Best JRPG Sidequests, Ranked

When it comes to JRPGs, the only trope more classic than a brutal boss fight against God is chasing down the game’s best equipment, spells, or stories tucked away in sidequests. Luckily for us, not all sidequests are designed equally.

If you’re looking for games which offer a smorgasbord of bonus stories to pursue, you’re in the right tavern.

Whether delving into a mega-dungeon or building romantic bonds between characters, this list features ten of the best sidequests you’ll find in the genre.

10 Elusive Badge

A Thief’s Prize

The Trouble Center in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a great way to collect badges and earn some spare Coins between main story chapters.

Most of the Trouble Center’s sidequests are quick trips to old locations to chat with an NPC or fetch a McGuffin, but one of these tasks does stand out as a “fetch quest done well.”

In Elusive Badge, Mario gets the opportunity to recruit his “frenemy” Ms. Mowz. This mouse thief isn’t required to finish The Thousand-Year Door’s main story, but her ability to sense hidden items is a real boon for my fellow completionists.

The sidequest itself is quite simple, requiring a quick trip through the game’s first dungeon—a nice chance to feel “powered up” midway through the story—to find a hidden item in the boss room.

It conveniently blends a variety of sidequest tropes as you use new abilities to explore an old area, but the true treasure is adding another entertaining character to your roster.

9 Here Come The Brides

An Alien Wedding

Despite much of Xenoblade Chronicles X focusing on the survival of the human species, that doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate occasionally with your alien counterparts. And that’s the plot of the game’s most humorous sidequest, “Here Come the Brides.”

Turns out, even aliens have relationship troubles, and it’s left up to the player to figure out how alien groom Nemard Wolfen is gonna resolve them.

Like most great sidequests, this one is all about engaging with the NPCs to learn more about the story and world.

Oh, and get rewards, of course. This time around, your efforts will also strengthen relations between the humans and the Tree Clan of the Prone aliens, making New Los Angeles a bit more festive and less tense.

8 Cave of Oblivion

Recurring Treasure Hunt

Inspired by Norse mythology, Valkyrie Profile plays while a clock slowly ticks toward Ragnarok through several chapters.

Each time you recruit new heroes or venture into a dungeon, that clock ticks down further and further. This makes deciding when to venture into the dangerous Cave of Oblivion a difficult task.

Entering early can net useful artifacts for use in the rest of the chapter, but entering later means you’re more likely to progress deep within the Cave. Although the Cave of Oblivion respawns during each chapter, once visited, it disappears.

This adds an extra layer of decision-making to the standard “optional dungeon” sidequest format. Deciding when to enter the Cave impacts what benefits you can accrue, turning this sidequest into a rather important part of your playthrough.

7 Leif’s Request

Reveal The Party’s Past

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is a fantastic indie JRPG in the style of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door which uses sidequests to expand the game’s characters and lore.

About midway through the game your party’s magic-wielding moth, Leif, asks the party to help uncover his past.

This sidequest leads you into a secret area of the game’s first dungeon, where you discover a lab filled with horrific experiments. Your adventure into Upper Snakemouth concludes with a potentially-brutal battle against the optional boss, Zommoth.

Upper Snakemouth is a great example of a dungeon which also tells a story because of its connection with the game’s first chapter, as well as its connection to Leif’s backstory.

Exploration helps you learn more about the game’s world, and the fight against Zommoth is a nasty surprise if you’re under-leveled. The primary reward is revealing Leif’s backstory.

As a bonus, though, completing the sidequest nets you a new move for Leif, and contributes toward unlocking more teamwork moves for use with the whole party.

6 Night of Farewells

Island-Hopping Battle

The Fire Emblem franchise is filled with great sidequests and “paralogues” offering optional challenges if you meet certain parameters. The sidequest chapter “Night of Farewells” is, in my opinion, the series’ most memorable, since it’s an absolute bastard of a level if you’re unprepared.

In “Night of Farewells,” your party must traverse a collection of islands as bridges rise and fall out of the water, limiting your mobility. Sure, fliers can cross freely, but they’re fragile and not worth risking in a game with permadeath.

While trudging across the islands to defeat the villainous Sonia, a variety of challenging enemies confront your forces directly, and also take potshots from afar.

The nastiest of these is a bishop with a Berserk staff who turns an island into the friendly-fire Thunderdome. Once the bridges drop, there’s no escape until the Berserk effect wears off!

Fortunately, this battle rewards you with one of the game’s best units: the powerful assassin Jaffar. Jaffar is capable of scoring one-hit kills on almost any foe you encounter during the rest of the game, making this warrior well worth the trouble.

5 Private Actions

Swift Relationship Building

The “private actions” in Star Ocean: The Second Story R are an interesting variation on JRPG sidequests. They’re focused entirely around the party members interacting, rather than picking up a mission at some central hub.

Depending on the conversation options you pick or your success with different tasks, the private actions can continue producing further sidequests and goals which flesh out Star Ocean’s story.

As the affinity between characters grows, more of these sidequests become available.

Deepen your characters relationships, and you’ll be rewarded not just with new story elements—private actions are also the only way to unlock some of the game’s best abilities, along with the deadlier “Unlimited” version of Star Ocean’s final boss.

4 The Wounded Soldier

Letters For Love

The ominous World of Ruin in Final Fantasy VI opens up a bunch of sidequests and secret locations to continue exploring.

One of the most compelling, though, is simply helping a wounded soldier write letters to his girlfriend, Lola.

It’s easy to miss that this task has a true end-goal, since multiple letters must be sent over the second chunk of the game.

But as more letters go back and forth, a touching story is revealed between the anonymous soldier in Mobliz and Lola’s grief, believing him deceased.

Completing the sidequest reveals a secret, softer side to one of the party members, and also nets you a new relic: the Tintinnabulum necklace, which tops up the equipped party member’s health while walking about the world map. If only the soldier thought about wearing it himself.

3 Niccolo’s Business Unusual

A Merchant’s Schemes

Unlike most JRPGs, Legend of Mana builds an ambient story through an interlocking set of main quests and sidequests, depending on how events play out during the game.

One of the most striking is the persistent antics of Niccolo, a swindling merchant who keeps trying to profit off of other NPCs.

Niccolo’s sidequests highlight how a single colorful character can produce a whole sequence of entertaining events. (And really, colorful characters tend to be a strength of the Mana series overall.)

Each quest explores this cute bunny’s miserly spirit even further, typically resulting in continued comedy.

What really makes Niccolo’s story work—and the other sidequests in Legend of Mana—is that it supports the game’s overall goal of feeling “being alive” by lacking formal “chapters” or “levels.”

Legend of Mana beautifully interweaves the main story with events like Niccolo’s sidequest, translating into an organic roleplaying experience and creating more memorable side character stories.

2 Mementos

Explore Humanity’s Unconscious

In a game as densely packed with stuff to do as Persona 5 Royal, it’s tricky to decide how to spend your time between missions—much less determine what’s the best side story.

So, while it may be a slight cop-out, I’m still going to highlight how the mega-dungeon of Mementos blends sidequests with the game’s themes.

At a whopping 66 randomly-generated floors, Mementos is truly a labyrinth. In Persona 5 Royal, this dungeon represents the entirety of the collective human unconscious within the magical Metaverse.

During the game’s sidequests, your party ventures deeper and deeper into Mementos to force various villains to reform and change their ways.

Filled with a variety of quest encounters and a mini-boss fight before unlocking each new area, this dungeon truly contributes to Persona 5 Royal’s side activities. What really makes it shine, though, is how Mementos is interwoven with the game’s occult psychology.

After all, tantalizing answers are promised if you manage to lead the Phantom Thieves into the dungeon’s depths.

1 The Rainbow Shell

Time-Spanning Side Epic

The time-travel masterpiece Chrono Trigger fully deserves its acclaim, with a complex plot and gameplay all structured around its exploration of multiple eras of the past, present, and future. And the main story ain’t this game’s only gem.

This side story starts off just looking like another fetch quest: track down the Rainbow Shell, and use it to make some powered-up gear before the final boss. However, your mission isn’t quite as simple as it seems.

From using time travel to appease a ghost to a courtroom showdown worthy of Phoenix Wright, and finally a boss throwdown with the villainous Yakra XIII—out for revenge ever since you beat his ancestor in a previous era— there’s a whole load to do before finally claiming the Rainbow Shell’s power for yourself.

It’s a lengthy quest with memorable dramatic beats reconciling a party member, Marle, with her family. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that one of your final rewards is the strongest weapon in the game.

All of this together makes the Rainbow Shell sidequest a spectacular experience, and for me, one of the most memorable moments in Chrono Trigger.