Many players might think there's no harm in skipping s boring side quests, but there's an important reward locked behind all the samey monster-killing. Some of Final Fantasy 7 Remake's most heartwarming character moments can only be seen after completing all the quests in an area, meaning players who want to fully experience the story will have to trudge through every tedious mission they come across.
Upon its release, most fulfilling FF15's combat potential by requiring active involvement in battles as well as a constant focus on strategy. Plus, the remake's reimagining of Midgar's characters and locations is absolutely beautiful.
But the fact that the entire 30-plus-hour length of Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes place in the original game's opening section means things had to be drawn out. Some of the additions are great, like fleshed-out characters and fun story sequences, but padding was inevitable, and nowhere is this more present than the game's side quests. Unfortunately, some of what fleshes out Final Fantasy 7 Remake's characters is hidden behind those quests.
Why You Need To Complete FF7 Remake's Boring Side Quests
Final Fantasy 7 Remake doesn't tell players this outright, but completing all the side quests in a given chapter leads to a bonus sequence called a Discovery. In Chapter 3 and Chapter 8, when Cloud is tasked with completing mercenary work around Midgar's Undercity, the Discovery rewards are special scenes that show the developing relationship between Cloud and Final Fantasy 7 Remake's Tifa and Aerith. Without spoiling anything, these Discoveries give a peek at the person Cloud really is beneath his cold exterior, especially as it relates to his feelings towards these two women.
The problem with this system is that most of the side quests aren't fun in themselves. Most simply task players with going a place and killing some monsters, and one in Chapter 8 even makes players trek through the same winding ages they just traveled to get to that chapter's Sector, fighting the same groups of low-level monsters only a short while after doing so for the first time. Making matters worse is the fact that completing all the side quests in Chapter 3 and Chapter 8 affects the dresses Tifa and Aerith wear in Chapter 9, which changes the dialogue shared between Aerith and Cloud.
The in-universe purpose of these chapters' side missions is for Cloud to earn Gil and build up his reputation as a mercenary, and the quests are designed so boringly that it feels like this really should be their only use. Instead, Square Enix put story sequences that show important character development behind missions with objectives like going to an empty dirt lot to kill six rats, and it didn't even even tell players it was doing so. Character-building story moments are a great use of Final Fantasy 7 Remake's expanded run time, but forcing players to complete boring side quests to get to those moments is just needless padding.
Final Fantasy 7 Remake released for PS4 on April 10, 2020.
