7 Best and 7 Worst Minigames/Side Quests in Final Fantasy ~ Part One

What the title says.

Seriously, though. There is a lot to do in the modern Final Fantasy games. (I say modern, because VI and lower really didn't have to much to offer in terms of "extras", so this list is gonna focus on VII and up.) There are games to play, things to fetch, people to see. You can spend hours doing something that has almost nothing to do with the plot, and usually you can score some pretty neat items this way.


In compiling this list, what exactly did I decide a minigame/side quest was? And how can I even put those two things in the same category? They're not the same. Maybe not, but they're still similar. A minigame mostly takes place in one area. I would consider Triple Triad, Blitzball and the Gold Saucer Battle Arena as minigames. Side quests, however, usually take you all over the map looking for something/someone which then sends you somewhere else. I consider Chocobo Breeding in VII, Mark Hunting in XII and the Monster Arena side quests. But there's two things that all good minigames and side quests have in common: they take up chunks (sometimes hours upon hours) of your time, and you get rewarded. So that's why I've clumped them together.


Anyway, that's enough of an intro, don't you think? I do. We don't wanna get into Webster's definition of a minigame or a side quest. (Which I'm sure doesn't exist.) So, on with our list. Let's start with the good.


Top 7 Minigames/Side Quests In Final Fantasy VII - XII


7. "Here The Fighting Never Ends" - The Gold Saucer Battle Arena, VII

 

Not pictured: The grisly murder Sephiroth committed.

Gold Saucer is a minigame mecca. There's tons of crap you can waste your time with there. You can ride a motorcycle, snowboard, of even feed a mog if that suits your fancy. But none of these games are really worth your time. They're more for times when you feel like if you have to feed that damn green chocobo one more green you're gonna scream. The Battle Arena, however, actually has a purpose.


Basically in the battle arena you enter in a series of battles and play until you get knocked out. Each round some slots spin and you are handicapped in some way. These range from status effects to breaking your weapons and materia so they can no longer be used. For each successfully won battle you get BP, which you can trade in for prizes. If you fight a lot of successful battles and save a lot of BP you can get some exclusive awesome prizes such as w-summon materia, final attack materia (I'm comin', Ruby Weapon) and the much coveted Omnislash limit break. This makes fighting in the battle arena totally worth your time.


Unfortunately while fighting can sometimes be fun, the process of getting these awesome rewards is often long and frustrating. The computer can completely fuck you over by breaking all your materia on subsequent turns of its death wheel. And fighting in the battle arena against mostly the same series of monsters can get kind of boring after awhile. That's why the battle arena finds itself on the bottom of my list. 


Plus, what is with the tissues as a prize? What do they think Cloud does in his spare time? ...Or do I even wanna know...


6. "We Like 'Em Rare" - Phon Coast Hunt Club, XII


So there's this point in XII where you find yourself on this beautiful beach. And you run into these upstanding gents that want to ask you a little favor.

Whatever you do, don't follow them into the shack.

They're looking for rare monsters, see. Only they suck at it. Or they're lazy. I don't remember. Either way, they want you to go out and find the rare monsters, and bring the trophies back to them. They'll be more than happy to reward you. Only there's 3 of them, and only one trophy per monster, so you have to decide who you're gonna favor, and who better buck up and go find their own damn monsters.


There's just something about completing a list of something, isn't there? So a list of rare monsters to track down sounds exciting at first. Then all the sudden you're fleeing for your life while some out of control, undead, unholy terror is chasing you, casting spells you wish never existed. (True story.)


So yeah, it's fun for awhile to hunt down the rare monsters. Emphasis on for awhile. Because these monsters are rare for a reason. They don't like to come out and play. So after entering the same screen on the Tchita Uplands for the fiftieth time and seeing nothing, you're almost ready to smash the controller. That fact, along with the decent, but not game changing awards you receive, lands this one at #6.


5. "NBL" - Blitzball, X

And Tidus prepares to get poisoned by the Al Bhed Psyches. Again.

Spira sure loves their blitzball. But I guess when you only got one sport you don't really have much choice. And if you wanna unlock Wakka's ultimate weapon, you don't got much choice yourself. Get in the water and throw the ball around, ya?


Blitzball is a game that's basically like soccer, only it's played in water. How anyone can breathe is beyond me. Because nobody's wearing a suba tank of any kind. But basically what you wanna do is score goals. Whoever has the most goals when the time runs out wins. Really complicated, right? And there are techs and crap and as the characters play they gain experience and level up and such. Basically the only techs you give a crap about involve shooting goals. The Al Bhed team is obsessed with poisoning you.


Blitzball always starts out fun. It's fun to get your team together and put your best players on the field. It's not easy to win at first, but once you get the hang of things and your team starts to level up a bit, winning gets easier.


And not long after that...it gets too easy.


If you recruit Rikku's brother for your team (his actual name is Brother. Apparently his parents didn't give a shit about him.) you will soon learn why major league teams will spend big bucks on one guy. I'm pretty sure he could win all by himself. Before long he's swimming so fast the other team has passed out from trying to keep up. It's almost a joke. Meanwhile, you yawn and shoot yet another goal. Just another blitzball game. Whoop dee freakin' do.


You have to play a LOT of games of blitzball, because the item you need to unlock Wakka's weapon only comes up after you win some tournaments. By that time you're so leveled up the opposing teams are a joke and blitzball games feel like twenty minutes of watching Brother show off. 


So fun at first, but boring in the end...blitzball places fifth.


4. "Vaan The Bounty Hunter" - Clan Centurio, XII


Who wouldn't wanna join a club led by this little guy?

 

He wants you to kill things.

If you want awesome rewards and fun challenges that'll last you all game long, you better sign yourself up.


You can join Clan Centurio at the beginning of the game, and basically what you're doing is bounty hunting. You're given a person to go talk to about a monster, and after talking with them you either accept the job or give them the shifty eyes, claiming you have other stuff to do while you slink away. After you defeat the monster, you return to that person for your reward. The more marks you kill, the higher your rank and the more hunts you unlock. You even get more rewards from the moggle (pictured above.) It's easy...and fun! Oh, and you're helping people. Or something. I guess.



Seriously, hunting marks is fun. It's a great side quest you can go back to all throughout the game if you wanna get away from the main story. And not only are the rewards great, but it's a nice way to level up too, while doing something different. Oh, and there's prime stuff to steal as well.


So this side quest is all over awesome. I really don't have a bad thing to say about it. ...Okay, so following gilgamesh deeper and deeper into the mines for hours wasn't exactly a picnic, but it was worth it to steal his shit.


3. "Beware The Random Rule" - Triple Triad, VIII




Oh, Triple Triad. How I used to curse you. Now I love you. You're like the nerdy kid in school who gets made fun of until the popular kid realizes they can cheat off you in biology. Or something like that.

Selphie wants to be under Seifer.

Triple Triad is a card game you can play pretty much all game long. You walk up to someone, press square, and if they're a card player, a game will start. Now I'm not going to go into the whole explanation of how to play, but there are various rules that change how the game is played. These vary from region to region. Most of them are horrible. Especially the random rule. The random rule is just what is sounds like - you don't get to choose your own cards. Instead, they're randomly chosen from your hand. So while you may have many awesome character cards to choose from, the computer will undoubtedly select all your bite bug and jelleye cards. Not so fun.


The good thing is you can spread the one rule that's good, (open - seeing your opponent's hand is always a good thing...unless it's on your leg) and banish the rules you hate. (Like random, same-wall, random, elemental, random, same, random, plus, random, that other rule that's horrible, and random. Did I mention random?) This takes some work and understanding of how the rules are spread. But it's worth it. Because easier card playing means you'll be able to get all the good cards without much effort. And you won't wanna strangle your kinda sister Ellone for beating you at cards. Again.


So why do you want these cards anyway? To stare at the pretty pictures? No. Because the cards can be turned into items. Awesome, useful items. A big thing in VIII is changing and combining items into different items using GF abilities. A lot of the items you can get from cards are rare - sometimes almost impossible to get without the card. And if you want to fight Ultima Weapon, you're gonna want the gilgmesh card. So just hand it over, Quistis!


So super fun despite the time it might take to manipulate the rules, great rewards - it's a great addition to the game, really. I curse it no more. Only two really awesome side quests could knock this minigame down to number 3.


2. "Gotta Catch 'Em All!" - The Monster Arena, X


Off in this little nook in the Calm Plains is this creepy guide who lives alone with his dragon. He likes to take monsters, breed them with other monsters, and create brand new monsters! Totally a legit operation.

 

You wanna make a what with a what now?!

So you visit this guy, and he'll sell you weapons so that you can "catch" monsters rather than kill them. You can catch a maximum of 10 of each monster in the game. And as you catch all the monsters of a certain species or all the fiends in a certain location, creepy guy gives you rewards. Oh, and you can also fight his creepy creations for prizes. He's not responsible for any of the injuries you most certainly will get.


I'm a bit obsessed with the monster arena. I just love it. I always collect 10 of every monster in the game, and I'm sad when it's over. You'll spend a lot of time gathering monsters, especially if you're determined to get 10 of every kind - hey! Just think of yourself as a fucked up Noah! The rewards you get are great - not only for your sphere grid but there's some rare stuff in there as well.


It's worth it to fight his freaks of nature as well - but be warned. Those things get really difficult to defeat. My team was jacked, and I still kept getting creamed by this one monster. I don't know how they don't murder him in his sleep. But again, for the sweet prizes, you'll keep licking your wounds and coming back.


There's only one side quest that can knock my beloved monster arena to number two.


1. "Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot!" - Chocobo Hot and Cold - IX


I love IX. Really. I do. But not as much as I love this side quest.

 

That's the sound of him pooping himself.

Wandering into a forest at the beginning of the game, you find an enterprising moogle exploiting a poor, lost chocobo. If you give the moogle some gil, he'll let you ride his pal and search for treasure for like a minute. Yeah, this moogle is some friend. But it's good for you, because this chocobo will lead you to some great stuff. As you run around to the catchy tune, you press a button to search the area for treasure. Choco's response goes from Kweh. (There's nothing here, you bloodsucking jerk.) to KWWEEH-EHHH! (Here's your god damn treasure! Now get the fuck off!) That's when you wanna dig for shiny pretty things. As you play, Choco's beak strength gets stronger and you can dig stuff up faster. You also start finding "Chocographs" which lead you to even better treasure you can find outside the forest and around the world map. After the forest there's also a lagoon and air garden to explore. And Choco gains powers so he can climb mountains, cross oceans and eventually fly. By the time you're at the end of the game, the moogle's rolling in money, Zidane's draped in treasure, and the chocobo is seeing a chiropractor.


Chocobo hot and cold is just so much fun. It's addicting. And the song is really cute and catchy. Treasures aside (and the rewards are great - definitely worth the time) I would probably play this even if I was just fattening the moogle's wallet. And even though it costs a little to play, you'll save a lot of money by not having to buy all the potions and other items you're digging up at a shop. You also get points for each item you dig up, and for meeting certain other conditions. You can then trade those points for even MORE items. In the end, as far as your gil goes, it's a bargain. So you're happy and the moogle's happy. But not the chocobo. He's still not happy.


Up next...saving the worst for last.