a good thing to sometimes find one on accident. But there are some like Tear-Legretta in abyss that is important for the characters and while it is easy to get you could lose it without problem.
And in these games there are a lot of them that are missable
Idk at least in ng+ it would be good to have a diary where you have the accepted sidequest and what was completed alredy via grade shop that way I get more easily the sidequest I missed the first time and who prefers to find it by accident can still do it
You showed it off, but didn't talk about it much. I love the sidequests in Nier/Automata. The way they tie into the main themes of the games is just amazing.
My favourite example is Amnesia if anyone remembers. Where you trace an android’s memories to the moment of a murder to solve who killed the client’s best friend. Not only was it compelling, but the payoff also rewards players with extra lore on the different varieties of Yorha units. After this lore was then revealed as essential to the plot, it was made even more hard-hitting. Whenever I think of Side Quests, Nier Automata ALWAYS comes to mind for revelations like this. Thanks for bringing it up, girugamish👍
Even the really boring and tedius Jean Paul side quest is brilliant in how it plays with its own pointlessness.
I LOVE Automata. It's one of two perfect games imo and the side quests in this are better than any other game I've played.
I also loved Nier:Automata Sidequests! In most games, I usually avoid most of them, but in N:A, they help you understand more about its world, and make you more invested in certain characters. The fast travel and indications of where the items you need are also makes completing most of them really convenient.
I also appreciate how the game makes they seem more important, with voiced dialogue, changing music themes in certain areas during dialogs or after completing the side quests, and also changing the world around you (despite not as much as that town in Breath of the Wild).
If someday I ever create a kind of story-driven game and put side quests into it, I hope to make them as interesting as Automata's. Glory to mankind!
@@SparkTFS Agreed. Another game where I like doing the side quests is Persona 5 Royal (the Mementos requests). They're similar in that they add to story and the world as a whole. In fact you can even see one character's development in the real world in game (the stalker girl)
...Thousand-Year Door had side quests? It's been over a decade since I've played it, but I don't recall any time I had to pick up anything from a quest board.
...you can get Ms. Mowz on your team!? Did I even play this game?
Yes it took me a while since I learn that Ms. Mowz can be on my team lol. Younger I found it weird that Paper Mario TTYD have less partner than Paper Mario 64, but I didn't know Ms. Mowz was a secret party member 😂. Also did you know in Chapter 2 (Boggly Tree) you can recruit 1 lonely jabbie in your puni team for the "war" against the 100 jabbies. 😁
And that is exactly why you can't have your side quests go too far out of the way, lol.
trouble center is entirely optional and never mentioned during the game
Can you make a video about how to make 3D platforming levels that don’t become repetitive or boring and feel fun
This sounds like an awesome episode!
What are the things you can think of?
I personally think of different themes, skill levels and enemies, all to make gameplay different.
Of course every level has to be build around the movement of the player tho, but that just might be something I just assume.
Ah yes. Roasting N64 Era Rare titles for this
Not sure if design doc did this, but a lot of people have analyzed what the mario games followed
We don't have a Platformer specific episode but our episodes on Collectibles and Hub Worlds are platformer centric.
Easy, make them 3D and not 2D
Big ups for the Bug Fables mention! As soon as I heard the Snakemouth Den theme I got excited lol. And the Termite Kingdom music at the end was a nice touch! The game's sidequests are awesome. I 100% agree that you can easily get lost in that game's sidequests and forget to make actual story progress. To make the easy comparison, sidequests are one of the many things the devs did better than Paper Mario on IMO.
YOOO!
Finally someone mentions CrossCode! That's an underrated game right there.
Radiant historia has tons of sidequest that connects to the main game if you want to get the true ending
Octopath Traveler falls on a weird part of this spectrum. The optional job shrines especially the late game ones with the hard boss you have to beat to get it are amazing. I had so much fun working to get to these shrines so my characters could be that much better in battle. However, in my 85-ish hours with the game, I can count on my fingers how many actual side quests I’ve done. Most happened by accident where I just so happened to have the right info for a certain NPC. Other than that, I would read the prompt for a side quest and realize I have no idea where to even start. Im sure this is great for other people, but for me it felt like a wasted part of a great game. It didn’t feel worth it to pursue the quests so I went through the whole game barely touching them which is a shame because I know the rewards are pretty good.
Not to mention that the true ending is locked behind a random af side quest
That makes sense but it was the best part of the game for me because since I loved reading the backstory for all NPCs with Cyrus' path action I'd end up remembering how to do almost all the sidequests and get them done super fast compared go most games where I'd have to go look for some fodder enemies I'd fought but couldn't remember the location of. It's only really hard to do if you put them off until the end where you've gone to alll the cities, then it's hard to find some NPCs. I still only got stuck on a cpuple of quests and I still just waited to stumble back onto the right NPC while doing other stuff because just running around the various cities looking for things to buy was super relaxing so I didn't mind. Plus at least the rewards are good so you don't really need to do all of them and some who need specific NPCs will either tell you where to go or have that NPC be also important to a sidequest so you can find them in your log (the log's nice too, some games have pretty meh ones)
oh man Bug Fables looks awesome. I have to go hunt it down
Bu-dum-tss
Good choice
Can definitely recommend based on the 10 hours i've played so far.
I definitely got my 30 hours worth. It's the Paper Mario we deserve after the undesirable offerings we got from more recent Mario RPGs (Sticker Star was arguably the nadir, and Paper Mario hasn't quite recovered since). And honestly, we need more Mario-style RPGs in general. We've gotten many in the Mother style over recent years (Undertale and Omori are key examples of good MRPGs, and Oddity is currently being worked on by fans of the Mother series), but not quite enough in the style of Paper Mario or Mario & Luigi.
@@GmodPlusWoW yup after thousand year old door it all went to shit lol
Don’t forget Celeste!
The strawberries, B sides, C sides, etc. Are all a good example of creating flavorful side quests out of just the games mechanics. There’s practically no text or story to them, but the joy of finding another red berry around the corner is irresistible.
Well yes, if it weren't for the fact that the B and C sides are bone-shatteringly difficult. Collecting the Strawberries is really fun though.
Golden strawberries can go fuck themselves in the 7th layer of hell though
Those are more of collectibles than side quests, though.
I mean, I guess save for the true ending being locked behind finishing everything, which is... Frustrating. Literally one away but I can't beat the summit C-side. Fucking hell.
Those arent side quests those are collectiables. If you're gonna consider them side quests then why not conisder the star coins in the NSMB games side quests?
I’d consider anything that is an objective beyond the main goal to beat the game is a side quest. I think side quest design applies to collectibles and vice versa
I love how the Trails series' lore make side quests a part of the main character's job description and how the main plot is structured to evolve using a cycle of days and chapters so doing side quests is not just plausible but enforced.
Each day will start slowly with a list of quests mixed between main and side ones with clear distinction between them on the player's perspective.
There is rarely any rush to make the main quest at the start, and by the time you feel rushed, most of the side quests should be done or on the path to the main one.
They use clever techniques to advance and halt the story by making each day only end with the current issue solved, left unable to solve or unaware that is unsolved, instead of the classic "now you have to go to X and do Y".
Each day will start normally, but is not like a "reset". NPCs move forward with their own private issues, newspapers announce what happened, some NPCs know what you did and react to it (side or main quests).
This also allows for a better world building since:
- Side quests feel like part of a normal day with a lot of lore in them.
- The main story will progress partially by the player's direct actions and partially by giving time for the world itself to move forward.
I like SMTV's sidequests, a lot of them help flesh out the world of Da'at and how the demons that live within it interact and survive, as well as expand little by little the game's lore, plus most of them come with pretty great rewards, like the Talismans that unlock Magatsuhi skills, Essences for learning skills, and new Demon Fusion recipes.
And completing a certain set of sidequests that are centered around bettering the survival of the humans within Da'at nets you a hidden ending relevant to that theme.
Another detail I really enjoyed about how Cross Code quests start is the "quest location" menu in the main hub of every city. In there, it displays all quests you have available to you in said city and surroundings, the percentage of quests accepted/completed, where the quest givers are located, and all that. It doesn't show you ALL quests, though, there are a few hidden ones, and they clearly mention it to you, which incentives the player to look for those themselves.
Definitely one of the best side quest mechanics I've ever found.
I don't really hate side quests. FETCH quests are what I hate. There's a difference between a contained story that's like "please go get my family and tell them something then go to location B and finish a PvE battle then come back to me" and "please find me 10 red flowers"
Bug Fables might seriously be the best Paper Mario game. An altered combat system that allows for awesome strategies, a cool set of characters, and as the video mentions, the side quests are incredible. I was losing my mind when I found that hidden dungeon, it was an incredible moment.
The Trails series has some pretty good side quests. Most of them usually add to the world building or give some context to the series’s many side characters and have some pretty solid rewards. The ones that don’t offer story related content are usually challenged based and offer you either a large chunk of money or some of the most powerful items in the games. Also, the side content in the Yakuza series is *chef’s kiss*
Came here to write this about Trails. Big agree.
Especially FC's and SC's sidequest just fit into the narrative perfectly. It your job to do them!
As someone who has recently played the first 3 games of the series, I must disagree. I don't deny the extra bits of worldbuilding and great rewards you get, but the sidequests barely contribute to the main narrative or characters. Mostly, they're also specifically designed to be tedious and predictable. Oftentimes sidequests are also recycled, such as mandatory fetch/monster quests in EVERY region of the world. The best sidequests are unfortunately also the ones that are "hidden". Usually you can preview sidequests from the Bracer Guild's signpost, but a few handpicked sidequests are only triggered if the player decides to go somewhere or do something at a very precise point in the game, and those are (mostly) the interesting ones.
@@sockknight3927 Just made a different comment on the matter if it appears for you.
If you play the later games though, you'd have a side quest involving Armand and Ellie in Azure (the ones you helped with a wedding). Back story of Josette is later expanded upon in Azure and Cold Steel 3 as well, again in side quests.
what i like most are side quests who don't say they're side quests. You just happen to encounter someone who says/do something and you realise how it could (or could not) be an interaction that can be pushed. Finding a quest is a reward in itself
Really happy for the discussion of Bug Fables. Its one of my all-time favorite games and is packed with love and detail.
It's pretty gooooooooooood. Definitely one of the best Indie RPGs alongside CrossCode.
Yo kai watch 3 has an amazing side quest system (you can activate them from your detective agency (where you can fast travel to) so you can find them easily, then they tell their problem and you need to solve them. and they are mostly really fun. The reward isn’t that great mostly, but the quest itself is almost always amazing. It isn’t “I want 10 candy’s” but it is most of the time a mini story. Like: “the main villain that you beat in the campaign, won in a different reality, so it is up to you to save that world from a threat that already won, where you need to work with familiar faces, that are completely different personally wise. To stop an even stronger evil.” And you are not forced to stop with this campaign to do them. You can activate 20 of them and do them when you are in the mood for them.
Xenoblade 2's best content imo is its side quests, particularly the unique blade quests. The issue is that it also has a TON of generic side quests, and a lot of these blade quests are hidden either behind or masquerading as those generic quests. If you're a completionist already then it might not bother you as much, but if you are just rushing through the main story then you'll miss some of the best, most touching moments in the game (as well as the best characters and items).
It also doesn't help that you need to gachapon your way into most of those blades before getting their quests, though, so that's another issue with the blade system...
Xenoblade X has a lot of very well written sidequests, pretty much all of them.
And even your run of the mill "kill 10 of those" serve a purpose as the game wants you to take a somewhat completionist route and those missions help. But some of the rare pickups are disgusting. I spent like 2 hours to get the 3 auroran bones.
And also the way the mission structure is set up makes it so the side quests and story never interfere with each other.
The Blood Lobster sidequest came to my mind... Loved Xenoblade X!!!!
I still remember the pig side quest 😅 the one where you go to a cave and choose to either complete the mission by killing the baby pigs or leave them be
Really wish this had a sequel or port to the switch. Great game, definitely an under appreciated gem
One of the things that can make or break a game's sidequests for me is the quality of NPC dialogue/characterization. That's one of the reasons I love Dragon Quest and Yakuza sidequests so much. I love the charm and humor in Paper Mario too, so I'm excited to check out Bug Fables!
I was hoping to see Bug Fables on here. Leif's sidequest is something beyond a sidequest. Sure it's labeled as one and is completely optional and yet is has so many bombshells, secret areas and challenge that it feels wrong to call it a "sidequest!"
I also love how the game reminds you of Snakemouth later on with the "find my brother" sidequest. It was a genius moment of "wait, I never looked in those giant doors, did I?" and then you stumble into Upper Snakemouth and stuff goes DOWN.
Honestly the theme behind Upper Snakemouth would make for an excellent spinoff/prequel of its own. I know some of the fun is not knowing and coming up with your own theories of what happened... but that doesn't stop me from wanting more and having concrete answers!
a short hike is such a great little game
Their are several reasons I think the legend of Zelda Major Mask's side quests are the best in Zelda game side quests. 1. The quests fit thematically into the game. MM Zelda is a game about stopping the End of the World and death features heavily in the main game's story. However the side quests serve to show us how the people of Clock Town (and some other places) are dealing with it. Most side quests will have a quiet moment or two as the characters talk about and deal with the possible end of the world. And the NPCs have a wide range of emotional about how they choose to deal with this. It really drives home the point to the player that this is a world that needs saving.
2. All the NPCs are connected in someway to each other. MM uses Clock Town's relatively small size to it's strength as the NPCs interact with each other or are connected to another NPC through a third party and you learn about these connections as you do side quests. For example the Bandits who are robbing a rival milk farm have a struggling brother in town who visits a milk bar. The milk bar is supplied by milk from the rival milk farm and while the brother doesn't know this he doesn't care for the milk served at the bar and his side quest involves getting milk from the bandits farm. Now the owner of the rival milk farm is the best friend to the girlfriend of the mayor's son (she along with the mayor's son also have their own side quest) and the mayor's wife visits the milk bar on the last day before the moon falls. Depressed about her son's disappearance and ready for the world to end. Naturally her side quest involved getting a letter to her from her son letting her know that everything will be ok.
And boom that's just one small location but it serves to show how interconnected the NPCs are with each other and in turn it makes Clock feel like a real lived in small town.
wake up babe, Design Doc made a new video
Homestuck Aradia
@@herickkenalgin4473 with the 69 likes
14:13 I remember Megaman X Command Missions. Once you defeat the hardest superboss they give you the most powerful weapon of the game, one that is special against "bosses". Yes, just when there are no bosses anymore to defeat.
It would be more useful if the game had a NG+...
Dang, completely useless item
Design Doc, You deserve so much more. I can't believe that you only have 164K subscribers. Your content is always so professional, articulate and well done. I literally went to school for game design and development and I know that the things you bring up are on point. I wish I had some way of getting more people invested in your work.
Please continue this work, it's so good I know one day you will manage to garner the appeal and praise you deserve
13 sentinels aegis rim is interesting in the terms of side quests. By s ranking missions you get mystery files which gives you a clear description of a certain event, character, etc. Some are still more neat things plus you do still get some from the main story
the mystery files are super useful too, they serve as a helpful point of reference during the (spectacular) chaos that is the main story
I've been playing a lot of final fantasy lately and OH BOY are the side quests... unique
I like when a side quest gives some nice bonus for doing it in a timely manner in relation to the main story. Dragon Quest VIII is an example I like, especially the 3ds version. You get things early on that help clear some of the near upcoming challenges. The first quest just gives cheese that gives you some control over the battle field, something you don't have right away until you get more party members, or find or buy a boomerang. The cheese is outclassed fast, but alchemy makes them useful in different ways.
The new Cameron's Codex gives extra items that help if you keep doing them during the story, like granting a holy lance right when you'd want something like that but would otherwise have to spend a lot of money and sacrifice other items to alchemy to get it.
The monster arena can be powerful once you gain access to it, spending time collecting monsters can net you four or five prizes in addition to the Call Team ability, a customizable move that can unleash your team's deathmove "triple swords", give access to a once per battle Multiheal extremely early before reliable healing beyond single target is a thing, or just give a few free turns to wait out powerful enemy attacks while getting some free shots in yourself, all before getting the ship. This makes the rest of the early to mid-game much easier without having to grind levels, especially when paired with the mini medals. This can push easily up to the Dark Ruins, where purchasable and lootable and craftable equipment start to finally catch up to the bunny suit and posh waistcoat.
I think for me the thing I'd love to see more games do is give moments where running off to do sidequests doesn't feel like you're putting the plot on hold in the middle of something "urgent". I'd love to see more stories incorporate moments of "here's a little time to run around and do stuff" into them.
Favorite sidequest? Killing Nazeem and Heimskr in Whiterun. The Peace from no longer having to deal with either...a sublime reward indeed.
yay more bug fables praise. Like yeah it is clearly based on TTYD, but they clearly learned from that game and improved upon it in so many ways, including how sidequests are implemented
Legend of Heroes games always have side quests, which while some say can make the game feel tedious and unnecessarily padded at times, do have some degree of purpose to them. They are designed to make sense with the group's purpose, typically ranging from helping civilians to exterminating monsters, and usually are there for money but can offer equipment, quartz (needed for magic), and other things. I personally love the dialogue enough that I just do them to see the characters interacting, but majority of the time, it adds to the game's worldbuilding in some way. Side quests in these games also give points, so when you turn in completed ones, you get a cumulative value that has reward thresholds to give you really good items as you go (they get better in newer titles compared to older ones). While some might think they don't "respect the player's time", they're ultimately meant to add to the game's worldbuilding as the game is both telling a story about its cast and setting and adding to the ever growing world they all take place in.
My favorite side quests come from Dark Souls (mainly the first one). There is no menu to keep track of the side quests, no indication to further them and you can completely miss them, but going further on them makes you understand more the npcs and contribute to the mood of the game. Plus, it gives a reason to play the game again, to see if solaire is savable for example
BotW and Majora's Mask have some of the best side quests in Zelda.
My personal favorite is building Tarrey Town in BotW. It's without a doubt the most impactful side quest in the game. I mean you're helping build a whole motherfucking village from the ground up. And then after that you get to attend the lead construction worker's wedding! The entire thing just felt so wholesome!
Also in BotW, there's Kass's songs. They're not technically side quests, but they're still optional unless you're going for all the shrines. I think what makes it so memorable is that whenever you see him, Kass remembers you and is kinda "Oh, hi! Fancy meeting you here. Wanna hear a song I picked up?" Also there's just something so calming about randomly wandering around and hearing that familiar accordion.
There is a side topic in sidequests that I realized some years ago, which is difficult to put into the right words. I was listening to a podcast about PUBG and realized that to a certain extent, as long as the game's ultimate goal is technically achievable but too difficult, all of the game mechanics--grinding, sidequests, levelling up, learning how to play better, and even exploring the storyline itself--become replacement goals that you take on temporarily until you're ready for the real thing. If the game doesn't give you any official task to do, as in survival games, then you set replacement objectives for yourself while you figure out what to do, such as making a pretty or convenient base or exploring an area fully. In a truly punishing game, like roguelikes, your replacement goals may simply be "survive ten floors" or "Understand the difference between these weapons" or "Find that spell again and learn how to use it better" or "Figure out how to kill enemy X".
A really good example, of course, would be Breath of the Wild, where technically the path to the endgame is available from the start, and the "main quest" is really a series of replacement quests because a novice player isn't going to have the mastery of the mechanics necessary to beat the boss with minimal health and equipment. The kind of questions and problems around these "optional primary quests" have to be different from side quests, though, don't they? I'm honestly not even sure where to draw the lines, except that it's a question worth thinking about. When I originally wrote a blog post about it, I likened these optional primary quests to the hero's journey, a series of difficulties that you come back from stronger, which serve to highlight the one true heroic quality of perseverance in the face of adversity--where in a literal fashion, the player is the one persevering and becoming stronger, especially in something like a roguelike or a battle royale where canonically the characters die (as opposed to an RPG where the character deaths are non-canonical) and it's only the player that remains to grow stronger from one round to the next.
Just something I find interesting.
CrossCode is CRIMINALLY underrated! Glad it got some coverage here.
I love how he goes over the 3 parts of the sidequest by showing "Shoot This Guy in the Face".
How it starts: This guy tells you to shoot him in the face.
How it goes: You shoot him in the face.
How it ends: You get paid for shooting him in the face.
Thinking about various side quests, both Shooty McFace and Claptrap’s birthday party from Borderlands 2 come to mind. They are simple, self contained and memorable.
Really good video! Secrets are just like side quests that never start so you just find something and it ends, but it's like the act of hunting for secrets was the main part of the side quest that you didn't even know you were doing. They're even more alike when an NPC tips you off about something so you go and find the reward, like a side quest/secret hybrid. I like the old RPGs like FF3 and dragon quest that do this, and games today, it's really fun. But it does make NPCs seem like walking loading screen tips if you can't suspend your disbeleif into the fantasy, but I don't have that problem. Walking loading screen tips are cool.
Shooty McShootface is an inspired choice for highlighting the three sections of sidequest structure. Clear, concise, and direct.
1. YAAAAS, PRAISE BE TO YAKUZA
2. Majora's Mask is the game that made me fall in love with sidequests and realize that I really don't care about dungeons in comparison.
I like how every side quest in Chrono trigger ties into the main plot or develops the cast in some way
I liked the concept of how side quest completion affects the end of Cyperpunk 2077 without getting into spoilers, there are only three quest lines you technically have to complete. But the side quests are perfectly integrated into the main story in such a way that it is easy to forget that characters like Judy or Panam aren't technically in the main story that much or that attending the funeral of a deceased character is something you can completely miss. What is really interesting is how side question completion affects the ending, because completely different ending scenarios become available based on how much side content you did. It was such a cool concept that I found myself wishing the game had taken it a bit further, maybe other games will copy this.
There's a certain shrine quest in BOTW where you have to trek up a mountain, do some fun stuff to a dragon, then unlock its shrine
really fun journey and reward(shrine and weapon)
Cross code!
More people need to play that game, it's fantastic.
It is. I still need to play more of it. It’s the best game that I just haven’t played extensively and I don’t really have a reason why.
@@DesignDoc Be sure to stick with the side quests as you do then, they get increasingly elaborate and varied as the game progresses past the early stages that are in some ways tutorializing the systems.
You've PERFECTLY explained why I prefer the side quests in zelda games versus the sidequests in the yakuza series, no matter how hilarious they're written!
I am so unbelievably happy when people talk about CrossCode. It is my favourite game of all time and it deserves more love. Please go play it if you like RPGs (also i think it might be on Game Pass).
I love side quests that actually change the environment of the world, like building up Tarrey Town in BoTW. It makes me think "Nice, gathering those 1,000 carrots actually did something to the world and wasn't a passing moment.
I am so happy Bug Fables was mentioned. One of my absolute favorite games, and the restructure Paper Mario needed.
(Warning, I am gonna go on a long rant in a minute, that doesn't exactly have anything to do with sidequests until the very end, and is more on why I like Bug Fables over Paper Mario without talking about the gameplay)
Probably one of the biggest things I don't like about modern paper mario, or just mario games IN GENERAL, is that the world building is almost non existent anymore. The world isnt very well structured and different things happen in each game, and the world built in previous games are non existent. Each game feels like it is in a different world from each other, and the only consistent things in these games are the few characters, (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, etc) and a few key locations (Peach's Castle, Bowsers Castle, etc).
Because every game's world feels different, special plot point in one game feels so unimportant. There isn't really any world building anymore, because Mario is a franchise designed to simply be a fun game most of the time. There isnt a story or lore, no structure to existing parts of the games, no history to these characters and locations, and that makes it boring for me.
Bug fables I can seperate from Paper Mario because it actually feels like a structured world with it's own lore and history. Each character has a place, their own story to them. And they add to the actual world itself. The sidequests only add to that, because we get to learn about how certain adventurers handle certain jobs, what certain denizens of certain locales do for a living, and what impact they have on the world. And Lief's option sidequest is one of the absolute best I have ever seen in a game, and it adds so much to the character, and as a result, the story too. Paper Mario sidequests, Mario and Luigi sidequests, you get an item, a bit of story for that one game, and that bit of story is never mentioned or remembered in any other game, and doesnt do anything to change your view on the story or world. Events happen in Bug Fables because it adds to the world. Events happen in Mario games because... something has to happen in order to make you play the game.
Yeah, Mario is fun, but their characters and world in boring, and so I find enjoyment out of other similar games, like Bug Fables. That is the first of this comment.
"How about a round of cards, Gwent specifically"
(Silent Nod)
TESIV : OBLIVION, the side quest with Sheogorath give a lot of choice to complet the quest, its funny, original and the reward is insane. Still one of my favorite side quest.
Also the side quest in TESV : Skyrim is nice and original, the beginning of the brotherhood storyline, when you need to kill one of the three person with a bag on the head, yes you can go ahead and do it that way, but you can also just kill the assassin, and start a new kind of story line against the brotherhood. I always thought I was clever.
An episode of good and bad design for side quest could be really nice!
Their's so many nice, clever, orignal, challenging side quest out there. I would love to discover new one and understand why I like them in more scientif way!
Thanks you for the great video, I'm always looking forward your upload!
Every time I finish watching your videos, I'm overwhelmed with a childlike wonder for the gaming world. I can't help but bust out an old console or boot up Steam to play something, anything, because you remind me why I love this creative medium so very much. Thank you for all you do! I'll be looking forward to whatever content is still to come :)
Great video man! I've always loved the way from soft does side quest in the souls games where you can completely ignore and not talk to a single person, but if you do and they ask you for something, it's entirely up to you to remember what they want with no journal entry, no map marker, just your memory. And I love that most quests can end in different ways, like siegmeyer in DS1 can die in Izalith fighting the weird squid things or if he lives he goes hollow and is killed by his daughter at ash lake.
All of these mentions are great. I absolutely agree with you opinions on a lot of these side quests, particularly with stuff like Bug Fables, Majora's Mask, and The Thousand-Year Door.
Another game that I would consider having great side content is Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky (and to a lesser extent, the entire series as a whole). Due to the randomized, rogue-like nature of the game's side quests, it causes no two playthroughs of the game to ever be the same. And the rewards tend to be well-worth the effort, including money, items, or even brand new additions to your growing army of Pokémon. The optional extra hard dungeons, such as Zero Isle, are a great way to test your resource management skills and knowledge of the game's mechanics. You can even unlock complete mini-campaigns as you progress through the story, which provide background information on so many of the game's characters. (And don't even get me started on the utility and entertainment you get with the Spinda Cafe.)
It's an ingeniously designed game that perfectly aligns with many of the points you made in this video about how to create amazing side quests.
The murder mystery sidequest from Oblivion I think is still one of the most memorable of all time for me. The sheer amount of dialogue and content based on how you decide to go about approaching your mission makes me think it was some intern's full time project to get that implemented.
This channel is great, I gotten so many unique ideas from watching these videos, definitely if someone’s into game design.
It's shown but not mentioned, Nier: Automata. The sidequests in that game all feel really good to complete. Sometimes you get a different song that plays, some you get cosmetic changes to your character, but it's amazing how they make you feel good about helping androids and machines. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but so far that hasn't been any humans in it and it still manages to have a real sense of humanity.
Playing Crosscode now. What really blows my mind is that it is made entirely with HTML5 and JavaScript. And I am playing it on PS4.
That is insane.
Personally, I liked the sidequests in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. They added nothing to the story, but they were quick, easy to do in batches, you get good rewards from them, and the Wonder Mail system essentially lets you play a colossal amount of them, easily being able to reach the max Explorers Rank by the end of the post-game.
I also love specifically the Blade Quests in Xenoblade 2, though more for the story. They flesh out side characters who do not have a prescence in the main story, and I love that. Unfortunately, I found many of them tedious to play through (looking at you Ursula), so I ended up watching most of the cutscenes on TH-cam. I would say though, if you have the patience for them, Blade Quests are definitely worth your time.
The same could probably be said about Affinity Missions from Xenoblade X, but I haven't played that game, so I can't offer a big opinion on it.
Bought Crosscode last month and have 100+ hours and doing a 2nd playthrough. The sidequests are amazing
I'm playing Crosscode right now and this pops up on my feed, nice.
I love how sidequests works in immersive sims. Like, you can basically find yourself in a situation where you can decide to act upon it (or not). Then you talk to a NPC you find later on and he gives you a sidequest related to that situation, and your character is like "oh, I already did that".
"No, you don't need to catch the butterflies..."
The best part is you actually do
I've seen several cameos to the Trails series in the little clips played, but so far I haven't heard it spoken about. Maybe I just haven't found the video that does yet, but in regards to side quests, the series does very well at organizing them and making them worthwhile, even adding extra incentives for completionists as well. Plus, in some situations, if you complete a certain quest, you may find that some NPCs recognize you from before and will react to whatever happened in the previous quest. Like one early quest in the first game, you find a lady's cat. In the second game, you get another quest from the same lady and if you carried your save data from the first game, she recognizes you, notes your partner isn't with you and is sad about that and proceeds to still give you a quest because the cat ran off again, this time, because it had kittens. Adorable!
I honestly love astral chains side quests. they're mostly just random bits of work where you help people out. many of them just kinda flesh out the world a bit more.
There's one where you have to find and ask a friend in this massive hospital for one of their stuffed animals, so you could go and give it to a kid who's sick. there's a few where all you're doing is just showing off your cool astral plane abilities. you ask some kids questions, and you play a game with them to get some answers.
there's places in the game where outbreaks happen and you have to kill a bunch of astral plane demon zombies to protect civilians, and there's even one where you have to difuse a bomb.
There's one where you go down into the slums of the Ark and look for a gang, who you pair up with to learn more about the astral plane, and to visit.
There's even a whole series of side quests involving this one over the top police officer, who loves just acting, while tracking people down. you also heal people with your own allied astral plane demons, and there are many side quests where you go into the astral plane to pull people out before turning into astral demon zombies
something i haven't seen much is side quests that permanently change the game (beyond giving you XP & gear or changing the ending) - even if it's only minor.
for example, in Everspace 2 there's a 2-part side quests called "Parasite" where you have to deal with a computer virus that hacks ships and evolves over time. At a few points, you'll fight enemies labelled as "infested" (though they behave the same), and the conclusion comes across as "well we dealt with it for now, but who knows if it's still out there?".
i thought it'd be cool to occasionally find infested enemies (and have them behave differently), but it doesn't do that.
i was slightly disappointed afterward completing it, but oh well.
90% of BoTW can be thought of as side quests. You can fight Ganon at any point, but doing the side quests make the fight easier or are like “true” side quests
*sees he put Yakuza in here* Sunao ni I LOVE YOU! todokeyou kitto. YOU LOVE ME!
Deus Ex is a example of great side quests, they are organic in execution, the characters needing help are just lying around the world, their stories are interesting, they give use to many secret areas, some flesh out the world and side characters more, or even the main character, they have many routes for you to choose, and the rewards are great.
Yeah, I have only actually seen the original Deus Ex last year but rough edges aside it was an amazing game specially by how varied and organic everything felt
Hell yeah, Bug Fables! That game is so good.
Shout out to the NieR:Automata side quests. They seem small and one-off, but they feed a lot into the game's anti-war message: your enemy is as human as you are, though they may look different - and you may even have been indoctrinated via military propaganda to think they are built differently from you, but...
@@griv13 Structurally they're not the most exciting, but I'd say the tapestry of stories they weave is interesting. Can't speak on Replicant just yet, though.
@@griv13 As someone who did all the sidequests on my first Route A playthrough (except the pink moonflower seeds one) I can safely say that I did enjoy the little bits and pieces of lore/story a good number of them gave me and didn't mind most of them, I only really hated 3 of them all. But what you said about the ones that are "worth it" I 100% agree, cuz you can make way more money by selling trash items lmao. It's also interesting that the RepliCant Devs made them tedious on purpose, apparently as a satire of Sidequests. Sneaky Yoko Taro is at it again 🤭
Was not expecting bug fables here. Good surprise !
True that side quests can be chores if done incorrectly, like xenoblade chronicles in general.
Great video, as usual.
CrossCode is easily up there among my top favorite indie games. There were legit times where I'd load up the game specifically not to make progress, but to sweep for hidden treasures, areas, and sidequests. Anything to let me hang out in that world for just a little bit longer.
Whenever you're on the hunt for secrets, you meet plenty of other NPCs looking for them as well, sharing what they know, waiting at the end to congratulate you, or chatting with their party members about the things they went through to get there.
This pseduo-MMO structure gives the game such a unique feeling, like you're playing along with a community even though it's a singleplayer game.
Trails series (Sky 1-3, Zero/Azure, Cold Steel 1-4)
This series is known for it's continuity and the development of NPCs. I have a great example of how side quests across arcs complete a story. Minor/vague spoilers
The characters that were set as the minor villains in the very beginning of the first arc. Towards the end of the Sky 2, they had their redemption arc. In Sky 3, you learn about their back story. All these are part of main story. Now in Zero, you learn about what they are currently doing from a small detail in a side quest (If you didn't play the previous game, you'd think it's a throw away line. This is about 1 year after Sky 3. In Azure, you learn about how their back story really happened. This is the central plot on a side quest. In Cold Steel 3, you find out that the main town of the game was originally their home town and the villain even makes an appearance. This again, happens in a side quest. Do note that these 3 arc are set in different countries with different MCs so it's mainly a service to player.
In FFXIV’s most recent expansion there’s a moment where a bunch of NPC’s from all the raids show up to help us out with something. It not only canonizes all the Normal Raids, Alliance Raids and optional Trials, but also makes it rewarding for those who went out of their way to do those optional raid stories instead of the Main story for a bit
Just got it and I can confirm, Bug Fables is a masterpiece! You should definitely get it.
I love how you made an almost 20 min video about side quests (and it is an excellent video) without talking about games like THe Witcher 3 or AC:Origins with a lot of side quests that are interesting and not "go kill 5 animals", or fallout. Loved it
I actually love how Assassin's Creed Valhalla handles sidequests. They completely got rid of quest hubs and of stucking up more and more quests to be bullet pointed out of existance before you proceed. Instead you got blue markers on the map and everyone is a single side activity (not necessary quests) that can be done in a very brief surrounding of the marker
Speaking of Xenoblade, we all know about that one Nopon chain of side quests. Yes, that one.
the classic red pollen orb drug trade
I legit got shock at how a cute and innocent looking creatures like Nopon are selling drugs lmao
BOTW did sort of a decent job with sidequests. Especially with exploration; sometimes you've already completed a sidequest without even KNOWING you've already completed a sidequest. Kind of a plus to me. 🤷♂️
One interesting side quest chain in Pirate101 involves Rooster Cogburn in the world Cool Ranch. As the Sherriff of Cooper's Roost his quests naturally revolve around you finding criminals all around Cool Ranch such as "Nasty" Nathan Birdett, Pancho Grilla & Cisco Kid, Libirdy Valance and The Bird With No Name (originally called The Duck With No Name). After defeating them they appear locked up in the Cooper's Roost jail. Froggo Villa, a criminal you meet and beat during the main story, can also appear there, but if you're a Swashbuckler he won't as he joins you as a Companion. While the first few quests offer XP & Gold as a reward after a while the reward is just Gold, like you're collecting the bounty on them. After completing all of Cogburn's side quests and making Cool Ranch safe he determines that it's so safe that there's no need for a Sherriff anymore and decides to go with you, becoming a Companion.
NieR: Automata also has some amazing side quests. Sure, most are fetch quests, but all of the side quests have incredible writing and they give insight as to how the npcs are handling the world around them. They feel very rewarding
Really, really loving these videos. I'm in school but I have a dream of making my own games one day-- and it's so nice to be able to watch series like this while I work. Seriously, thank you!
I think there are two games that do the side quest best are Morrowind's factions and Majora's Mask. Both games have the idea of side quests built into their overall thematics - building a connection with the people/world around you and how the villain has been affecting everyone. And both games also have their SQs make sense to complete during, after, and instead of the main quest. (Compare to Skyrim and doing the Companions questline while you're supposed to be escorting Esbern)
Agatha's song in Fallout 3, Kabu's request in Bug Fables, all the companion quests in New Vegas, just a few of my favorite side quests.