11 Things We Miss From Final Fantasy
3. Real Sidequests
Final Fantasy VI took us on a mammoth trip across a broken world to gather up all our lost companions, and some powerful Espers along the way. Final Fantasy VII transformed us into professional racing bird breeders with the ultimate goal of crossing the ocean to claim legendary materia. Final Fantasy VIII and IX hooked a generation of players on Triple Triad and Tetra Master respectively, whilst Final Fantasy X introduced the new sub-aqueous sport of Blitzball.
XII and XIII? They got us to fight monsters. Special monsters. Some of them were slightly different colours than the normal ones encountered in game. The rewards? Absolutely nothing!
The lack of true side-quests in XII and XIII (and to an extent X - besides Bliztball, the bulk of its extraneous content revolved around a battle arena) were largely the product of the greatly stripped down games. With no world map to explore, and no real towns and cities, what other form could extra-curricular activity take besides endless fighting?
The result was a set of games which felt largely insubstantial. Yes, there were many, many monsters to hunt in all three games, but prolonging the experience in such a way felt artificial rather than rewarding. Killing fifty tough enemies for the opportunity to fight yet another, even harder enemy was nothing compared to the sense of discovery afforded by exploring a secret hidden forest, or a crashed airship buried at the bottom of the ocean.
Content should enhance the game, not exist for its own sake.