That One Sidequest: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Remember Canary Mary? [[Rubber Band AI|Did you have fun racing her?]] How I laughed when I was setting up those levels. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|I'm still laughing!]]"''|'''The Lord of Games''', ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts 'N Bolts]]''}}

 

 

 

Usually considered infamous within the game's fanbase, the game's message boards are filled with posters either asking for help on how to beat [[That One Sidequest]], or, more likely, angrily ranting about it.

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

 

{{examples}}

 

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

** ''Zero Mission'' and ''Fusion'' in particular have rather well-hidden items that can be a pain to get to. The one [[Emergency Energy Tank|Energy Tank]] in ''Zero Mission'', just outside Robot Ridley's lair, will have you ripping your hair out. Guaranteed.

*** And there was an underwater part in fusion that had two ways to get back up to the main station. One was to get the ice missile and blast your way past those balloon enemies. The other method involves shinesparking over extremely rough terrain in sector 4, past several enemies that may or may not simply be in the wrong place at the right time, and then break through a wall of blocks with said shinespark effect still intact. It's all here in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig_8_acwGBo this video]. What do you get for all your efforts aspiring to shinespark perfection? [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|A different set of dialog when you reach the map room]]!

** Remember kids, veterans only get headshots.

** As an explanation for the above, if you manage to get past the hellhole of enemies to get to the hostage situation, you MUST get a headshot on the terrorist holding the VIP. Otherwise, it's back to square one for you...

** The original Perfect Dark has some difficult side items as well - specifically, the firing range. A skilled gamer could probably get most of the silver stars with a little practice. Getting all the gold stars, however, is nearly impossible. The major stumbling block is the [[AR 34]]: You must get 500 points (a bulls-eye is 10 points) in 20 seconds with 100% accuracy, using an assault rifle. Oh, and the targets break when shot too much, so if you break a target and let even a single bullet through afterwards, you fail.

* [[Halo: Reach|"If They Came to Hear me Beg..."]] The challenge here is to air-assassinate an Elite on the penultimate level from a height that would kill you. You'll mostly find yourself missing and going splat, hitting a Grunt instead, hitting the Elite with a normal beatdown, or the game just not recognizing your assassination. Have fun reloading the checkpoint.

** Mr. Vile's minigame in Bubblegloop Swamp is another irritating one. It seems pretty simple, at first glance: fruit pop out of the holes, and the task given is to eat more fruit than Mr. Vile does. Mr. Vile, however, is pretty darn fast, and the player must transform into an incredibly slow crocodile to access the minigame. A powerup can be unlocked later in the game that gives you super speed, making it relatively easier in that respect. But don't think you've won just yet! Once you beat him, you have to beat him again, only this time, worms will pop up alongside the fruit, and eating a worm causes you to become temporarily stunned. But wait! There's more. Now you have to play the game a third time. ''This'' time, both fruit and worms pop up again, but you can only eat whatever is displayed at the top of the screen. (ex: If it shows a worm, you must eat worms, and eating fruit will stun you.) The display changes randomly from fruit to worms. The fruit and worms themselves spawn randomly as well. And it all has to be done in succession; if you screw up, it's back to the first game. It's more annoying than difficult.

*** You only have to start again from the first game if you leave the area. You can start again from where you left off, but it requires you to let him bite you, costing you two hit points.

** What about the Dynamite Ordinance challenge? Or Clinker's Cavern? Both of which consist of Banjo wandering around a maze-like area in first-person view while under a strict time limit, trying to locate and destroy a decent number of creatures which are small enough to be hidden just out of sight, in rooms that all begin to look the same. Oh, and if you don't get rid of all of the Clinkers in time, you have to escape from the area before you suffocate and lose all health. If you're lost, tough.

*** At least the Clinkers make a tell-tale noise when you're near. The hard part is finding them in the room.

** Danjuro, the ultimate dagger, is dropped by a single Rare Game, which has as its requirement ''256'' enemies to be slain in the Great Crystal, and then at least another ''32'' each subsequent time. All of the enemies are at a particularly high level, and can even take out Level 99 characters if given half a chance. While there are an unlimited number of enemies to kill, each one can take at ''least'' ten seconds to kill. If a player killed one every ten seconds, the first spawn would take ''42'' minutes to appear. Add onto that the obviously low drop rate for the Danjuro, and you've got a quest that is ''begging'' to be evaded via cheating or skillful moving around. Similar enemies have confirmed quirks to make dropping easier, i.e. Nelvihek's Grand Helms by leaving the screen as the enemy dies.

** Pretty much any of the ultimate weapon sidequests with the exception of Fomalhaut (which can be obtained long before the end of the game).

** Finding [[Humongous Mecha|Omega Mk. XII]] is an exercise in hair-pulling frustration. The most satisfying part isn't beating him, but actually tracking the mofo down.

* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has several:

** Sidequests being ungodly rare and not ever worth the prize for completing them, save the addicting card game.

** The Deep Sea Research Facility deserves a mention too. The first challenge, defeating two Ruby Dragons and then Bahamut in a sequence is not particularly challenging to a player who knows what they're doing and is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to solve the puzzle quickly. The second challenge, reaching the [[Bonus Boss]] at the bottom of the dungeon is significantly harder, becoming a nightmare for players who aren't prepared and utter tedium for players who are, who will be spending compulsory battle after compulsory battle summoning the same [[Overly-Long Fighting Animation|GFs]], that is, if you haven't bothered to go through with the popular [[Game Breaker|Game Breakers]] (in which case the game is largely a breeze anyway). I hope you got that ability that lets you see hidden save points way back on disc one. You'll need it at the bottom.

*** There is an NPC that does mention the Tonberry King (where he was though, I forget). As for the deep sea underwater center, the puzzle performed early on will determine whether or not you have the necessary pressure needed to open the doors and raise the cage. The scripted battles only occur if Zell breaks the pressure machine. If the puzzle is solved correctly, then Encounter-None can be used in the deep sea center.

* One trophy/achievement in ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' requires you to ''five-star'' '''every''' mission. Have fun with that.

** ''[[Dragon Quest VIII]]'' has the Dragovian sidequest. Works fine until you face the Darksteel Dragon.

*** Humorously, during the [[Boss Rush]] against all the dragon's forms, the Darksteel Dragon is the easiest if you have Dragon Soul, since all forms have their HP halved, and Darksteel's gimmick is very low HP and very, VERY high defenses, and Dragon Soul ignores defense. All other forms require 2 or 3 shots of Dragon Soul from a fully-tensioned hero. Against Darksteel? One shot at 20 tension, maybe 50, and he's done.

** The first game's version can actually be a decent moneymaker (though it doesn't beat the "Coin in the cup" game), but the second game ups the difficulty to an insane degree.

** The dice game is the best bit maker once you can do maximum bets, but ''Suikoden 2'''s game will make you want to destroy your television.

** 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 series's ultimate That One Sidequest was [[Wild Arms 3|3]]'s version of the Abyss -- a 100-level, randomly-generated, tedious-''beyond''-tedious dungeon stuffed to the brim with the strongest enemies in the game. To proceed to the next floor, you have to collect five gems scattered around, and while it's not necessarily ''difficult'' to reach them, the tediousness is exacerbated by the difficulty of the enemies and the fact that you'll lose track of which floor you're on ''long'' before you reach one of the bosses that serve as checkpoints.

** 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.

 

== [[Simulation Game]] ==

* Getting Gracie-brand clothing in the original [[Game Cube]] version of ''[[Animal Crossing]]''. Considering the speed at which the game expected you to mash the A button, it probably justified the purchase of many turbo controllers.

** 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.

** Even harder than all of the above, once you finish all 300 quests, you gain access to one final tournament. The first few battles are extremely tough even with a max-level party, but the absolute worst is the third or fourth battle. It pits you against a bunch of [[Mighty Glacier|Master Tonberries]] and a bunch of enemies who are only too eager to cast Haste on them. Oh, and they get to take about six free rounds before you're even allowed to move. And the Tonberries are guaranteed to hit for 999 damage in a game where it's nigh impossible to have more than about 600 HP. If you're really lucky, you might still have one character left by your first turn. And if, by some miracle, you manage to win? You don't even get a [[Bragging Rights Reward]], you get to watch the credits again.

* The first ''[[Arc the Lad]]'' game contains one of the most ridiculous sidequest goals ever: win 1,000 Arena battles. The battles are easy, and by the time you've gotten even halfway to 1,000 wins, you'll have earned enough experience points to bring your entire team to the [[Cap|level cap]] several times over. The primary challenge involved in getting to 1,000 wins is simply being obsessed enough to keep fighting the same enemies, over and over again, for hour after hour, in spite of the sheer tedium involved in doing so. If you're actually insane enough to reach 1,000 wins, the Arena manager will reward you with a huge supply of the game's best accessories [[Old Save Bonus|for you to take with you into the sequel]], then [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|tell you to turn off the console, go outside, and get a life!]]

** After each battle with {{spoiler|Vanessa}}, you can view a Hot Spring Intermission with one of the party members who's deployed throughout the series of battles in one location. The fun comes in getting the other Intermissions from other party members you don't use normally in tough battles. You can have only 5 of the party members' Intermissions from this sidequest per playthrough. Each new hot spring location is tougher than the last. [[Sarcasm Mode|Yippee]].

* 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.