On Sidequests

On a lot of threads I see stuf that is basically "More sidequests, Nintendo! Make it like Majora's Mask!"

Now then, the purpose of a sidequest is ultimately to get some form of reward, with only a few of these rewards being money.

Although a few additional sidequests are definitely a plus, there's a few things that most people are forgetting about why there haven't been sidequests to the level of Majora's Mask.

The REQUIRED plot of MM was short.

In OoT and TP, there's a few things to keep in mind. You go through eight dungeons of getting an extra heart per dungeon. So, the main reason for adventuring in Zelda is removed right away. Just by picking up those heart pieces, you have eleven hearts when it's time to take on Ganon. In MM, there were four dungeons. No one is gonna try to fight Majora with seven hearts the first time through.

Of course, there are item upgrades. However, these were generally handled in the form of simple mini-games, even in MM. So, the second form of reward is removed.

There are getting items like the Ice Arrows, but ultimately, if these items aren't required for getting through the game, they'll probably not have much use.

What's left? Majora's Mask had the Bomber's Notebook, but these brought about masks that were for getting Heart Pieces. Wind Waker had the Charts and Figurines, but the charts were for money/heart pieces and the figurines were for... nothing I remember. Unfortunately, it's frustrating going on one sidequest for one item to have to go somewhere else for another, except in a Biggoron Sword kind of deal.

Therefore, a future Zelda is limited in sidequests. If it takes the MM or WW route, the actual plot gets overshadowed by the fact that all these sidquests are getting you nowhere fast, and the OoT and TP route has obvious, well-defined limits we're familiar with. The problem is in balance, and I suspect that because of the limits of Zelda as an action game with few items as opposed to an RPG with three "ultimate" weapons per character, Zelda will often offer short and simple sidequests, open to the player but easily missed to those only playing for the story.

But these are just my thoughts.

Nice observations, I've been thinking a bit about sidequest to main quest ratio and what would please fans the most and all that, and I've had a hard time coming up with any conclusions.

All I know is that TP has the ratio that fits best for me, but that doesn't make any of the other games worse in my opinion.

I'm really lenient because whatever the quest is they're having you go on, whether important or pointless, it's always fun to me.

I'm going to have to completely disagree with you here, there is no limit to the sidequests apart from the time they have to put into them, you simply have to use your imagination to come up with compelling reasons to do them.

First thing first, make the combat much harder then it currently is, this instantly gives you reason to not only seak out as many heart pieces as you can, but also provides incentive to look for additional abilities that may help you in combat. These can take any form you want, be they arrows, spells (ala AoL's awesome spell system), sword techniques, additional weapons of diffrent types, MM style mask abilities (which I assure you are used for far more then simply getting more heart pieces) or whatever your imagination can cook up. You don't even need to limit the game to 20 hearts (which was a number that was only introduced in OoT), why not have 30?

Furthermore there is no reason why auxiliary goals cannot be introduced. MM already touched on this in several ways, as the sidequests in that game allow you to:

- Discover more about the world and the people who live in it
- Unlock alternate ending sequences
- Gain awe inducing abilities/forms

There is no reason as to why this cannot be expanded apon further. Give me secret optional bosses which are much more difficult then anything else, access to hidden areas/dungeons etc.

Remember that sidequests don't have to simply be things that help you beat the main quest, they can be goals within themselves.

I'm with ectomy. You don't need the BGS to beat the game, but it does make fighting bosses and iron knuckles easier. That's a great reason for taking subquests to find different items and abilities if they will just bring back hard difficulty.

Heart pieces would become more valuable, as well as upgrades, abilities, and weapons. Take the up and down thrust in AoL. I don't think you need those moves to beat the game, but I appreciated them.

Making an expansive world with optional dungeons would also be cool. Nintendo has already touched on enemies that you fight, but are unrelated to the plot. Bongo Bongo has nothing to do with Ganondorf. It was sealed by Impa, and it's power grew so large that it eventually broke its seal and took over the Shadow Temple.

There's also King Bulbin in TP, whose group seems to just be a band of raiders that don't have much to do with Ganondorf and Zant. I believe he might have been running around Hyrule until he met Ganondorf, then Bulbin started following him.

Nintendo could expand on this, so that some subquests give you access to optional areas. Getting through these areas could effect the ending of the game, give you a lot of experience fighting certain monsters, and optional weapons that make fighting the hardest monsters a little easier.

There is no reason to limit subquests or anything else.

I don't do sidequests to make myself stronger or make anything easier, I do them only because they're fun to do and I like completing the games. In MM it was really hard for me getting through without doing much heart piece searching, but I didn't stop the main quest to do side stuff because that's not the way I enjoy working through the games. I do the main stuff first and the sidequests afterward, which makes MM a pain for me but makes TP lovely. I don't need a reason or a great reward for doing the sidequests, my reward is the fun of doing them, that's the whole reason I play video games in the first place. Not because someone gives me a cookie if I beat it, but because it's fun to beat.

I guess I'm just weird.

Side quests are an irrelevance on the main plot of any game, which is the reason that they are on the side. If you consider the fact that all of the side quests witin Majora's Mask will actually affect the main plot of the game very little, it shows that they can just be there.

If you think about the fact that Twilight Princess was meant to have loads of NPCs (which it did), all of those NPCs have their own lives, which are completely and utterly unrelated to Link's adventure, they could all have their own sidequest or something else going on there. Even the Doctor in Hyrule Town, who is really a quack could have a sidequest, like you go to collect ingrediants for him and it gives you a magic bar, or something.

There were quite a few side quests in Ocarina of Time that bore no real relevance to the game at hand, but were brilliant little additions, like gaining access to the Blue Potion, or Big Goron's Sword and many other things. They're the sort of additions that we need in the Zelda series, and there are always oppertunities for them, it's just whether Nintendo feel the need to put them in there which is the question.

I don't mind nintendo putting more or keeping the amount of sidequests the same because I generally don't do them unless it is an accident. So yea, if you want my opinion it doesn't matter because I don't care.

Side quests and minigames greatly increase play time after the final boss.
i meen just before you fight the final boss, your near invincible to any enermy, so fighting things is quite boring. And talking to people gives you the same things.
But sidequests are something to do.
Remember the Mask of Truth from OoT, did it have any relevence to the story, i dont think so, but it was a great addition.