Why is the Quality of Side Quests Declining?

Ever since I played Twilight Princess, which felt like a massive adventure filled with content to me, I’ve been waiting for the next Zelda game with the same sense of scope.  Now, about seven years and two new Zelda games later, I sadly feel that the amount of proper extra content within Zelda games has only been declining.  If you want to read more about this development, and why it might be happening, jump in for more.

As a longtime Zelda fan, I can clearly remember my surprise when I took my first look at the quest screen of Twilight Princess. For, indeed, the trusty Piece of Heart indicator had undergone an ever so subtle change: instead of the usual four slots waiting for me to fill them up with Pieces of Hearts, there were now five! “Oh my,” I thought, “Hyrule must be freaking huge in this game!” I prepared myself for all the fun and awesomeness of an epic Piece of Heart collectible quest.

Although in hindsight the world of Twilight Princess felt slightly empty, and the big hunt for Pieces of Heart seemed less and less important as I progressed through the game with ridiculous ease, I kept collecting them anyway. As overpowered as I felt, I collected every single one of them before the time came to conquer the final boss in the game, never feeling bored during the process. Why did I like it so much? Because most of the Pieces of Heart had me interacting with the world in new ways. Be it exploring new caves, using my acquired items to traverse a small new portion of terrain or solving an unexpected ice block puzzle.

The extra addition of Pieces of Heart added so much to the world of Twilight Princess for me because of the increased amount of side quests, more contact with the world’s inhabitants, more exploration throughout the overworld, better rewards inside of dungeons and more opportunities to use otherwise underused items outside of them. It is for the same reason that I love replaying Majora’s Mask, which features a truly living, breathing world, filled to the brim with side quests which motivate me to interact with this world on a deeper level than the main quest in itself would require of me. As such, Twilight Princess also drew me more and more into its sizable world.

I am surprised to not have seen the ‘five-Pieces-of-Heart-system’ become a staple of the Zelda franchise ever since playing Twilight Princess. To me, the system seemed a special sign of dedication from the developers to bring in more content; vaster worlds. The current state of affairs, however, only serve to show me that I was misguided in my presumptions. The latest installments, Skyward Sword and A Link Between Worlds, presented us with 24 and 28 Pieces of Heart, respectively, and thus fewer side quests as a result. Is this due to a lack of development time or resources at Nintendo Headquarters? Or, did Nintendo substitute the missing content with new types of side quests to fill the void?

In Skyward Sword, we got Goddess Cubes, which led to a variety of rewards. Also present are certain special treasures, used for upgrading items. We also got Gratitude Crystals. These were all new additions, but they rarely added any kind of extra quality gameplay to the experience which I would gladly replay. For example, almost nothing here comes close to the Romani Ranch quest in Majora’s Mask, or even fixing up the lighthouse in The Wind Waker. Goddess Cubes and Pieces of Heart in Skyward Sword are mostly found in plain sight, and require little to no additional effort to subsequently obtain them. Even more disappointing was the fact that the overworld was practically devoid of any worthwhile content save for a couple of mini-games and some chests activated by the Goddess Cubes. The Gratitude Crystals were mostly fetch-quests with some minor character development sprinkled over them here and there. Grab some medicine, bring it to the bird. Grab some stamina potions, take it there. Grab a party wheel, bring it somewhere else. Don’t forget to deliver this letter! Although the characters may make it worthwhile for some players, it certainly does not make for enthralling gameplay.

In A Link Between Worlds, more value was given to rupees due to Ravio’s expensive wares, and the extra mini-dungeons built around some rupee chests were great, making for some enjoyable content. There were also lots of Maiamai, little pink creatures, to collect. The rewards for collecting the hundred Maiamai were nice, but the process itself was, sadly, not. It felt like padding. It took practically no effort to collect the cute little things, making the affair quite boring; it was a matter of walking around until you saw or heard one. Sometimes it even felt a little detrimental to the flow of the game. “Oh, a chirping noise! Let’s run into all these trees here. Okay, found it! Now, what was I doing?” The only real other side quest involved an empty bottle, and had you try to find a man in desperate need of some high quality milk. There simply are no other decent side quests to undertake here other than the Pieces of Heart, which were by and far very easy to locate and obtain.

Ever since the original The Legend of Zelda introduced its Heart Containers, I find that motivating players to observe and discover the environment around them in order to increase survivability is a great approach to teach players about the game world, and keep them immersed within it. This, to me, is a core aspect of any true Zelda experience. Other types of rewards could achieve the same result, so I don’t necessarily care about the grand total of Pieces of Heart or the like. However, the second-most important aspect of any side quest is the design around the approach the player is to take in order to obtain said reward, and here is where especially the latest two installments feel lacking. Nintendo caters to a casual audience, so having some simple side quests and collectibles is inevitable. However, the reason why the latest two installments didn’t simply increase the number of Pieces of Heart or other side quests  present in the game to allow for more challenging ones at the same time eludes me.

All of this troubles me because a decrease of quality side quests causes a decline of  content which adds to the experience outside of the main quest, which is a huge part of Zelda as a concept. Look at the overworlds of the latest two games; they almost seem somewhat neglected. In Skyward Sword, the overworld feels simply empty, with all but a sign of enticing content outside of the main town of Skyloft which mostly consists out of fetch-quests. In A Link Between Worlds, the Pieces of Heart were the only collectibles which provided true additional value to the gameplay; generally requiring too little challenge to obtain for the more experienced players.

So what is causing this, let’s say, lack of polish? Well, I certainly do not feel that the issue lies with Nintendo having forsaken its industriousness. Rather, I suspect the contrary. Nintendo has had commendable ambitions for almost every Zelda title they have created. In the case of Skyward Sword, Nintendo aimed to show how motion controls could truly add to the gameplay of a Zelda game. A true demonstration of 1:1 motion swordplay, as well as a complete reimaging of all the other control schemes. Not to mention that the storytelling and musical presentation were also quite an improvement over most previous games. Now, my guess would be that it took a lot of development time to get all of these motion control mechanics working quite as perfectly as they do in the final product, which still isn’t perfect. In short: the unique selling points of Skyward Sword took too many resources. This could explain the lack of a content-filled world, and why there is so much padding present even within the main quest itself.

In the case of A Link Between Worlds, the project team was disbanded for some time in order to allow employees to work on the upcoming Zelda U title, which is most likely a very ambitious project itself, like Skyward Sword. Perhaps, due to the high demand for a truly unique 3DS Zelda title, a tight development cycle was necessary even though the project had been abandoned for a while. You can read more about that here. The point is, though, that resources could again have been insufficient.

It is, obviously, an overreaction to state that the franchise is in decline. If anything, A Link Between Worlds is in many aspects a return to form. However, I do miss the high quality side quests present in most of the previous installments, and feel that it is worthwhile to discuss, as fans of the franchise, why we have not been seeing the same amount of quality side content in the latest games. With Nintendo making a new Zelda game on a new platform at the moment, we can only hope that the development team has enough time to come to grips with the technicalities and provide the fans with a nice amount of content in the future.

So, what do you guys think? Was the amount of side quests in the later titles of good quality and quantity? Or do you, like me, also feel that Skyward Sword and A Link Between Worlds could benefit from a little bit of extra polish? What do you think could be the cause of this? Let me know in the comments below!