7 Infuriating Side Quests You're Never Going To Finish (Without A Guide)

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Over the years, Final Fantasy games have featured an absolute boat-load of side quests. But not all side quests are made equal, and there are some that are so convoluted and complicated that completing them without a guide is near impossible. And it's those side quests that we're featuring today!
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[@gredsirlee3623]

Not opening chests to get the Zodiac Spear was the dumbest thing about that game

[@RyuSaarva]

it´s just a bonus for the people who buy the walktrough, and it´s not like you are ever going to get any of the rare treasure chest items without it either.

[@gredsirlee3623]

@@RyuSaarva Yeah, but I didn't think I'd ruin my chances of getting one of the best weapons bc of something I did 15 minutes into the game :/

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

JRPG's have an expectancy that you will be an adventurer and explore every nook and cranny (how many people instantly turn around from their starting point to check around them to ensure they're not missing anything in the room? 😂). The idea of locking away something like the strongest weapon due to acting on the training ingrained with the genre is devastating to me 😅. Undertale played with that very concept but you don't expect that from an actual JRPG, lol.

[@RyuSaarva]

@@gredsirlee3623 you can get as many zodiac spears as you like, it's one of the very rare treasure chest items, the game just gives you one for free if you know about the 100% chance chest.

[@snuggie1849]

Whats funny is that its not even the dumbest thing thing in the game. Getting the great trango, the op sheild in the great crystal or the invisible bow in the invisible chest is far worse. Even getting the baltoro seed is dumb

[@EmperorZ19]

I will never stop being completely baffled by the Zodiac Spear.

[@danieln.285]

Same. I remember being told about it by my brother years ago when he was playing the PS2 version. I don't even think I got it on the Zodiac Age on PS4.

[@Vayne_Solidor]

​@@danieln.285 Zodiac Age has a few options for the Spear. And you CAN open the chests now.

[@christopheradams6340]

stupid side quest but great weapon

[@adolcristin3526]

It pissed me to the highest heavens knowing that zodiac spear exist and opened all the forbidden chest in the game and start over from the beginning and never again opening any chest i find until i have the zodiac spear! 😫😭

[@xRocketzFighterx]

I've been a massive fan of FF9 for over 20 years and I still cannot do that jump rope 1000 jump challenge.

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

Shut up, don't say "over 20 years", you're reminding me how old I am 😂

[@xRocketzFighterx]

@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley Nah sod that mind state, just keep on loving life no matter how old ya get. You'll never get old if you keep on enjoying great things in life no matter where they come from. :D

[@Bozebo]

For that and the lightning dodging in FFX I make an autohotkey script and let it do the work for me xD

[@johnnycbad]

@@Bozebo I struggled with the rope skip even with a script, lol. The frame rate in the remastered version made the script unreliable but I got there after hours of tries. I wouldn't have even bothered if there wasn't an achievement for it.

[@AnnaMno1]

Same, though I only became annoyed at my inability to do so when they had to make it a trophy for the ps4. Yet they didn't bother to include getting all the cards for triple triad in 8 as a trophy, which is a challenge I actually enjoyed doing

[@BlakeAustin2011]

As an 8-year-old when FF2 US released, I recall my neighbor and I playing it together and immediately going to Yang’s wife when we found him. Then afterwards, we immediately went back to his wife to see if there was more. This is what RPGs were commonly doing back in the late 80s and early 90s. I think you underestimate how straightforward the spoon quest was before the days of RPG hand-holding. That said, I’m shocked there was no mention of either the relics from FFX or the insane amount of side quests and stipulations thereof for X-2 to get the 100% perfect ending. I don’t know how anyone would get 100% in X-2 without a guide. Who would think to sleep in the airship’s inn each chapter when it wasn’t required mechanically to heal?

[@xxxMrMephistoxxx]

I dare say the quest for the rare coffees in FFIX is slightly harder than the Stellazzios since there is one coffee you can only acquire during one specific point in the game and if you miss it is gone forever and the game gives no clue about this, heck even the Nero siblings minigame during the last part of the game is even harder to find, I didn't even know it existed until 20 years after I first play the game.

[@JandarLefey]

Came here to say this! That one coffee is only available SPECIFICALLY DURING the card tournament, and only by leaving the city to trek a ridiculous distance on foot, with no indication that this was the right thing to do, to a hut which is empty at all other times, and IIRC the reward wasn’t even all that great

[@wuzi7049]

​@@JandarLefey the way you describe it makes me feel like I really put too much time into these games. I did more than everything in 9&12 when they came out without a guide or anything. I was just playing the game, but the way you say it makes it feel like I was doing such ridiculous tedium.

[@JandarLefey]

@@wuzi7049 I love 9 to death, but they could have done well to cut the number of side quests to a third or so of what they had and redo the card game mechanics.

[@wuzi7049]

@@JandarLefey just taking the luck out of the card game would have made it dramatically better. And the card inventory being broken at the end sucked.

[@alwynjaegar1778]

I was annoyed that i got a protect ring since i was a kid and thought it was useless xD

[@LucienYT]

As soon as I saw Yang on the thumbnail and saw the title I went back to my childhood and went "SEE! IT WASN'T JUST YOU!"

[@johnnyscifi]

Lemme guess...the sylph//frying pan stuff?

[@LucienYT]

@@johnnyscifi Yup

[@actechchris]

That was the only one I was did without the aid of a guide. FFIV still my favorite today!!!

[@kyleward3914]

@@actechchris I think I found this one on my own, too, if I recall correctly. It's not on the same level as the other ones in the video.

[@Altzar2011]

S A M E

[@ZombieTreder]

God damn is ff7 chocobo breeding insanely nostalgic for me here on the other side of 35. My memories of watching my friends older brother grind chocobo breeding in pursuit of the gold (occasionally letting my buddy and I play around for a bit) may has well be wreathed in gold with how deeply and positively they're ingrained in my brain decades later.

[@supersunpass3000]

Same man. Except it was me and Mt older brother lol

[@sirownzalotgaming3025]

I’m 36 so around the same age. Did not have the patience for breeding when I was 12. Maybe I should give it another shot now.

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

My brother lost a good friend who got wrapped up with hanging around with the wrong kind of people, but before his passing, he gave us all a great laugh when he saw my brother playing FF7 and racing in the Gold Saucer. He paused, cocked his head to the side, and asked, "What is this, stick-shift chickens?!" None of us can look at them now without calling them the same thing 😂

[@jamesmcqe9287]

​@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley love this

[@zodiark_xii]

I don't think it's that bad tbh. Took a while but its ok...

[@daviddalrymple2284]

I am surprised to see that nothing from X-2 made it into the video proper (just the intro montage). The Chocobo ranch dungeon is probably the one I would have highlighted. You can only unlock the ranch if you return to Mushroom Rock Road a second time after getting "Mission Complete" in Chapter 1, and let Clasko aboard the airship. Similarly, you have to revisit the Mi'ihen Highroad after its mission complete in Chapter 2, and let Clasko aboard again. If you advance either chapter without doing this, you can't get the Chocobo ranch to open. Once the Chocobo ranch is open, you can access the "choco-hunt" minigame, which allows you to capture chocobos in battle, and then send them out to look for treasure. But the Chocobo Ranch holds a much bigger secret. You can find the ranch's hidden dungeon in Chapter 5 by having 3 successful choco-hunts at each of levels 1 thru 5, and having all your active choco-runners at level 5. Hidden inside this confusing dungeon (which has shifting camera angles and no mini-map) you will find the Amazing Chocobo and the incredibly useful Higher Power Garment Grid.

[@razorsharp5643]

So glad to see this comment, and that other people dealt with that damn ranch. I even remember the old GameFAQs guides recommending Bold Chocobos, which I believe wasn't even needed to open the caves. You could also encounter Ultima Weapons and get Supernova (FF10's "Nova") in that dungeon which was a sweet bonus.

[@kosmosfan01]

Oh man, what a pain. You sent out thope chocobo and then forced battles to speed up their return just for you to have to load a save because one didn't return for some reason. It's this type of quest that makes me question how I ever managed on both the PS2 and remaster 😆

[@blingsing5383]

That entire original comment was so quintessentially final fantasy it hurts 😂

[@CC-xy8nn]

@Sup no its one of the best

[@WithScienceAsMySheperd]

Paladin Shield , FF6 (ff3 USA) Getting the Cursed Shield in Narshe, with Locke opening a locked door. Equipping the shiled + a ribbon, fighting 255 fights... then getting the Paladin Shield (it teaches Ultima x1)

[@jennyf-eg5gl]

I am replaying ff9 now. I tell you without a guide...it is hard to find those friendly creatures too!

[@dansmith1661]

Just go to every forest. It is easy.

[@jennyf-eg5gl]

@dansmith1661 not true. Some of them only show up on the plains area.

[@raimarulightning]

​@@jennyf-eg5gl Sorry that that dude was immediately contrarian, lol. It's definitely hard

[@catbert88]

Really, this video could be 10 seconds long and just say FF9. Somewhere between the Morrid's Coffee, Chocobo Hot and Cold (not hard but time consuming if you don't have speed mods turned on), Stellazio collecting, and Mognet Central, the game had so many elements tied into knowing to do the right thing at the right time or you missed, you needed a guide.

[@daviddalrymple2284]

@@catbert88 And the worst thing is that the official printed guide is infamous for lacking explicit info on any of the game's optional secrets; it only gives you keywords which you can look up on SquareSoft's official website.

[@RosieGoalie31]

RE: FFIV, the kitchen knife - I did this as a kid, because my child brain told me that Yang's wife would want to know that he was alive. No clues, but I figured that one out myself. As an adult, I occasionally have forgotten to go hit Yang with a frying pan.

[@whatevs4423]

Surprised to see the FF7 gold chocobo quest in here. The chocobo sage tells you everything you need to know in-game. As a kid with no internet and no guide, I still completed the gold chocobo quest by visiting the chocobo sage repeatedly.

[@grumpywolfgaming]

I did the ffvii and tactics secrets, both with a guide. There is no way I would have even guessed it was a thing without it.

[@Lionimia]

Honestly I don't know of anyone that ever failed to recruit Cloud because they didn't buy the flower. Especially for a game like Tactics, when an abrupt scene occurs which requires a whole ass map to load and a character offers you a rose, every gaming instinct should kick in and scream yes, buy the damn flower.

[@BlakeAustin2011]

Especially since 7 had just released on PC with a 2nd resurgence in popularity. That was a no brainer.

[@Jurarigo]

I agree, finding Cloud isn't that hard, but finding his Materia Blade on the other hand, well...

[@josephedge88]

The FFT Cloud was a fun undertaking for me, it led me to recruit my favorite character Beowulf, also you had to find the Materia Blade at the top of the Mt Goug (I think) battle screen with move-find ability, only equipping Cloud with it, you can use his Soldier abilities

[@xenxander]

Beowulf was good.. I preferred worker 88 though. He got me through the very last battle and I thought he was the 'cheat' code character. He's the only machine character but he's well worth it..

[@ajaverill08]

​@Xen Xander glad I'm not the only one that loved worker 88

[@stephaniec6307]

Feels weird to go for the Kitchen Knife quest which is 'go into this cave on the underworld map that the story never sent you to, meet a character from your party you thought was dead, and take a series of actions that have a clear (game) logic to them' and NOT the absolutely terrible Adamant Armor quest which even if you manage to figure out what exactly to do might still result in an hour (or god forbid, hours) of grinding for a rare drop.

[@WithScienceAsMySheperd]

Paladin Shield , FF6 (ff3 USA) Getting the Cursed Shield in Narshe, with Locke opening a locked door. Equipping the shiled + a ribbon, fighting 255 fights... then getting the Paladin Shield (it teaches Ultima x1)

[@paine_inflicta]

The part of the Queen of Cards that I found most frustrating was the fact that you HAD to send her to Dollet in order to get the cards back (also possibly for the new cards to be made, can't remember), I mean, for obvious reasons, (her father made the new cards, her son held the old ones and they were both in Dollet) but still annoying because her destination once she won a rare card was random. I often had to reset and re-lose a card several times to send her to the right city.

[@hewmengshen7781]

You can just get all the card by playing with the short hair twins in ragnarok ship disk 4 but you have to complete cc group quest before disk 4.

[@MimebladeGMail]

There's actually a neat little trick I use to mitigate the Random Rule in Dollet: Just refine all your weaker cards in to items. Increasing the odds of having a good hand will simply let you win more often... and, I've found, that this also increases the chances of Random rule being abolished.

[@scribble71891]

There are ways to manipulate what city the Queen will go to before you lose a card to her. In my run, she always went to Dollet from Balamb when she used certain rule. Kept sending her between Dollet and Balamb until I finished the quest.

[@paine_inflicta]

I have done all of these things, including the Balamb-Dollet shuffle, but I have also had runs where it will take a good half-dozen resets for her to go to Dollet from Balamb or vice versa, so /shrug/

[@korndogz69]

@@scribble71891 Yep! You could manipulate where the QoC went. It's been years since I last did it, so I forget the method, but there's videos on it I'm sure. Getting annoying rules like Random and Same Wall abolished is key to getting the quest done in a timely manner (Random especially).

[@teixeira6132]

Kitchen Knife? Really!? Compared to the others in the list, this one is very short and straight to the point.

[@dukedarkwood2098]

Like a kitchen knife should be.

[@Malacite]

Pink Tail is infinitely worse than Yang. I can think of a multitude of quests from 11 though since it comes from the era of old school design where the game gave you almost no clues at all. Hell to this day even current subscribers still rely on the wiki because the game is so damned vague. I love it to pieces, but good F'ing luck completing 90%+ of the quests without some kind of guide lol. But if we preclude the MMOs then I would probably opt for Type 0 as it too has numerous convoluted quests including many that can only be done on NG+

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Agreed. The incredibly low drop rate of getting that from the flan princesses meant it was something I never knew existed till the internet and guides

[@philbuttler3427]

Low drop rate items isn't a side quest lol

[@cainakubiaki]

My greatest achievement in every Final Fantasy was eliminated the rule Random from every region of FFVIII

[@adolcristin3526]

Mine is making rule to all regions open only and trading is diff 😂 getting all the advantage to me to get rare cards!

[@nunyabsniss1432]

​@@adolcristin3526I drove me crazy when I found out All can't be kept permanently.

[@gorimbaud]

Disagree with the IV example, because the decisions behind it are incredibly intuitive. You find out Yang is alive, _of course_ you should go tell his wife, and then when he wakes up, but stays where he is, you should update her on the situation and return the frying pan. But the thing that really caught my attention with that one is that no one without a guide would be wondering about an empty slot in Rydia's summons, because there'd be more than one, due to the number of summons that are rare drops from enemies. _Those_ I had no idea existed without a guide. Anyway, despite breeding chocobos in VII being an infamous example of quests that can only be completed with a guide, all of the specific directions necessary are in fact provided in game by the Chocobo Sage, down to telling you where to catch certain chocobos and where to find enemies with certain nuts. If you talk to Choco Billy's sister, she'll even repeat every piece of advice the Sage gives you, so you can refer back to it at any time, from the place you'll spend the most time while breeding. The quest is a lot more generous with information than its reputation would have you think, and, as someone who has bred Pokemon before, a lot less tedious than you'd expect.

[@bob1986]

I think the main issue is that unless you hit it in your first playthrough you might not even realize it's a side quest as Yang recovers on his own soon after if you don't do it. In fact you have a very brief window to complete this quest, once you return to the surface but before going to the moon because once you return the giant event starts and Yang has recovered because of that. Many players eager to see what the story holds might just jump into the Whale and progress the story, then see the scenes afterwards and assume that's how Yang recovers. As it is, if you want to complete it you need to go back through the cave while a man down in your party, so people might try to hold it off until they get a 5th member again only to find then it's too late.

[@kennethtaylor3467]

it's been such a long time since my first play through when the game came out in the US but i guess i must've lucked out because i remember doing that with Yang's wife and getting the spoon to throw at Zeromus. i think what was worse is if you wanted to be a 100% completionist there are two things that are seemingly impossible. One, get the full list of summons as there are four that can be won in battle (imp might've been the only one i found, maybe mage in a different play through) but the drop rate is so low you wouldn't think they exist but they are listed in the instruction booklet. the other is the pink tail to get the adamant armors from the mini guy in the adamantium cave. i know it drops from a monster near the end of the moon cave but heaven forbid that monster ever appears.

[@mdartfeld]

@@bob1986 the one issue is most people tend to go exploring and seeing as you dont get an airship till after you lose yang means most people found him. also pretty sure after you find him the game hints for you to see his wife.

[@MrDj232]

I found the Chocobo breeding fairly easy. Getting Yuffie on the other hand required a guide and grinding an area way below my level for about an hour.

[@mrmofo36]

ye the yang one is pretty intuitive....tho the spoon reward is kinda shit

[@TruMaverick]

Finding that Knife from Yangs Wife is one of my greatest self found secrets. No guidebook. Just world exploration and trying to save the world

[@ajaverill08]

Same, I loved that game as a kid so I explored every inch of it and decided his wife needed to know he was alive after I found him

[@TruMaverick]

@@ajaverill08 crazy that was my same reaction. " Yangs wife gotta know about him with all these side Faires"

[@beeniecat9411]

The FF7 side quest for the gold chocobo. You could also get a gold bird from the old traveller from Kalm by defeating Ruby WEAPON. But that involves defeating Ruby WEAPON so picking between the super boss challenge or taking on the tedious breeding process that makes mesuda method shiny pokemon farming look easy is literally asking you "ok pick your poison."

[@juliuscasar7202]

Dude i get Gold Chocobo in 30 Minutes, pokemon breeding is way more annoying

[@juliuscasar7202]

Dude i get Gold Chocobo in 30 Minutes, pokemon breeding is way more annoying

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

Ruby weapon is actually really easy, counter Materia and healing items. The result is this means Emerald Weapon is harder due to the time limit and the Materia damage based attack.

[@zoruasnivy]

With modern rng manipulation knowledge it's pretty easy if slightly time consuming. But without a guide I could see it taking a while.

[@callmeshaggy5166]

Or, defeat Emerald to acquire Master Summon, which has Knights of the Round. That negates the entire need for a Gold chocobo. Then, you'd only need a blue & green to get to the other caves. HP-MP materia from the black chocobo is useless for casual playing.

[@japanesehercules]

If FF9’s Excalibur 2 sidequest isn’t No 1 then I don’t know what to tell ya

[@Just_B0red]

The fact that you have speed x4 and 9999 dmg added in game and can still miss it says enough about the quest :D

[@omegaweapon116]

I don't know why they made it like that. You don't even need that weapon to be over powered

[@bena.9356]

I remember doing the FFIV quest back when I was a kid w/o a guide. Managed to get the 7 wonders of Nibelheim as well, but largely because I was over-paranoid about advancing the story because of the earlier Spies quest and building the carts for Aerith quest. Another honorable mention is the 6 Wutai spies from Crisis Core Reunion though. That one I didn't get w/o a guide.

[@chadd990]

in 9, I only missed one coin without a guide, and it was in burmecia. the coffee beans though, I didn't even know where to start. The whole moogle thing was a complete mystery to me without a guide.

[@vguy488]

If memory serves for the Queen of Cards, after the events of Lunatic Pandora and returning to Earth, she could be found in a very specific area of Cetra (I think) in the overworld, but in true exasperating fashion, with no guidance or indication as to where. There she would challenge you and use just about every rare card you still didn't have (except the PuPu card). The problem was she used EVERY rule in the game, including the dreaded random rule, so it was down to pure luck her using the card you wanted and being given a deck good enough to get it. It was a much simpler affair to simply complete the CC club side quest and challenge all members in the Ragnarok. Truth be told, only if you were a completionist was this necessary. If you wanted to cheese the hardest boss in the game, all you needed was Laguna's card for 100 heroes and killing it was cake. The chocobo breeding quest was fun in-of itself, albeit took forever for the chocobo sage to tell you the next hint. Well worth it for the bragging right of beating Emerald Weapon. The zodiac spear for FFX was IMO just aesthetic after a time. The Zodiac Age release toned down the ridiculousness of getting it, but still had its quirks. If you didn't get it by the easy way, then Henne mines was the way to go. But, the mine was so tough that you needed to be pretty op to simple navigate it, so getting it made little difference. By the time I got I had already beaten Yiazmat and just wanted to get Zodiark to finish up the game. Cheers!

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

Chocobo Breeding isn't needed for fighting Emerald or Ruby Weapon. In fact because Ruby Weapon gives you a Golden Chocobo for free this actually means that Breeding is a complete waste of time. Just get a lot of Counter Materia on the character you're going to 1v1 with and have a lot of healing items.

[@MajorTeag]

Yeah, I remember the Card Queen Quest. It was so annoying and sadly some of the cards you get are good. That is until I learned about how to rig the card game rules in each region, then it became a lot easier as all you needed were the best card for each corner and then one good center one and you were nearly unbeatable.

[@DroWarriorOfLight]

I try to think which one would I pick as soon as I saw this video. I feel like some in FF9 like the one you mentioned or the Excalibur sword one, I admit I was very quick to be like "ok let's look it up". But all in all, I like this type of side quests, in case I find myself in a deserted island with one of these games available, then I'd have a lot of time to solve it myself! (FF12 sounds like the perfect choice for that)

[@Khordin]

I don't think the Stellazzio coins were that hard there were hints for every coin throughout the game, but the coffee or the missing siblings quest was much harder. And as a child I did the chocobo breeding without a guide because I was obsessed with the racing and kept breeding to get better chocobos.

[@mariawhite7337]

I'll be honest here, I had NO clue about the coffee until reading a guide. And the missing siblings? Forget about it.

[@dantevic]

​@@mariawhite7337 First time I'm hearing about this coffee quest and ff9 is my favorite FF game

[@SomewhatSlightlyBored]

to this day i have just never had the patience for the chocobo breeding. i generally hate racing in games, so making that mandatory just turned me off completely.

[@xenxander]

I did it without a guide, too. Carbo and Zeio nuts, and you only have to capture three chocobos and the rest is via imbreeding. A good, a great, and a wonderful. but all three need to be s-rank in the saucer of course.

[@TheBlackSeraph]

yeah i remember 9 had a few quests that were only available for a short time.

[@shadowgenesis87]

Got stumped on the ffx-2 thunder Plains cave the first time I played it, needed a guide for that one

[@curtisjones9372]

It wasn't just getting Cloud in tactics, for him to be any use ya had to get his materia sword which was on top of a volcano for some reason

[@calebfielding6352]

I was committed to the chocobo breeding sidequest so I figured it out without a guide. Later on on another playthrough I used a guide and it was very different than what I did, which I found interesting.

[@annuvynarawn392]

FF8 Obel Lake Quest - that must have been put there to sell more guides.

[@MultiHumala]

Yea that was annoying and reward wasn't even worth the trouble

[@Bozebo]

@@MultiHumala Yeah moon stone and three stars I think? Items you can just get from mugging or killing enemies.

[@MultiHumala]

@@Bozebo yea and Three Stars can be also gotten from cards so only reason nowdays to do that is if you want 100% achievements as it is requirement for it. I think it was Ultima or Omega weapon that can be mugged to get it

[@rasengandx]

Pretty much every side quest in 12

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

Yeah I think DarkKefka broke that down best To get this rare item you need to sell this item To get this item you need to beat this boss To fight this boss you need to beat this hunt To beat this hunt you need to talk to this NPC To talk to this NPC you need to beat THIS hunt

[@Bozebo]

@@QuantemDeconstructor Thing is you can do all that (at least all the hunts, getting every item excluding ZS would still require luck) by exploring and exhausting options so doesn't really fit this video. There's also another side quest in 12 though with the viera in Rabanastre at the stairs which everyone will screw up without a guide, but the reward doesn't matter late game.

[@Rasengu57]

I'm actually surprised that when it came to the Chocobo breeding quest, 7 was picked over 9. With the Chocograph pieces, the tedious Hot and Cold game, and some of the pictures on said graphs that would lead to a fair amount of globe trotting, all leading to a super boss that reads inputs I feel slightly tops the 7 one. Either way, awesome vid.

[@lechdabrowski3614]

As a kid I managed to breed Golden Chocobo without any guide. Had no idea about min/maxing strats and basically force fed each bird 99 Syklis Greens. I loved racing, so rising to S class was no problem. Still it took millions of gil (from selling Master All materia) and amount of time I'd never have as an adult.

[@MrArrmageddon]

Judiths spear from Tales of Vesperia is also high up on this sort of list in my opinion. One hell of a quest. With extremely easy missable segments with no player hints.

[@chriskoloski32]

Og ff7s happy turtle shop definitely gave me more trouble. Since 2 of the posters are missable cause youll never return to those spots

[@Mets3105]

One thing not mentioned with regard to the Crisis Core entry was that if you miss the side quest and don't get the Phoenix materia, it locks you out of getting the Genji Armor later on in the game since you need 100% on all DMW abilities to get it so it's a double whammy there

[@yuantheblue]

When it comes to these quests you hit quite a few....and the lions share of them for me are in 9 and 12. the hardest part for me was not tracking down the coins....it was remembering which ones I had NOT turned in yet (for some reason I never had paper on hand for it? Mayhap I was too lazy). Also seconding that missable coffee key item.

[@fefyfona4318]

For a long time i thought getting specific chocobos in FF7 was random. Until a guide made it clear that the initial chocobos condition is determined by the enemies that were around it. It made the side quest so much easier and less tedious.

[@dootytood2643]

Thanks for the FFXV Frog Hunting nod at the end of the video. It was next side quest in my mind that could've been on this list.

[@Beryllahawk]

Oooooh the Chocobo Breeding thing was INSANE. First time I ever "no life" played a game. I had a guide, and by the time I pulled off the Gold Chocobo I had got mad a few times, so it was DEFINITELY not my first playthrough haha Hilariously I bought the guide not for "all the secrets" but because I was still livid about Aerith and was dead certain there was some kind of trick that would save her life. Silly me. (Tho to be fair to Past Me, FF7 was my first Final Fantasy, my first JRPG, and the first game I ever played on Playstation; and only the 5th game I'd ever played on a home console, ever.)

[@Abeuss]

The tournesol in ff12, It was doable but man it was a pain collecting loot to sell.. then sell the loot you got from that loot.. I never would have figured it out.

[@willko88]

I had no problem with the 7 wonders of Nibelheim without a guide or any prior knowledge of the quest on my first playthrough of Crisis Core. For this list, I would have probably included FF9's Excalibur II though since the game gives you no indication that there's any reward for speedrunning it.

[@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley]

I weirdly managed to get the 7 wonders when I originally had Crisis Core, but missed them when I played it again on an emulator. Kind of upset me how there were no do-overs. Get it right the first time or say goodbye to the Phoenix materia. This being said, though, if you're playing on normal, the game isn't so tough that you'll really need it...but it'a nice to have.

[@whilstdumping]

The Al Bhed Primers in FFX were a nightmare, especially the one that could be permanently missed.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Oh man... I can remember how annoyed my first boyfriend was with me about that. I started playing the game on his system and since I'm an obsessive explorer, immediately found his sphere with his library and went though the entire game my first time understanding everything the AlBhed said. But then he was less annoyed when he realized I could finish the library for him since he missed that one in Bevelle Temple.

[@Flamsterette]

Thanks for the upload!

[@silverraigirideviluke]

I feel like the kitchen knife quest in 4 is very much out of place in this list. Yes, you can miss the sylph cave, but only if you dont explore almost at all. The underworld is unbelievably small, and once you are able to fly over lava, giving the map a quick flyover isnt that hard a requirement, to then see the very obvious cave you just have to traverse to the end. And yes, you might not know to go to yangs wife afterwards, but those who remember her can make a very easy connection between the two of them, like thinking "what would yangs wife say to him being alive?", prompting them to visit. Again, yes, you can miss it, but figuring it out on your own is not even close to as hard as knowing how to breed chocobos or where to find the coins.

[@zacca6000]

I honestly had no problem finding the Nibelheim Seven Wonders quest. I talked with everyone since there was missable stuff, and he wasn't too hard to find, nor was the quest difficult. It honestly never struck me as something so obscure you needed a guide for it, lol.

[@Mr.Pallanza]

For FFXII, Specifc Chest opening for the Zodiac Spear is one thing, but has anyone EVER gotten the Tournesol? The ridiculous chaining/looting of rare monsters, and to make those rare monsters to spawn and other pre-requisites, you also need to keep a specific and unecessarily convoluted 'shopping list' to ensure you have every bit of loot and making sure you haven't sold any to make sure you could deliver these to the Bazaar. I love XII to death, and even managed to get the Zodiac Spear by following a guide and get early midgame, but Tournesol is definitely something I cannot hope to complete in this lifetime.

[@edinaldoc1]

I remember playing this game as a teenager when i had my original PS2 and actually getting the Tournesol (my entire playthrough was literally following a guide step by step) Today i look back to that and wonder how the heck i even had the patience for it. In my latest playthrough, even with a guide, i looked at the requirements and just noped out

[@matthewIhorn]

You forgot all clouds limit breakers were unusable unless you found the buster sword which great reduced his strength. Also it was on a story mission that if you missed it you could never get it again.

[@zurreal8087]

1:24 FF9 - Stellazio Coins 3:45 FF8 - Queen of Cards 6:09 CCR - 7 Wonders of Nibelheim 8:01 FF4 - The Kitchen Knife 9:50 FF7 - Chocobo Breeding 12:15 FFT:WOTL - Recruiting Cloud 14:23 FF12 - Zodiac Spear

[@BatFan_Attic]

"Only 1 per game" **says only final fantasy games

[@stackthatartpaper]

Thank you fuck

[@Retronomikus]

@@BatFan_Attic as if the channel is about final fantasy, crazy

[@SiliconSlyWolf]

I don't think I heard you mention in the chocobo breading that either in the game itself or the Prima guide from the 90s, that the nut and/or greens names were messed up, adding even more misleading frustration.

[@faytwolf]

I really disagree about the Yang side quest on this list. I did that quest back before guides were even a thing. It always made sense to me "Hey go back to the wife, let her know Yang's okay."

[@Lumaga]

Yeah this was an obvious and easy one. Hardly "infuriating" or requiring a guide.

[@rikudaman]

You actually skipped a step. You're supposed to go back to Troia and talk to Edward. He will then tell you to go to Yang's wife for the solution. I alwaysfound it funny that the developers thought a player might visit Edward before Yang's wife but didn't have to the foresight to think you would take Devil's Road to get the Lunar Whale.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@rikudaman That's crazy! I had no idea that Edward had dialogue about it too... but maybe it was in there just in case people never met Yang's wife? I don't remember if she was around without you exploring the castle to find her... but maybe she saw him off at the docks? But what is this about taking devil's road to get the lunar whale?

[@rikudaman]

@@anthonydelfino6171 So what's the first you think of doing when the Dwarf King tells you about a legendary town called Mysidia? You would fly to Mysidia via airship and enter right? If you do that the elder walks out to greet you at the front of the village and the cutscene for the Lunar Whale happens as normal. If for some reason you decided to go to Baron instead and take the Devil's Road back to Mysidia, the first step you take into the town is at Devil's Road instead of the front gate. The game will freak out since you aren't in the right place and weird graphical stuff happens.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@rikudaman I never thought to try that.... I still have my SNES cartridge, so I feel like I want to try that now. It doesn't brick the cartridge, though, does it? I know that some of the glitches on the FFVI can ruin it.

[@EbonAvatar]

Ah I have such fond memories of completely ignoring chocobo breeding in FF7. Even as a kid I knew it wasn't worth my time

[@MalevolentMinun]

Playing through the PS2 version of Final Fantasy 12 back in the day, finding out you gimped yourself out of the Zodiac Spear, was a mind-numbingly baffling design choice.

[@loosemeatsamich3689]

I didn’t have the internet back in the 90’s, so I almost always bought the Brady games guide book for it. It was so helpful.

[@omegaweapon116]

I loved those strategy guides. I think the last one I bought was last year for FFXIII. Finally got around to beating the trilogy

[@DolFunTheDolhpinVtuber]

The Yang one in FF IV was the only one out of these I completed on my own. It was more luck of just doing the right things at the time.

[@Lastkoss]

The chocobo breading really got me when I was a kid. Oh boy

[@mistydolphin2524]

The worst part about recruiting Cloud in fft, he jons at lev1, when by this point your entire team should be 40-50 or higher. So once you get him, you still have to grind him to get him up to speed. And to add insult to injury, he can't even use any of his special moves without equipping a specific weapon you can only get at the top of a volcano. Yeah, so not worth the effort.

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

That level thing isn't an issue though due to Finishing Touch being an 100% chance of inflicting Stop, Petrify, or Death. So just equipping speed boosting gear is enough to make him 1-shot anything non-boss. At Level 1.

[@MattChristensen9]

FF (American) 2 / 4 never had a guide released in the States when it first came out. A proper guide didn't exist until FF Chronicles was released. I made my own during the initial release and I always used the (Spoon) as Edge's first thrown item in the fight against Zeromus: always 9999 damage

[@MidnightTokenFloydChatAccount]

It had a guide on the bosses sort of but it was ina Nintendo power book with other games mario world glols and ghost and Drakken among others but once you got to a,certain part of the game the guide literally said Best of luck you gotten so far (i think it was the 1st time you hit the moon)

[@MattChristensen9]

@@MidnightTokenFloydChatAccount it was the cover story for Volume 30, which also featured weird art of a Rogue-styled character riding a black falcon. There are a few things about the game inside, as it was meant to hype up the game, but nothing like a proper guide the original Final Fantasy received.

[@MidnightTokenFloydChatAccount]

@@MattChristensen9 fair

[@chucheeness7817]

Oh God I remember doing Pitioss dungeon in FF15 after Christmas Eve. Took me 6 hours to finish it without guides and by breakfast time I was worn out of frustration. I was with family at a countryside house with no internet and it added another layer of frustration upon learning you can skip it with some easy jumping glitch

[@Vayne_Solidor]

FF12tza- Chaos is definitely the most complex Esper to find.

[@KnownAsKenji]

Also worth noting about Zodiac Spear is that characters in that game could equip many weapon types, so getting both was more relevant for a complete run because you could use both on two characters.

[@ryanscheffer2302]

The guide for the DS version of Final Fantasy IV mentioned the Namingway sidequest. One thing that made the sidequest infuriating was one the items in for the quest, Rainbow Pudding, only had a droprate of 0.4%. I have never completed that sidequest.

[@ogre27kain]

final fantasy 6 feeding the old man fish! I didn't know about that until many years after my first playthrough

[@Dedric_Price]

There was no way in hell i was gonna figure out how to do the last hunts or espers in 12 without a guide. What the hell were they thinking when they mase the crystal.

[@slapchop133787]

I managed to make it to Ultima on my first run without a guide... but it took me like 10 HOURS.

[@sdo1840]

The Zodiac Speer still remains the most ridiculous gaming challenge of all time imo, they actually had to remove the opening chest element of it from the remaster. I remember for hours and hours trying to make the thing appear and I never got it

[@Autobus99]

Oddly enough, I got Cloud on my first play through of FF Tactics. I thought he was available to everyone 😅

[@frozenaorta]

I absolutely finished Yang's "knife" quest with no guide book (didn't exist) and no online guides (again...) back in 1993. Called the spoon back then. Not really a cryptic side quest. Now, the pink tail/adamant armor, on the other hand...

[@blainy-o93]

The best guide that ever came out for Chocobo breeding was that one on Steam and KZbin that detailed how to get a gold one without racing, making it possible to do as soon as you get the Highwind rather than waiting for Cloud to rejoin the party. I'd also rank Morrid's coffee sidequest above the Stellazio sidequest, there's only 3 coffees to collect but they're at least as tricky to find as the coins, and the whole thing is missable. You had to collect the coffees from South Gate and Madain Sari on your first visit, and if you progressed past the Treno card tournament on disc 3 without going back to Dali, getting the 3rd coffee, then visiting Morrid, that was it.

[@nolongeraperson]

What... what...WHAT!? -holds head- Why couldn't this have existed sooner!?.. all the hours of my life lost..all the tedious racing.. I.. -seppuku-

[@morethanpichusgaming]

In my opinion, it many of these quests, and some not on this list, were methods to get players to buy strategy guides. However, some guides didn't have all of the information needed, like FFXII's great crystal map or a list, locations, or circumstances to find rare monsters. Filling out the bestiary is a pain in XII.

[@gorimbaud]

trying to fill out the bestiary is what eventually made me give up on xii's sidequests and just rush to the ending to finish the game. i didn't even do the back end of the lhusu mine, when wanting to play the gilgamesh hunt was one of my incentives to starting the game to begin with.

[@leshyaedawnfire]

While the Stellazzio Coins collect-athon side quest is hard to do without a guide, I know an even harder one. The Friendly Monster Side quest. While running around in different areas, you can stumble onto "friendly" alternately colored variants of specific random monsters. Rather than attack you, the will ask for specific jewels you may or may not have in your inventory. If you give them what they ask for, they will give you a jewel and a large amount of AP in return. Interestingly, there is a bit of a proper order to this. The first 5 monsters in the chain will ask for Ore, but starting with the fifth one the jewel you receive will be the same one that the next monster will ask for. Useful, since the seventh monster asks for a Moonstone, of which there are only 4 in game and one is super hard to get. Completing the quest makes it easier to defeat Ozma, an optional Super Boss found in the Chocobo's Air Garden, which you ALSO need to complete a collect-athon side quest to reach, this one being Chocobo Hot & Cold!

[@chux4w]

16:50 - "And that, as they say, is that." I understood that reference.

[@nikelbags1177]

Getting cloud in FFT was one of my favorite things to do in ff.. Even though hes lvl 1 its very easy to lvl him since everything u fight is scaled to your original parties lvl so he lvl's quickly u just need a passive move from a squire to make sure he does something every turn he gets.

[@brendonbecker1735]

The proverbial Demon Wall 😂😂😂

[@ProxyDoug]

his really makes me appreciate a well made side-quest. Every time I come across one of these where I have to keep checking a guide, it just makes me like a game less.

[@muticere]

I loved the Chocobo Raising and Racing side-quest, but I'll admit, it was more fun because I had a guide. Knowing what to do and how to catch the right chocobos is what made that tolerable. I can't imagine attempting it without a guide. Maybe that's why everyone seems to love Chocobo Hot/Cold from FF9: it's pretty straightforward and you don't need a guide to know how to do it. Meanwhile, I hate it bc there's no way to cheese it and no guide that will help: you just have to take the time and dig and dig and dig.

[@indumatipngtuber2790]

My favorite thing is getting the rainbow pudding in the FF4 DS version. It's so rare that I never ever gotten it.

[@taylorsnow4253]

Even today the chocobo breeding quest of ff7 gives me chills when I hear about it lol. I’ve probably spent 15 hours on that darn quest (of course with a guide lol)

[@acidwizard6528]

The only one I found on my own was the Kitchen Knife, Frying Pan, Sylph summon from FFIV. I didn't have a whole lot of SNES games growing up so the ones I did have, I played through several times. I don't think I figured it out on my first playthrough, but somewhere along the way I got through trial and error + being thorough.

[@reisnoli]

I remember getting the gold chocobo. That was a proud moment.

[@taliusgaming8712]

Pretty much any side/main quest in FF11. Talk to quest giver and have fun finding some ??? in the world. Im sure most players play this game side by side with a wiki

[@GrampaSheevie]

The triple triad music will forever haunt me.

[@Seegtease]

Maybe I am mistaken, but I believe the Zodiac Spear mess was the result of them selling the secret exclusively to Brady Games to be in a player's guide, meaning you needed to have the guide (or know someone who did or shared it online) to know about it. It was deliberately not revealed in game what you had to do to offer an exclusive secret to sell.

[@dantevic]

That's just how many of the FF games were. Cryptic unexplained secrets that you will never find without a guide

[@MCastleberry1980]

It was cool being able to get Cloud in FFT, but i never used him because he started at level 1, so it was a pain in the ass getting him to a point where he was even useful

[@NelielGamuza]

Getting the Mascot dressphere in the original X-2 on PS2 was a NIGHTMARE. I still have PTSD

[@toddclawson3619]

Personally obtaining Doomtrain in FF8 was one I always assumed you never could get without a guide until someone pointed out that the occult magazines you can pick up provide the hints you need on how to get him. The Tonberry gf certainly requires a guide as nowhere in the game tells you to go back to the place you found Odin and kill like 15 tonberries until the Tonberry King appears as far as I am aware. Final Fantasy 12 had an insane number of weapons rely on pure rng to get. If you beat the first demon wall (instead of running away like the characters recommend), you can access a chest that potentially contains a very powerful weapon for that point in the game. The problem is that it is completely up to chance if the chest has the weapon or a random item. The chest does respawn letting you try again as much as you want, but you still have to leave the area and come back over and over again until you finally get it. There was also the fact that a lot of the stronger weapons required you to collect rare materials. The best way to get them was to kill tons of monsters one after another to create a chain that boosts the chance to get said materials. Even then, it takes a long time to both get the chain high enough and actually get the drops you need. FF12 had a lot of fun stuff like the monster hunts and exploration, but boy did the developers really lean into rng in the worst possible way.

[@Buglin_Burger7878]

I'd actually go with Deep Dungeon for FFT as opposed to the entire secret character line because Goug is a place you should return to to buy guns and unique items jump starting it. Also near the very end of the game you pass through it to visit certain shops. Once you see it you'll obviously revisit and take reading rumors seriously to figure these things out. Deep Dungeon on the other hand is a near pitch black dungeon with 1 out of 5 tiles being randomly chosen to let you go down a floor but you have to find it mid fight. You have no way to know this though so you'll likely visit the first floor and leave. The tiles are mostly down near the bottom where the enemies are meaning they move away from said tiles. You may find it if you are incredibly lucky, but more then anything it will look like a 1 floor dungeon with no way to get to deeper floors.

[@misterbojangles]

I accidentally did the FFT one and stumbled into waking Yang

[@RockerDanM]

No internet at the time of Tactics' release in my house, but I stumbled my way into recruiting Cloud.

[@AnnaMno1]

We always got the guide book with the games, though the only Final Fantasy guide books we still have are for 3 and 8

[@obsidianblack7249]

The Fafnir hunt in FFXII, you need to wait for a specific weather condition to occur and then follow a very specific path to make sure you end up on the correct side of the area it will spawn in and if the weather changes too bad try again.

[@kylethecaregiver4050]

Choco racing was fun on 7, final fantasy 10 and the Choco wobble race where you have to get 0.00 time is the most infuriating chocobo mini game known to man..

[@Narfmann369]

I managed a gold chocobo (vii) and the spoon (iv) on my first playthrough without guides, but those were the only ones

[@LoneWolf-km7rg]

From memory you could always find the Queen of Cards in Dollet. There was a get-around and you never had to look for her anywhere else.

[@CappyLarou]

Final fantasy 15, that one dungeon off the beaten path that you have to fly and land specifically to. I've still never beaten it

[@SutaSafaia]

I actually did manage to do the FF4 quest back in the day. I did not figure out a single other one on this list though.

[@ryanchurchill5081]

If I recall the master smith in ff3 is definitely annoying as she moves place to place and you need lvl 99 jobs for what she gives you for that job

[@elocfreidon]

The first time I played Final Fantasy 8 I never played the card game and had no shops on Ragnarok, thus never upgrading any of my weapons. The second playthrough I got the best set of rules and managed to get every card completely on accident.