10 JRPGs That Hide Their Best Storytelling in Optional Content

JRPGs are known for their massive stories filled with charming characters and sprawling worlds. If you go into a JRPG and there isn't over 30 hours of optional content, then are you even playing a JRPG at all?

For that reason, so many games within the genre hide their greatest stories in these bits of side content. Be they optional conversations you can have with your companions revealing a key motivation for them, a side quest that builds to a satisfying payoff, or even vignettes that build on the game's overall themes, it's rare to find a JRPG with side content that doesn't enrich your experience in the game.

That's why, for today's discussion, we're looking at 10 JRPGs whose best story content is hidden away in optional side quests, waiting to reward players invested enough to discover them.

10 Persona IV

Learn More About Your Companions in Optional Side Content

Persona 4 Golden is an immaculate vibe of a game. While its main story is among the peaks of the JRPG genre, its side content offers up some standout moments that feed back into the game’s main story.

One side of this is the game’s social links, which will have you strengthening your bonds with key figures in the game. Odds are, if you’re playing a Persona game, you’re always keen to speak to your companions and act as their unlicensed therapist.

These small slices-of-life missions also provide a much-needed break to de-stress from the game's tense murder-mystery storyline, while also hiding some of the most enjoyable content in the game. For example, the Hermit Social Link will let you access the fan-favorite fishing minigame, while also maxing out your relationship with the Fox and unpacking his anti-social behavior.

9 Xenoblade Chronicles X

A Staggering Amount of Side Content

Xenoblade Chronicles X is one of those rare JRPGs where it's arguable that the entire game is optional content. You're dropped into the world of Mira, and are tasked with helping the surviving remnants of humanity establish a new home on this hostile planet. There is a main story that guides you along this mission, but it's the game's Affinity Quests that really enhance the experience.

In fact, it's these missions that fans of the series would argue are the main narrative experience offered by the game, deepening your connection to the planet and its wider lore.

It's actually absurd how much lore the game packs into these optional missions. For example, the side quest "Lone Survivors" shows you the aftermath of the alien war and how humanity has been coping since our crushing defeat. There's also "The Voltant Visionary", which delves into the lore of Mira and the lives of its inhabitants, helping them feel more like established beings rather than cardboard cutouts.

8 Unicorn Overlord

Companions and Interactions That Deepen the Game's Political Story

Unicorn Overlord is a mature JRPG where who you end up recruiting in your party dictates the outcome of your playthrough.

You play as the exiled prince Alain, who goes on to lead a rebellion against the Zenor Empire. Throughout your campaign, you'll gain access to side story battles, which also double as character recruitment quests. After these battles, you'll be given the chance to let these characters either join your party or execute them for immediate rewards.

Given that the writing in the game is already quite excellent, the opportunity to recruit even more characters is hard to turn down. Especially so, given you'll want the largest army you can find. But it's Unicorn Overlord's careful curation of its side content where optional content doesn't feel like a neat bonus for fans, but an important component of its experience.

7 Final Fantasy VI

Discover the World for a Second Time

Final Fantasy VI may very well be one of the most ambitious JRPGs of all time, and is filled with unique interactions and side quests that catch players off guard to this day. This only compounds after the game's midway point, when the world undergoes an apocalyptic event and resets, giving players a reason to backtrack and revisit familiar locations.

After entering the World of Ruin, players have the option to head to the final dungeon and face off against Kefka pretty much whenever they'd like. But they'd be doing themselves a disservice, as there's plenty of side content to discover and party members to recruit. These missions are almost like their own individual episodes of a TV show, focusing on one of your companions while reigniting their resolve to fight Kefka once and for all.

6 Dragon Quest VII

Time Travel Shenanigans Lead to Powerful Emotional Payoffs

Dragon Quest VII was an entry that tore the fan base into two categories: either you loved its vibe and storytelling, or you felt that it was a bit of a slog. But one thing both sides could agree on is that this entry has some remarkable side quests with pretty memorable payoffs you don't always expect. Plus, with the new remake alleviating most of those pacing issues, there's less of an excuse to deprive yourself of experiencing them.

Throughout the game, you'll unlock new islands to travel to, all featuring their own self-contained story, which packs a pretty powerful punch. After completing an island's quest, it'll appear once more in the real world, letting you visit it once again to see how your actions impacted the town, and how the legacy of those characters' lives on to this day.

The Vogograd island is one of the high points in the game and offers a neat story about mob mentality, prejudice, and how a society can reckon with its collective guilt. Seeing your impact upon returning to the islands and speaking to the NPCs to learn more about what happened following your journey makes for some of the most satisfying payoffs within the Dragon Quest series.

5 Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Optional Companion Quests Hide Its Best Moments

Fire Emblem: Three Houses puts you in the role of a teacher who must guide the students at the Garreg Mach Monastery and set them on the right path for the future of Fodlan. And to be a good teacher, you'll need to talk to your students, train them, invite them to tea parties, and most importantly, complete their side quests when they appear.

In between major story missions at the end of the month, if you have enough affinity with the wider cast of characters, you'll be asked to join them on an important mission vital to how their story ends.

For example, Marianne's paralogue mission explores the history of her house and why her specific crest is so burdensome. While the storyline is mostly inconsequential to the main plot, its implications and Marianna's character progression make it a standout in a game with so many stellar side quests.

4 Lost Odyssey

We Sure Hope You Like Optional Scenes

Lost Odyssey was one of the rare JRPGs to make its way onto the Xbox 360 and still has yet to make its way onto other platforms. Which is a shame, because its story and combat are superb, and thankfully, its side content highlights that.

You play as Kaim Argonar, an immortal man who has lived over 1,000 years and witnessed countless conflicts. Throughout the game, you'll get to collect a variety of optional stories that show fragments of Kaim's life throughout his millennia on the planet. After collecting them, you'll experience a short visual-novel-inspired cutscene that focuses on his connection to those he's loved and lost over the years.

While Kaim is far from underdeveloped in the main story, these small bits of optional content help make those 1,000 years feel like a realistic existence for the character. If you love picking up audio journals in games and soaking in lore, Lost Odyssey is absolutely a high point for this kind of storytelling device. A shame there's almost no way to play the game today, though.

3 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

Payoffs Found in Optional Content

If there's one thing JRPGs love, it's placing high school kids in military schools where they'll most likely end up solving the world's most complex geopolitical crisis. If you find that kind of trope ridiculous, then The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is probably not for you. Although if you love that young adult style of dystopian fiction, ooh boy, you're going to eat well here.

This entry in the Tales franchise takes place in the Erebonian Empire, where the noble and commoner classes are in a tense conflict. You play as Rean, a bog-standard lawfully good commoner who was lucky enough to join Thors Military Academy, where commoners and nobles alike can learn the ways of warfare together. However, after a few short missions together, they find themselves plunged into a conflict that will have devastating consequences for the world.

Much like Persona and Fire Emblem, a lot of optional content within the game is dedicated to learning more about your companions and helping out your fellow cohort at school. The reward for these missions is pretty neat, as you'll get some engaging lore about their families, the socio-political environment they come from, and how they ended up at this academy. So, if you're a lore head, this is sure to satiate your curiosity with the game's worldbuilding.

2 Yakuza: Like A Dragon

Side Content Arguably Superior to the Main Game

The Yakuza series has always been renowned for their abundance of charming and, at times, absurd side content, and Like A Dragon is no different.

There's plenty of variety to be found within the game that's sure to scratch whatever genre itch you have an inkling towards. If you're a fan of murder mysteries, you can embark on a quest to investigate a masked killer plaguing the city. If you prefer more introspective journeys, you can embark on a quest to help a disgraced karate champion reclaim his dignity.

Some of these side quests also contain key emotional moments for your main character, Ichiban. For example, in the "Forget Me Not" questline, we come to learn that Ichiban's grief has manifested a phantom of his imagination as a way to help him process his own trauma. It's a surprisingly powerful quest line that's sure to hit hard, and have you try a few laps of Dragon Kart to emotionally recover.

1 NieR: Automata

Some of the Best Storytelling in Gaming Hidden in Side Quests

To sound cliché, NieR: Automata was one of the first games to make me feel both profound existential dread and a wonderful sense of catharsis – and none of that would have been possible without the game's immaculate side content.

While the main story of the game has countless routes and end points, some of them are completely nonsensical (just look at the self-destruct ending). However, it's the side content where you'll explore the game's wider philosophy, and find its strongest stories.

One of the highlights in NieR: Automata, and arguably, the best side quest in any video game, is the "Amnesia" story, which sees you help a traumatized member of the resistance investigating her friend's death. As you come to discover, the resistance member asking for your help was the one who assassinated her friend, although she had wiped her own mind after the incident.

Upon regaining her memories, she reveals that she's actually a YoRHa E-Type, whose sole purpose is to execute traitors. The quest says a lot about identity and humanity throughout its short runtime, but its lingering questions remain relevant throughout your entire playthrough.