Trails in the Sky #2 - Down to Business

RECAP: Thanks, Cassius

Day breaks. Estelle and Joshua bid farewell to Cassius at the Rolent Airport. Then the two head back to the guild to complete their father’s domestic assignments. Aina decides that it would be best if the two handled the easiest assignments first, so she tells the two about crop shortages in a farm to the west of Rolent. Joshua and Estelle personally know the client for the quest, a girl named Tio, and head out immediately. At the farm, they rendezvous with Tio and she and her father tell them that a group of fat cat-like monsters have been eating crops in the night. They thus resolve to wait until dark falls before they begin their investigation. That night, Tio and Estelle have a brief chat about Joshua being popular among children and women. Estelle doesn’t wholly understand the subtext of the conversation. Joshua then alerts them that it is time to being searching for the monsters. After scouring the farm, the two find, incapacitate, and apprehend the culprits: three skittish fat cats.

A little bit of philosophy for your troubles

Estelle and Joshua take the cats to Tio and the farmers as proof of their success. Estelle convinces the group not to kill the monsters and let them go free. Joshua vocally disagrees and the two talk about it before heading back to Rolent in the morning. They report their success to the guild. Aina gives them a small lecture on the flexibility they have in completing their assignments and the importance of exercising that flexibility with caution. She then gives the two bracers their next assignment, telling them to visit the mayor. The two elect to complete some of the other requests around town first (sidequests) before continuing Cassius’ guild work. And after completing all of their other guild work, Joshua and Estelle visit the mayor’s residence and learn that they need to visit the Malga mines to pick up a valuable Septium ore.

I Got 99 Problems But a Quest Ain’t One

Wow, Estelle's notes are surprisingly legible!

Since I spent most of this session fighting monsters and doing sidequests, I figured that this would be a good time to praise talk about the game’s excellent sidequest design. First and foremost, every sidequest is wholly unique and involves a full-fledged quest. You have to pick up the request from the quest board, find the client (who actually writes down their location in the quest description, instead of having a marker automatically materialize on the mini-map), talk to the client *gasp*, complete the quest, usually involving a decision of some kind, return to the client, then report to guild for your reward. Though, you may have to perform a similar task (retrieve an item, defeat a certain monster, etc.), each quest involves completely unique dialogue with all actors involved, and the NPC dialogue will change with respect to you completing their quests. And to put the icing on the cake, the game makes use of the Bracer journal introduced through the plot to allow players to review their progress should they forget their objective.

These quests ain't playing

For once in a very long time, I’m viewing the sidequests as part of the main quest instead of vehicle to gain better loot. Oh and if potential quest chains, vignettes, and plot consistency wasn’t enough of a reason to engage in sidequests, they can also be feasibly completed without a guide. How? By either possessing an objective so specific that you can’t forget it, or through directed reverse psychology.

Similar to the NPCs of Final Fantasy VI, quest clients and other NPCs will provide information on where to find valuables, by telling you not to look there. Amusingly, this technique simultaneously helps characterize the NPCs as opposed to simply guiding the player.

Obviously, you're a proud little liar

I also speculate that some of these quests are actually connected to quest-lines, based on the ambiguous way in which they end. The one on the left, for instance involved me retrieving a quartz fragment for a boy named Charles. After finding retrieving the fragment, Charles appeared to want to use it for some project in the future. If so, that’s a very interesting way to incentivize completing sidequests, as it gives players a subtle reminder to periodically check in with the NPC(s).

On the same note, somehow the developers managed to give every NPC thus far new dialogue when you revisit them after completing a quest. It’s a HUGE undertaking that will likely go unnoticed by many players. But for those who do notice, it makes a massive difference in creating a world that feels dynamic.

5 hours in; so far so good. Nothing about this game has even raised an eyebrow. To take us out, here’s some more wonderful empty chest text. See ya next Monday! 

Nietzsche would be proud.

NOTE: Sorry about the borders in the screen caps. I'll see if I can make them disappear in the future.

NEXT ENTRY: #3 So Much, So Fast, So Good...