Your Most Memorable Sidequests

[NinjaSniperAssassin]

I admit it, I didn't used to think much of sidequests. I'd come across them every time I played an RPG and even though I would attempt to complete every one I never viewed them as anything other than minor distractions, or maybe opportunities to get new equipment that would quickly become obsolete. They were fun, but none of them ever left an impression on me the way pivotal story quests could.

Until now.

I was just playing through Borderlands 2 when I encountered one of its numerous questgivers. Naturally I offered to complete this gentleman's request, and before I knew it I had embarked on a sidequest the likes of which I had never encountered before. The action! The drama! The heartbreak! I don't want to spoil it's glory, but suffice it to say that Shoot This Guy In The Head is a modern day masterpiece of optional questing, and one which I will not soon forget.

Now, escapists, I have to know: of all the sidequests you've played, which one(s) do you still reflect upon with fond memories? Have you ever replayed a game solely to re-do a certain optional mission?

 

[The Wykydtron]

I have gone through Mass Effect 2 just to play the Morinth misson before, it's really well written and you can show off Shep's "amazing" dancing skillz. Hey Shep even gets to show a bit of weakness if you fail the huge Renegade/Paragon check. Sex vampires do that to you I suppose.

I really like missions where you get to engage in a bit of subterfuge. It's a nice change of pace in whizz bang shooty games.

I remember the sidequest in Dragon's Dogma (awesome game, sleeper hit of the year, buy now beat the rush!) where you have to find the correct evidence to judge this corrupt noble guy. Open world games are terrible for this sort of thing. Which random NPC will give you bits and pieces of information that are of questionable usefulness? I have no fucking idea and I can't be arsed running around the map looking for it.

Oh and that little digging minigame in Okami. The one where you have to guide the man to the well or something. I hated that section and I hope it's never mandatory again.

 

[Ultress]

As insane as it can get The Anju/Kaefi sidequest in Majora's Mask,hell all the sidequests are fun to a degree in MM. Anju's though takes the most time and gets the most involved with a really nice ending to it. All of the sidequest gave you a feel for Termina and made you feel good for doing them.


Also the millennium puzzles in Wild Arms 3.Were they basically a set of glofied box moving puzzles,yes however they were all well designed.

 

[Popadoo]

I'd have to agree with OP here, Face McShooty is a God among men, and once I'd completed this quest I was laughing for about half an hour at the absurdity of it.

 

[Vegosiux]

Ingress and her teeth in PS: T.

Spoiler: spoilers here

Basically, it's a short story of a woman who has accidentaly walked through one portal too many, got burned, mutilated, scared and scarred for life, and is now almost afraid to move from the spot, since anything in Sigil might be a portal to some other nasty place. You need to find a planeswalker to safely guide her home. A minor quest, but quite memorable.

 

[thejackyl]

The Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion?

That's the only one that really stood out to me, out of the games I've played.

 

[BlackStar42]

The thread title said memorable, not good, so I'll go with Yo Ho Ho and a Truck Full O' Rum from Mercenaries 2. Memorable because of how ridiculously sodding difficult it is- you have to drive an unarmoured pickup truck across half the map without losing too much rum from the back- while what seems like every single enemy in the entire game does their best to stop you with every single explodey thing they can find.

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Probably the most memorable for me was the huge monster-arena hunting quest in Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King. I mean, the quest itself meant you had to hunt for the monsters to recruit across the entire game world (which was pretty fucking huge), then fight each one (which tended to be a tougher-than-average fight), form them into teams of three and use them to fight through a series of tournaments in an arena. Added to this was the fact that if you made teams of certain monsters, they could activate special abilities, but you wouldn't know which special teams consisted of what without trying them out. Great fun, and very rewarding.

 

[The Knightly Gamer]

I believe everyone has forgotten about the best sidequest in Borderlands 2 is CLAPTRAP'S BIRTHDAY PARTY!

 

[Jason Rayes]

I quite like the one in Oblivion where the whole town has been made invisible. I've played so many RPGs that the side quests blur, but this one sticks in my mind as I still remember the surreal moment where the air started talking to me.

For side quests in general I like it when what appears to be a typical yawn worthy side quest has expectations turned on its head and becomes some thing more than it appears.

 

[Vern5]

Ingress and her teeth in PS: T.

Spoiler: spoilers here

Basically, it's a short story of a woman who has accidentaly walked through one portal too many, got burned, mutilated, scared and scarred for life, and is now almost afraid to move from the spot, since anything in Sigil might be a portal to some other nasty place. You need to find a planeswalker to safely guide her home. A minor quest, but quite memorable.

That was the creepiest quest reward every given, especially after everything Ingriss tells you about the portals and how they work.

OT: I remember a sidequest in Jade Empire where I got to play matchmaker for a crime boss. I felt bad for forcefully calling off her earlier betrothal so I set her up with a meek carpenter who didn't have the guts to collect the money people owed him. I'm pretty sure that between his productive business and her ruthless public relations they would create the most aggressive furniture company known to man.

 

[Owlslayer]

I quite like the one in Oblivion where the whole town has been made invisible. I've played so many RPGs that the side quests blur, but this one sticks in my mind as I still remember the surreal moment where the air started talking to me.

For me, that was the sidequest that popped to mind firstly, as well. It was pretty damn interesting and fun.

Another one, also from Oblivion, wasn`t originally a sidequest for me, but it was really memorable anyways. It was the one where there was this weird cult village, kidnapping people and sacrificing/killing/imprisoning them below the village, in a cavern. It was so memorable because of how it started: I just wondered into a random half-burned down village, was happy to find a shop, inn and all that, but when i started talking and looking around, a lot of things were a bit off... My curiosity went wild, and i had to get to the bottom of it all. Great stuff, that village. Too bad i murdered them all later, but still. Great village, great quest.

 

[distortedreality]

That one in the Witcher 2 where you end up passed out and tattoed springs to mind.

 

[The Madman]

Everything in Baldur's Gate 2.

Not only were there approximately a billion sidequests in that game (Look it up) but a lot of them are better written and designed than some full experience. Can't really think of any other games that quite compare.

If you want something newer though I quite liked the Shadow Broker thing in Mass Effect 2. It made me like Liara as a character, which considering my previous opinion of her as a character is quite a feat!

 

[God'sFist]

I would say the optional escort trader quest from Fable 1 was one I liked alot, that and saving Butch's mom in Fallout 3. Both ways I do it usually ends with butch dieing from being shot by me. he he he

 

[Darren716]

The Arcade Ganon Enclave sidequest from Fallout: NV. I mostly remember this one because during my first play through I didn't realize I couldn't go into the Brotherhood of Steel territory while wearing NCR armor so when the entire bunker started attacking me and I died after only killing a few of them each time I felt it would be easier to do the quest if I could use the power armor they wore but I didn't have the perk to do so. I looked up how to get the perk and found the only way I could do so without involving the BoS was to find a guy named Arced Ganon and help him. So I went out got him as a partner and decided to try and start the quest but then I found the only way to start the quest was to have Arcade get enough "points" of liking you by bringing him to certain areas in the Mojave. It turned out I exhausted all my options except one which required me to deal with the BoS which was much easier this time with Ganon's plasma defender and my newly acquired Anti-material rifle. In the end I got the Armor and was able to see the Remnants show up to help me kick the Legion's ass on Hoover Dam, unfortunately they all died within about 2 minutes but I gladly wore my Enclave armor as I killed Lanius with Annabelle and then had my army of securitrons kill Lee Oliver.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

Borderlands 2 has a lot of really great and memorable sidequests. One I really liked that hasn't been mentioned is the one where Scooter enlists the vault hunters to help him write a poem for a woman in town.

As far as other games go:

Mass Effect 2 has a lot of really good sidequests in the form of the loyalty missions(although if you want folks to live they're pretty much required)

The hallucination sequence from the Point Lookout DLC in Fallout 3 is among my favorite things in the game. I remember having a save file from right before that mission that I kept around whenever I wanted to experience it again.

 

[Jason Rayes]

Another one, also from Oblivion, wasn`t originally a sidequest for me, but it was really memorable anyways. It was the one where there was this weird cult village, kidnapping people and sacrificing/killing/imprisoning them below the village, in a cavern. It was so memorable because of how it started: I just wondered into a random half-burned down village, was happy to find a shop, inn and all that, but when i started talking and looking around, a lot of things were a bit off... My curiosity went wild, and i had to get to the bottom of it all. Great stuff, that village. Too bad i murdered them all later, but still. Great village, great quest.

I remember this one, had a very Cthulhu vibe.

It reminds me of another side quest, this time in Fallout 3. You meet this group of families in the town of Andale "the best town in Virginia". They seem so hearts and flowers it's just plain creepy, especially when the old widower in town warns you to get out before its too late.

Spoiler

It turns out that after the bombs dropped and the food ran out, the townspeople turned to cannibalism and inbreeding, luring passers by to stop and then murdering them, allowing no new people to move into town so that "the best town if Virginia" remains "pure".

Edit: Not really a side quest but certainly non essential. In Fallout 2 there was a shop in one of the towns where a group of child pickpockets lived. Every time you exited the store they would steal a random object from your inventory and run and hide. One way to get around this was to drop everything but a timed explosive. Set it to explode in about a minute then enter and leave the store. Just wait for the explosion and you can go find the pick pocket.

 

[Syndarr]

The Yakuza series is one of my favorites for great sidequests. There are tons of them, and most of them are very imaginative and lots of fun. Yakuza 2 in particular has one of the most memorable sidequests in the series. Three words: Be My Baby. (slightly NSFW)


Also, HELL YES re: Ingress and her teeth. Ingress was one of my favorite NPCs in a game that was chock-full of freaking awesome NPCs.