Side-Quests and Mini-games, Oh My!

So playing through XII: Zodiac Age has been a blast despite spending over seven hours already in the game and I still haven't met Fran and Balthier. "Why?" you may ask, because of all the cool side-quests and mini-games, in fact refreshing my memory with the old guide book made me remember that XII had way more than people remember it having. I mean we all know about Mark Hunts but no one ever talks about the quest to save the sick traveler in the frontier village, the Airship sisters, and several of the quests that have to be undertaken to even get access to the areas where the espers are. There's also the mini-games like making sun stones, fishing, and the Balfoheim foot races, though the last two can be forgiven since they open up rather late in the game. It's just interesting in hindsight when you think about the amount of content in the later games that came after. XIII and XV have their own takes on Mark Hunts but very little else unless you count petting sheep and exploring the map to find the royal arms as big deal quest lines.

So yeah, I feel like XII is kind of underrated in the side-content department because it actually has a lot to offer besides Mark Hunts and even those Mark Hunts are handled way better than the games that use it afterwards.

Yeah Final Fantasy XII seems to be designed with the "always something to find" idea in mind with just about every setpiece in the game having some optional side thing for you to find and do. Making it kind of a nightmare for the typical completionist mindset, but pretty exciting to just explore at your own pace =P

I'd always felt FFX-2 was the series' front runner when it comes to good sidequests and minigames, but it kinda works fundamentally in a different way. FFX-2's sidequests revolve around having each area of a world you're already familiar with go through its own little story. In FFXII they're very much part of 'discovering' these areas in the first place.

I like it though. It's a good way of making the world feel more alive, and it's definitely influenced me a lot in one of my own RPG projects.

I recall a couple fun sidequests, but that they were overall lacking in quantity and variety. I don't remember any minigames, though I quit right after the Great Crystal.

I always remember the Airship sisters quest, though I never got too far into it; I would always forget about the quest. Also had no idea there were fishing and racing minigames.

I will say thought that playing through TZA made me appreciate that whether or not you accept the marks, there will be NPCs talking about the monster in the Garamsythe Waterway, or the Wyvern terrorizing the resistance soldiers. It's a touch I wish they had in the later games to make everything feel more important.