That One Sidequest: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

An optional, nonessential, usually out-of-the-way part of a video game that is extremely difficult and/or time consuming to complete, yet is nonetheless required for [[100% Completion]]. These are generally far more difficult than anything else in the game, and, in extreme cases, may be classified as nigh impossible.

Casual players of the game do not even bother with this. Most serious players of the game attempt to do this, fail miserably, give up and move on. Only the truly dedicated [[100% Completion|Hundred Percent Completionists]] remain, but even many of them fail and inevitably accept defeat. In the end, many players wind up hopelessly stuck at 99%, and give up before ever reaching the coveted [[100% Completion]]. Why? They've been derailed by '''That One Sidequest'''.

 

 

 

 

See also [[That One Level]], [[That One Boss]], [[Last Lousy Point]].

 

 

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

* ''[[Metroid]]'' games have quite a bit of these on their paths to [[100% Completion]].

** The only game in the series, it seems, that relents is [[Metroid Prime]] 3: Corruption. It still had its own brand of That One Sidequest, however.

* ''[[Onimusha]] 3'' has an optional training mode that you unlock along the way. The training sessions are in no way easy, but they are completely doable, at least until you reach Critical training. It requires either almost superhuman reflexes or huge amounts of dumb luck to get through, especially in the PC port. Passing it gets you a neat item and unlocks the good ending.

** To help a little, using the [[New Game+]] lets you keep your figurines, and starts you off with a Deluxe Picto Box...even though you still can't develop the pictures until you reach the second dungeon. So choose wisely on what pictures you take.

** It is just barely possible to complete the entire gallery without having to use the [[New Game+]]. [[Guide Dang It|Apparently]], if you take a picture of Link's grandma, you also get a picture of his sister, and if you get a picture of Tetra on your first visit to Hyrule, you get the entire pirate ship's crew. And, you can take pictures of the first two dungeon bosses while you're fighting them again in Ganon's castle. And to top it all off, you can take a picture of the final boss ''during the battle'', save, then go have it made.

** If there's any consolation, it's that there's one figurine that ''isn't'' required to get a complete gallery. ''However'', said figurine is only obtainable through a That One Sidequest of its own that requires a [[Game Boy]] Advance and a GBA/GC link cable, and since Carlov disappears after you get a "completed" Nintendo Gallery, you can't obtain {{spoiler|Knuckle}}'s figurine if you've gotten all of the others.

* Getting all 20 hearts in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past|The Legend of Zelda a Link To T He Past]]'' includes not one but two [[Luck-Based Mission|luck based missions]].

** This can be made considerably easier by just waiting in the spots where they spawn, they will respawn there after a little while and you can shoot them as soon as they appear. Finding the right spots is still tricky though. Most of the spots are on fairly easy-to-remember, because of them being certain landmarks.

*** This can still be tricky no matter what, as some of the Poes, like the one near the crossroads leading into Gerudo Desert and the one on the small outcropping over the river have a nasty tendency to spawn inside walls and disappear about a full second later.

** There's also the Piece of Heart you get by racing Dampe a second time. You have to do it in less than a minute, which is extremely hard ''even if you use the Longshot to speed through the last room.'' Thankfully, there is a way to cheat; playing any warp song pauses the timer for about two seconds (so you'll have to do it a lot).

** Getting the Biggest Quiver from the Horseback Archery Range in the Gerudo Fortress. ''Very'' little room for error. It's ''incredibly'' hard to get the 1500 points required, and for [[Sarcasm Mode|extra fun]], it's entirely possible to end up with ''1,490 points.'' When something like that happens, it feels like the game is taunting you.

** Also, the race against the Deku Butler after beating Woodfall Temple. You follow the Butler through a long tunnel, and if you mess up once, there's a good chance you'll have to start the entire thing over again, and at the cost of a whole heart.

** Other example will be the Swamp Shooting Gallery. This particular challenge gets you the largest quiver and a piece of heart, but is impossible without superhuman reflexes or repeating over, and over, and over, and over, and over...

** The Gilded Sword's increased power and reach makes it worth getting, but it can be tricky to do so. Basically you have to go swordless for a night, beat the boss of Snowhead Temple, win at the Goron Race Track before the second day is out, and go swordless for another night. The Race Track is the hard part, as the high speed steering can take some getting used to, you have to watch your magic, especially if you didn't get the meter upgrade, and [[Scrappy Mechanic|if another goron bumps into you on an incline, you lose your spikey rolling]]. For [[Self-Imposed Challenge|extra fun]], try doing this all on your first visit to the zone. The temple is doable without a sword, though getting all of the stray fairies takes some finesse.

*** Compared to other items in the game, the Gilded Sword is actually EASY to get. You can play the song of time and Goron Race over and over until you get the gold dust, go swordless and play the Song of Double Time twice, give the sword back again, and play the Song of Double Time two more times. Of course, this does waste an entire three days.

** Don't forget the Dark Ore sidequest. Not only is Dark Ore 200 rupees a pop, you also have to have opened a couple of specific warp gates, and also have to go through what must be the temple of [[Goddamned Bats|Tektites]], with their god [[Boss in Mook Clothing|Rocktite]]. Oh, and did we mention that you can only get hit '''''once''''', otherwise you won't make it with enough? And if you're one short? Then it's all the way back to the Fire Realm to shell out another 200 rupees for you!

*** That one is a bit broken, as if you manage to kill Rocktite just before fetching the Dark Ore, [[Guide Dang It|it will not respawn when you pass through the tunnel]].

** At least the reward is useful—more so than other Zelda examples, at least. If you kill all 60 poes, he'll give you 200 rupees every time you talk to him, essentially making him a free power source for your magic armor.

*** Of course, by that point in the game your wallet is perpetually filled to the brim from all the enemies you've killed, and the only point in the game you might actually need your armour would be the final battle, in which case there is a nice huge treasure room to raid instead.

** And don't forget the Cave of Ordeals. FIFTY FREAKING ROOMS WITH EVERY KIND OF ENEMY IN THE GAME. The final room even has three Darknuts (see [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]). Oh yeah, and there is next to nothing in terms of healing items, and the rooms are small. Let that sink in.

** Really, to gain all 64 rings across both ''Oracle'' games has to be the most extraordinary feat in the Zelda series. You have to play both games at least twice (four playthroughs in all) in order to account for unlinked and linked versions of both. And there are some (like the Rang Ring L-2) that are so laughably rare that you can go through all four playthroughs and never see them. They're that badly randomized.

*** Special mention to the linked game Hero's Caves, each of which contains an exclusive ring as its final prize. Each of them is itself that one sidequest.

*** Easy to get but hard to find is the Gold Joy Ring. It can only be found by bombing an unmarked spot on a literally random wall in the Goron caves in Ages. How anyone was supposed to find this one is beyond comprehension.

** The [[Minecart Madness|Rickety Coaster]]. Getting a Piece of Heart requires [[Timed Mission|going really fast]], which isn't too much of a problem. The problems is that the motion controls don't work to well and interpret "lean left" as "lean right" from time to time, making it a [[Luck-Based Mission]].

** One of the Heart Pieces comes from a minigame where you must shoot tossed pumpkins with your bow. This is ''extremely'' difficult, since you have to hit almost every pumpkin to earn the prize, requiring very careful aim and shot-leading with a really drifty and wobbly motion controller. It's especially frustrating because the pumpkins aren't worth fixed amounts of points—their value goes up as you hit more of them in a row, and [[Rage Quit|drops back to the lowest level if you miss one]]. As if that's not bad enough, some of the pumpkins are worth double points, but they show up purely randomly (you could get several 2X-kins or none at all in any given round). Plus, the guy throwing them often waits an irritatingly long time between throws (it's a [[Timed Mission]]!). ''[[Up to Eleven|And]]'' he throws them farther and farther later in the game, [[Fake Difficulty|often over the top of the screen so you can't even see the damn things for half of their trajectories]], but sometimes he'll switch back to throwing them a short distance without warning just to mess with you. Good lord...

* Unlocking T.T. in ''[[Diddy Kong Racing]]'' requires beating his best Time Trial time on every course in the game. The problem? T.T. is ''good.'' ''Really'' good. And being as it's Time Trial mode (and he's a ghost), you have no weapons at your disposal in order to beat him--just your mad driving skills and the game's famous "Zipper Trick," which requires you to let go of your accelerator right before hitting a speed-boosting Zipper. The good or bad thing (depending on [[Nintendo Hard|how you like your games]]) is that, in the DS port, this sidequest is now ''much'' easier due to the addition of upgrades to your vehicles. Using Pipsy in combination with an upgrade that increases your vehicle's maximum speed makes beating all T.T.'s times, if not a piece of cake, at the very least a muffin top.

** Just use the first hidden character you found (and it is really easy) and it is a piece of cake.

 

 

** The Meta-Ridley trophy, which requires the player to beat down Meta-Ridley until he's near death, wait for a trophy stand to appear (the fight is [[Timed Mission|on a timer, by the way]],) then throw it at Meta Ridley, ''jump off the Blue Falcon, catch the trophy in mid-air, and then get back on.''

*** Getting back on is completely unnecessary - the player can't die after Meta Ridley does - and it's possible (technically) to kill him at just the right moment that his trophy falls on the Blue Falcon anyway. But the latter requires you to wait for him to do just the right move when his health is low (and it's still timed, after all) so most players will have to make the plunge anyway.

* Survival mode in ''[[King of Fighters]] Maximum Impact 2'', required to unlock all the stages in the game. Got a few hours to spare against increasingly difficult characters (everyone you're unlocked so far, trickier if the final boss is included among those characters), with a pumped-up version of one of them every 10 fights with additional perks you can't access? 200 fights, so even if you've unlocked up to Armor Ralf so getting hit isn't as much of an issue, you've got hours ahead of you, since you can't save your progress. Fail once, and you have to start over.

** Reading about the final challenges in ''[[King of Fighters]] 2002 UM'' alone is downright scary if you haven't devoted your life and sacrificed your unlikely first-born for the skills required in the challenge mode.

** Last for the Arcade League, we have "Nice Threads". Assault match, yes, but this time it's on Scrapyard, so prepare to meet a trio of [[Sentry Bots]] and a whole bunch of autoguns both outside ''and'' inside. Thankfully enough, there's a Lasergun near your spawn, so you can use that to break inside easily without dying.

** Starting off with the Challenges, "Stain Removal". Good luck trying to find any windows to destroy after dealing with the first set.

** "But Where Do The Batteries Go?" It's simple. Run to the end of the Scrapyard,<ref>the Assault version, not the normal version</ref> pick up the item and return to the start. But what makes it hard is the amount of enemies in the level, the autoguns, and the fact that some enemies wield miniguns. By the time you make it out, you have a chance of either escaping successfully, or getting blown up by a rocket. Have fun!

* Earning the gold medal for the Astro Jocks level in ''[[Time Splitters]]: Future Perfect'' is an extremely difficult task. The platinum medal is all but impossible.

 

 

* Lord Recluse's Strike Force in ''[[City of Villains]]'', especially if you're going for the "Master of Lord Recluse's Strike Force" badge that requires completing it with no defeats on your team and all temporary powers disabled.

** Not to mention the fact that the third mission of said Level 45-50 Strike Force awards a badge needed for an accolade power whose Hero equivalent can theoretically be achieved at Level 7 (Level 1, if you're lucky enough). And all it does is bump your Endurance up by five points. Yeah. That's balanced.

** The true That One Sidequest are Briskbreeze Tower and the Warehouse. Both are ten floors tall and contain [[My Rules Are Not Your Rules|cheating bosses]]. Oh, and for those people that use the "flee, use potion, port to friend" technique, people cannot port into these towers. These are so tough the first floor is there just to warn people how tough they are.

** Another dungeon, The Waterworks, was made for a new challenge for the new level cap. Five normal battles, two puzzle rooms (which can act as either additional battles or heal locations), and two bosses that have complex and powerful cheats.

** [[Blatant Lies|One Small Favor]], a [[Chain of Deals]] [[Fetch Quest]] that's taken [[Up to Eleven]].

** Elemental Workshop III, where you have to manipulate a bunch of blocks on a grid to operate a machine. Takes a frustratingly long time, but if you have any desire to use the machine to make more equipment after the quest is over, it's possible to "break" the machine so that you have unlimited turns, and possible to make it so that you can use the machine in ten moves or less.

 

 

* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' is a prime offender. Obtaining each character's [[Infinity+1 Sword]] is an extremely simple effort, but acquiring the sigils, key items that are required to power up each weapon to its full potential, is invariably a highly arduous task. Infamously, getting two sigils requires achieving a perfect score in a highly luck-based chocobo racing [[Mini Game]], which is every bit as annoying as it sounds, and by dodging ''two hundred'' lightning bolts in a row in another [[Mini Game]] that demands, well, lightning-quick reflexes. Wakka's sigil and [[Limit Break|overdrives]], while not difficult to acquire by any means, require at least ten hours of blitzball, the game's love-it-or-hate-it [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]] mini-game.

** The lightning bolts were comparatively easy compared to the chocobo racing task (had 0.7s) for a long, long time. The logical conclusion is that whoever programmed that one had a grudge against the guy who designed Caladbolg.

** The butterfly minigame. You have to run down paths, collecting all the blue butterflies, while avoiding all the red ones, all before time runs out. What's that? That sounds easy to you? Well then, perhaps we should mention the [[Depth Deception]]-inducing camera angles, the dark blue lighting that makes identifying the colors ridiculously difficult, and the fact that each time you fail, you have to fight a battle (the penalty for hitting a red butterfly) before backtracking all the way back to the start. The time between attempts is always longer than the attempts themselves.

** Rikku's Sigil isn't annoying for its difficulty, but for its duration - you have to do a ''lot'' of walking, often to areas of Bikanel that are spelled out in unnecessarily cryptic fashion by a stone about twenty miles from the nearest save point. Even with a "No Encounters" item strapped to one of your characters, you'll still be walking around a very boring desert for something like three hours.

** ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'' is another bad one. To get the game's most powerful [[Infinity+1 Sword]], you [[Guide Dang It|practically need a strategy guide]], because it requires you to leave four treasure chests alone without giving you the slightest indication of where those chests are. There's another way to get the weapon, but it's a [[Luck-Based Mission|1/1000 random treasure chest drop]]. Another nasty sidequest involves a trek into Phase 2 of the Henne Mines, the game's most difficult [[Bonus Dungeon]]. It's an hour-long journey through a narrow and confusing dungeon infested with [[Goddamned Bats]]. There are no saves, and at the end of the Mines is Zodiark, one of the game's three most difficult [[Bonus Boss|optional bosses]]. The reward for beating Zodiark is the ability to use him as a [[Summon Magic|summon]], but because he requires the character to be under a certain dangerous status to use his ultimate attack, Zodiark is [[Awesome but Impractical]].

** Getting all the dogs in ''[[Suikoden III]]''.

* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', of course, the biggest goal for completionists is that you [[Gotta Catch Them All]]. But this requires so much work that only the most dedicated players will be able to do it... And you have only a limited time before the next gen comes out, making you do it all over again with an even bigger number of Pokemon.

*** No longer do you have to have the correct nature! Game Freak has heard your pleas and has included in HG/SS an upgraded massage, which both increases happiness and beauty. If you do it 8 times, you can max out your beauty and that's that.

*** At least with Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, you have to manually change the phrase yourself to trigger a tile change. Diamond/Pearl/Platinum are even worse; they change ''every day''. Thankfully, Feebas appear very often on their designated tiles, so once you lock on, you can just keep fishing on that tile.

** And ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days|358/2 Days]]'' has {{spoiler|unlocking Sora}}. Goddamn [[Bonus Boss|Dust]][[That One Boss|flier]]!

* ''[[Phantasy Star IV]]'' has the dog quest, where you have to find a dog, which randomly pops up in one of five cities. If you don't have a specific item in your inventory, it runs away, and you have to search the other four cities. The only way to get said item is to find the hidden shop that has virtually no hints to where it is.

** The cherry on top for this sidequest is the [[Bonus Boss]] at the very bottom, Ragu O Ragla. He is as difficult as you might imagine him to be (he even gets his own special battle music!). You have to be completely prepared, as he uses all elements and counters all attacks. Then you have to fight him a second time right after you beat him. The prize for your day-long endeavor? A gear for a single party member that can only be equipped at the highest level.

** In a moment of game design sadism the likes of which are rarely seen in RPGs, there is an enemy within the deeper levels of The Abyss (past level 60 and on) with an attack that will ''return you back to the very fucking beginning''.

** That taking your chances with Wisp or the taking the easy way out (which anyone can understand why) by using universal cheat code passwords at Nook's store.

** The Gulliver items in ''City Folk''. In all my time of playing the game, I've only even ''seen'' the UFO ''once'', and of course by the time I got out my slingshot it was gone.

* The fourth mine in ''[[Harvest Moon]] DS'': a 65,535 floor nightmare [[Marathon Level]]. The only real reasons to even try are A) To get the <s>Dragon</s>Goddess Ball, which will grant you one of several wishes, or can be kept in your inventory to slowly increase your farm's rating and B) a special event that can only be seen by reaching the final floor. It's damned expensive (You pretty much have to fill your rucksack with TurbojoltXLs and BodigizerXLs to stand a real chance) and frustrating (the monsters there are the toughest in the game, and the mine pits can drop an instant death-bringing 100 floors at a time) and other than the aforementioned Goddess Ball, all the good mine items are in the much smaller Mine #3 - which you had to finish to even unlock #4.

** This is actually fairly easy if you have the [[Game Breaker|Kappa Hat]] from the 3rd mine - it prevents your health from falling below zero, so long as it isn't zero before you fall through a hole. So you find the hole in the floor, eat some Black Grass (which is common as dirt) and bingo, you'll have zero health after you fall through. And the monsters won't harm you when you're wearing this hat.

* The Hub plotline in ''[[X (video game)|X3]] Terran Conflict''. Requires several hours of building massive factories to pump out the absurd number crystals, microchips, and other refined materials.

* Getting the wishing well in [[The Sims|The Sims 2: Seasons]]. To get it, you need to get a perfect score from the Garden Club. To do this, you spend hours and hours tending, spraying and watering your garden, praying that it doesn't snow or rain and destroy all your work, spend thousands of simoleons on flowers, hedges and decorations (Which also require a lot of upkeep) and eventually, [[Makes Just as Much Sense in Context|talking to the trees to increase their health.]] When (if) you finally get the wishing well, you can select three wishes. Two of them are quite useful, but wishing for money gives you a pathetically tiny sum of 1000 simoleons (Which is probably nowhere near how much you've spent working on the garden) and all three wishes are likely to fail, with disastrous results.

 

== [[Sports Game]] ==

* Collecting all of the snowflake tokens in ''[[SSX]] 3''. White tokens on a white surface are not easy to spot.

 

 

* Recruiting the final character {{spoiler|Lehran}} in ''[[Fire Emblem|Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn]]''. To do this, Ike needs to fight {{spoiler|the Black Knight}} much earlier in the game. Now, the problem here is that under normal conditions, Ike will be unable to scratch {{spoiler|the Black Knight}}, who in turn will generally only need two hits to ''obliterate'' Ike. The only way to survive is to make Ike fast enough to avoid the second hit, and then pick him up with another unit and have them flee far, far away before the enemy's turn. And grinding Ike for this encounter won't help either, because if you manage to win, you can't unlock {{spoiler|Lehran}} anyway.

** Recruiting Illyana in ''Path of Radiance'' was a challenge. You have to get your main character to her, not have her attack you, and make it back to defend your fort. She has barely any health, and the enmies outnubmer you about four-to-one.

*** ...unless you'd already done a playthrough skipping the tutorial story, at which point you'll notice that all of the characters from that story will be horribly underleveled whereas they'll keep all level-ups from the story if you played it. You'll never skip the tutorial again.

** In ''[[Fire Emblem Jugdral|Fire Emblem thracia 776]]'', recruiting either [[Cool Old Guy|Conomore]] or [[Lady of War|Amalda]] was quite a pain in the ass due to how many reinforcements kept coming and coming and coming. And for worse, if you wanted Amalda, you'd have to bring Sleuf to do so... and an unpromoted Sleuf = easy to capture Sleuf. (At least Miranda was a [[Magical Girl Warrior]]...)

* Getting the [[Game Breaker|Vandaler class]] in [[Vandal Hearts]]. It's an [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower]] for your main character that gives him every learnable spell, autoblock on all frontal and side attacks, an absurdly high block rate for back attacks and sky high stats and unique equipment that's better than anything in the game. You just have to find each of the six Prisms, one in each chapter, in battles that aren't repeatable. Some of the Prisms just require you to examine a strange looking tile, some require you to talk to a certain person in a tavern, complete a secret objective in a battle and then talk to the person again, despite them not actually telling you the objective. One requires you to find and not sell three unique, valuable items in previous chapters that are only found by examining out of the way tiles in intense fights. And after that, each one puts you into a special challenge battle in which you not only have to defeat all the enemies, but make sure to get the special item in a difficult to get to chest. One such battle requires you to actively place your units not to kill enemies with counterattacks and navigate a difficult block pushing puzzle in which one wrong move makes it all impossible. Do all this, you get to use the Vandaler class for the past few battles.

** The easiest Prisms to find require you to send a unit to a counter intuitive location on the off-chance that funny looking tile isn't just a quirk of some mapper's choice and is one of the pre-designated special item location.

 

 

** The Paramedic missions, specifically in ''[[Grand Theft Auto III]]''. A top-heavy ambulance that's prone to tipping, no map support, pitiful time bonuses, and no cumulative progress made this a LOT harder than it had to be. And God help you if you try to do this in the Portland area {{spoiler|after killing Salvatore}}. ''Vice City'' was just as bad, considering that, if you did it early, you had to drive on the beach, which had so many bumps and such poor traction that you would probably do a complete roll by acccident.

** Firefighter in Shoreside Vale in ''III'', due to the difficulty in quickly getting across the two islands.

** ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City]]'''s RC Plane missions are an even better example - the horrid flying controls had legions of gamers tearing out their hair in frustration.

*** Same for Zero's RC missions in ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: San Andreas''. Nearly impossible. Thankfully, not required.

** In ''[[Saints Row: The Third|Saints Row the Third]]'', Snatch is even more irritating than Escort. Why? The people you need to snatch [[Artificial Stupidity|sometimes get stuck on your car and won't get in]]. Sometimes they get knocked down and take precious seconds to get back up. Maybe they do get in the car, but some asshole gang member pulls you out of the driver's seat, making them get back out. And all while you're trying to get them in the car, you've got an entire army of gang members trying to kill you, often bringing in the Specialists and Brutes. It won't take long before they bring in enough Morning Star snipers to turn the whole damn place into a laser rave, and need we highlight the fact that their sniper rifles can make your vehicle explode after a few shots?

*** Another reason is that Escort is now easier, since the vans are slower and not as numerous. However, the irritating "do X before the Pleasure meter will fill further" requirements are still intact...at least for traditional Escort. There's also Tiger Escort, which trades that for [[It Makes Sense in Context|a tiger in the passenger seat]] that will occasionally claw the Boss and [[Interface Screw|cause your steering to drift left or right randomly]], along with an Animal Rage failure meter that will decrease over time, unlike standard Escort's Footage meter.

** Getting 100% displayed for an area does not involve finishing the whole level without dying, it is simply a matter of getting all the treasure bubbles. However, getting the Play trophy is very difficult.

*** Acing the first Don Jalepeno level. [/thread]. for those who haven't played the game, suffice to say, you have to beat the level without dying. Said level's primary theme is explosives. That you handle manually. Which is easy enough to do if you're careful (provided you don't accidentally stand on the wrong part of one of the switches). Then you get to the final stretch, and they throw jetpacks into the mix (more specifically flying under a series of three pillars with precise timing, then dropping a bomb on some terrain. At least twice).

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:That One Index]]

[[Category:Scrappy Index]]

[[Category:YMMV Trope]]

[[Category:Videogame Culture]]