Final Fantasy: Building The Perfect Sequel (1 Feature From Each Game)

The role-playing game genre is built on quests and the Final Fantasy series has never been short of them, with each game having a plethora of undertakings to complete, both mandatory and optional.

Until the release of Lightning Returns, however, when the completion of individual quests was a central focus of the adventure, they were never tracked in-game. This forced players to rely on memory or mementos (games like IX gave out items to demonstrate achievements such as defeating superbosses) to determine what they had and hadn’t finished.

This brought the series in-line with the likes of The Elder Scrolls, Fallout and Witcher series, with active and completed quests listed in an easily digestible format. It was a huge boon for completionists, allowing gaps to be easily identified and progress tracked when multiple pursuits were on the go at once.

Final Fantasy XV also included a quest log in its main menu, though it arguably went slightly overboard on quantity given how many broken down cars, fetch quests and random hunters in the wilderness it included.

Lightning Returns’ 66 was much more manageable, though a challenge given the time limit placed on finishing the game as a whole. Regardless of quantity, however, a tracker is a simple addition that goes a long way and should hopefully be a series mainstay going forwards.