lacking. I've heard people talk about how the side quests were fun but the game so far is really easy. There's not much of a point to doing them and they're all really generic. I'm not too far in yet, about 9 hours and I just got to Colony 6. I'm also bothered with all the clutter in my inventory. So far I'm really liking the game, but I'm a little disappointed at this aspect since so many people praised it. Then again, I did have REALLY high expectations for this game.

They pay off afterwards - especially later when you have more people on the affinity grid - it is pretty amazing to see them link up (you also get small choices in how the lives of them change). Plus the rewards for them are pretty good throughout and there are some pretty amazing unique monsters.

So I think they are pretty sweet.

Although if your problem is they are a bit grindy or the game isn't hard so it isn't necassary - well those are valid points (but I would have thought most people would have known about it beforehand - rather than just listening to the anecdotes of others who played it).

Nevertheless, just don't do them if you don't enjoy them (unless they have an "!" on them, those have a cut-off moment in the story when you cannot go back and do them - so unless you are completely sure you will never go back then you should probably do those so you don't miss them).

Let me tell you though, you want to do them. One it opens alot of unique rewards later on in the game. Like the best weapons are all sidequest based. Also the farther you get the more central they become to certain things.... Lets just say the different between a person who seriously struggles at end game and a person who walks the dog is wether or not they bothered doing the side quests.

One of my main problems with them is that they're all pretty generic. Also, the game throws a lot of stuff at you from the get go and I feel like I'm already a bit into the game and I'm still adjusting to the leveling, gem crafting, etc. I still find it a little cumbersome looking around the inventory screen all the time.

The game is pretty overwhelming. Hopefully once I play a bit farther this will turn into a positive aspect instead of just... overwhelming.

@grahf14: I'm not as far, so I can't really speak to the quality of the sidequests, but I do have a question for you. Did you play Final Fantasy XIII? If your answer is yes, then would you say Xeno's side quests are superior to XIII's? Or is it essentially the same idea, just kill a special beast. If they're better, that's all I really care about.

@grahf14 said:

One of my main problems with them is that they're all pretty generic. Also, the game throws a lot of stuff at you from the get go and I feel like I'm already a bit into the game and I'm still adjusting to the leveling, gem crafting, etc. I still find it a little cumbersome looking around the inventory screen all the time.

The game is pretty overwhelming. Hopefully once I play a bit farther this will turn into a positive aspect instead of just... overwhelming.

I'll agree on that, it doesn't have a great tutorial system - although from the point you are at now all the new mechanics are shown to you as the story progresses in a pretty well integrated way, much better from the start.

@BoG said:

@grahf14: I'm not as far, so I can't really speak to the quality of the sidequests, but I do have a question for you. Did you play Final Fantasy XIII? If your answer is yes, then would you say Xeno's side quests are superior to XIII's? Or is it essentially the same idea, just kill a special beast. If they're better, that's all I really care about.

The sidequests in Xenoblade range from killing special enemies and collecting X number of items to completing more personal requests, such as fixing a watch, or preventing a loan shark from taking advantage of a client. The side quests with the named characters in particular are the most interesting, as they work to not only provide you with money, equipment, and experience, but also a greater understanding of the people that inhabit the world as you build affinity with everyone you help.

@BoG said:

@grahf14: I'm not as far, so I can't really speak to the quality of the sidequests, but I do have a question for you. Did you play Final Fantasy XIII? If your answer is yes, then would you say Xeno's side quests are superior to XIII's? Or is it essentially the same idea, just kill a special beast. If they're better, that's all I really care about.

As someone who loved FFXIII but wasn't drawn in at all by the side quests then I have to say Xenoblade's are better - mostly due to me actually wanting to complete them. They have a narrative to them and bring quite a lot of depth to the NPC's (and even reactions of your party members - sort of Dragon Age-style interjecting when they think appropriate, and responses changing as your bonds with them increase). There is also a lot more variety in them as well with the set-up being pretty well designed in incentivising the player to go to places they probably would not have tried to go without them to see more of the place.

They definitely aren't worse.

one of the reviews i read said to be careful of doing too many side quests.

there are so many that they end up overpowering you making the game not much of a challenge later on.

chew on that.

It sounds like a case of grind out boring content vs being correctly levelled by the end of the game. I don't much envy you sir.

Some of the sidequests actually have different outcomes which can affect what later quests will be available. And certain sidequest chains and town affinity levels will lead into getting more skill trees for characters. I sometimes find it easier to just go back and do quests I hadn't finished so the rewards don't superlevel me and I still get the affinity points, and I can breeze through them easier because I'll be higher level and have more quick travel points. Just gotta be careful of timed quests.

Yeah, don't overdo it with the sidequests. Think of it like a buffet, such as one Skyrim or Amalur might present: More than enough for anyone to get their fill, but you'll get sick if you consume it all. Building the affinity grids of the townspeople is generally more rewarding than completing the sheer deluge of minor sidequests you get at the start of each new area or dungeon, so maybe just do the former and not go out of your way for the "kill X of Y part 4" types.

As Dixavd said, though, you'll want to do the ones with little clocks next to them ASAP, which sometimes tend to be all the missions connected to one settlement. It's an unfortunate design Catch-22: The game will sort of foreshadow future events by telling you that all the missions of one particular area will eventually expire, but if they didn't do that the player would be pissed off when they all suddenly become unavailable without due warning. Xenoblade ultimately aims to please, after all.

Yea, the sidequests are definitely the weakpoint of the game. It's annoying that JRPG's have jumped on the classic WoW bandwagon of quantity over quality with that. I don't need 400 pointless sidequests, give me 10 fleshed out and informative quests and that's perfectly fine. I can kinda understand their mentality though. This game is huge on exploration compared to most other JRPG's, so they needed a way to entice and reward players to do so.

They're not beyond redemption though. The town affinity and relationship system is extremely unique. If they had scaled back their plans and put a little more focus on it, it would have been one of the coolest systems ever. And the fact that there are branches to a few of them is pretty big too, that's almost unprecedented in a JRPG.

Basically, they did some cool experimentation with quests. It's just a shame that they're buried under hundreds of "fight this many, gather this many" quests. It's better to just accept the quests that are in your path and just play naturally, you absolutely do not need to do them all. It's a better idea if you don't.

My experience is that it's nice to have the quests there in your log to give you something to keep an eye out for as you explore the world, but if they make you bend over backwards, there's no particular need for them. I don't know what people are talking about when they say 'fleshing out the side characters' since they all act like typical JRPG side characters, that is to say, they are generally friendly but have one defining weird quirk that distinguishes them from the others. (This one wants to make new friends, this one is angry about kids these days, this one lies to people because he has trust issues) I have no idea what kind of rewards I'm missing out on from missing the occasional side quest but I'm not a completionist, so I doubt it matters.

The sidequests remind me of Amular.

Yeah they're definitely no Bethesda sidequests. But at least it's a way to get overlevelled quickly so I can enjoy the rest of the game.

Pretty much echoing what people are saying here. Do the ones from named NPCs and you will usually end up in a chain that is far more rewarding than the standard kill X or gather Y quests.

Another way to tell the good ones, they usually require you to return to the NPC after completion.

@rebgav said:

I spent six hours side-questing yesterday before it started to feel like a chore. I'm enjoying it, though it's annoying that you can't really fight monsters which are above your level.

At least the game makes it very easy to known when you're approaching a monster that will end you in one shot. Nothing like using the L button to lock on to an enemy and discover that holy shit, he's a Level 70 Death Machine, and I'm going in the other direction at top speed.

@rebgav said:

I spent six hours side-questing yesterday before it started to feel like a chore. I'm enjoying it, though it's annoying that you can't really fight monsters which are above your level.

Mild character spoilers I guess but:

Depends on what you mean by above, and what point in the game you are at. If you mean the asshole mobs that are like level 90 on Biones' leg then yeah that isn't going to happen unless you're a crazy person. But if you mean a mob that is like 4 or 5 levels higher than those are usually very doable if you have Dunban. Where Reyn falters in tanking is that higher level mobs often do a ton of damage to him. Dunban on the other hand has bucket loads of agility and rarely gets touched and when he does can usually be healed back to full in 1 heal. I always start fights with Reyn to see how he handles them but if I die almost immediately I switch in Dunban and pretty much always win on the next attempt. I'd encourage people to switch the two out if you're having trouble on a specific monster as they cover each other's weaknesses very well.

Hmm... i kind of like the side quest, i just need to find a good faq that tells me where certain ones take place... i am before colony 6 (doing time quest), and i can't find any damn bogs (or whatever those frogs are called) near that lake... or wisps that drop the item i need...

@Zor said:

Hmm... i kind of like the side quest, i just need to find a good faq that tells me where certain ones take place... i am before colony 6 (doing time quest), and i can't find any damn bogs (or whatever those frogs are called) near that lake... or wisps that drop the item i need...

The wisps are only found at night.

i think if you let it the side quest will overwhelm you, but the way they let you cash in the quest right then and there when you compete it most times makes it easy to just queue up the quest and just work on them along the way. I will say the set up feel very much like FFXII in the sense it feel very open and a good chunk of the game is all about side questing and hunts.

I'm a bit torn on this whole sidequests make you overpowered thang. On the one hand I love doing them, even the boring ones like "Kill X number of Y"...on the other hand the feeling that I get when you defeat that oh so powerful enemy while handing onto a thread is really gratifying.

If you're dead set on killing monsters way too high level (there is an achievement for it, after all) the best guy to use is Riki. The dude is a monster with his status effects. I am not even joking; send that two foot tall ball of fluff into combat and even Gods will fall.

For those that might be really into the quests or completionist, I present to you the Xenoblade Bible:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/wii/960564-xenoblade-chronicles/faqs/62867?page=1

I was about 50 hours into the game when I stumbled upon this. It's shocking just how much content I had missed. Over the holiday weekend, I started all over again and been really enjoying the experience so far. Reminds me a lot of the days when I would settle down with the latest Final Fantasy and the strategy guide and just vanish for weeks.

Also, this google doc is a great resource as well:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?hl=en_US&hl;=en_US&key;=0Anx12MiCQejudHJfUWhOTGd5Wm1uS25ub2FDeE5BekE&type;=view&gid;=10&f;=true&sortcolid;=-1&sortasc;=true&rowsperpage;=250

Like I said, totally optional, you do not need these at all to enjoy the game, but seeing as how a JRPG like this that I really get into appears like once every 5 years, I'm determined to squeeze every ounce of content from this amazing game.

@Mento: Riki is absolutely amazing. I was converted into a Heropon fan yesterday. Easily the most versatile member of your party and the most fun to play.

I'm not sure why, but I'm loving the side quests in this game. I've spent more time doing them than actually advancing the story, but now I'm overlevelled to the point that the story isn't much of a hassle.

The side quests for me are just a little boring.  I grab them all but and go about killing everything I see and what not and end up completing a bunch too, but they are just...dull.  I don't know, maybe I'm just missing something.  I'm still trying to do as many as I can, but I just wish they were better.