The new Mass Effect release got me thinking about why that series was brilliant. I am not much of a shooter fan so it was not the combat. The music and sound were ace but that was not it either. It was the various stories told and how many were difficult moral dilemmas that have stuck with me since. In the dodgy way my mind works that got me thinking about other games with similar outstanding quests. Which leads to this topic.
What is the single best quest you have ever done in a video game and why?
I thought about this and one kept coming back to me. The genophage quest in the Mass Effect series takes the cake for me. Firstly, it spans three different games. You learn about it in ME1 and have a major confrontation with Wrex and Mordin to the point that you may actually have to kill your own team member. It forms the backdrop to the single best quest in ME1 on Virmire. It seems It then spans to the 2nd game where a quest with Mordin where we find a supposed kidnapped Maelon working on a cure with horrible results. It finally ends up in the 3rd game with a massively difficult decision that may end up with you shooting your team member in the back.
The overall quest deals with choosing which genocide is acceptable. Is it better to allow the genocide of 999 out of 1000 Krogan eggs to keep their population low? Or is it better to allow them to propagate their species knowing that the rest of the galaxy will be in jeopardy over the inevitable massive war caused by the population boom of a Krogan species no longer effected by the genophage? There is no correct answer here and when you add in the personal relationships of Wrex, Wreave, Eve, Mordin and needing the help of the Salarians for the Crucible you end up with a huge issue that has played out over many hours where the choices are still agonizing.
I cannot think of a better quest in any game but I am sure that some of you will prove me wrong.
I’m incredibly fond of Equine Phantoms from The Witcher 3, but I don’t want to get into any real details because if you don’t know what is going to happen, it’s additionally magical.
I think I’d pick the Pkunk-Yehat-Shofixti quest in Star Control 2 (and I’m casting a wide net, to include the Admiral ZEX stuff, etc.). Some of the moments in that quest are just so much fun. And although I loved it the first half-dozen times I played it, without voice overs, it’s extra beautiful with the Yehat’s Scottish brogue.
Could I pick a bunch of other quests in Star Control 2? Yeah, like, six of 'em.
The “Oh, Wretched Man” mission arc from Seer Marino in City of Heroes. Sadly no longer with us, but the wikia page still has an overview.
I must have done that arc a dozen times, easily. It’s a story of revenge and treachery, built around two of the major villains in the City of Heroes universe, Ghost Widow and Wretch. They’re pretty much pure evil everywhere else, but here in this arc we see the human weakness that led to where they ended up. Some of the best writing I’ve come across in an MMO - I’ll admit that’s a low bar, but they did this one right.
I think I’m with @Granath here, for all the reasons mentioned. The Mordin mission in ME2 was masterful, get up and walk away from the computer for 20 minutes to think it over. And it works so we’ll because it is the result of pained decisions made by individuals that you can see clearly grappled with the difficulty. Mordin is not solely convinced of the righteousness of his actions, and his doubt builds upon the world and his character. It is a decision where you can see the weight on the world, how it informs many other decisions in plausible ways.
It’s so good because it takes the background of the universe and plays it out in front of you, and ask you to judge ‘did we do the right thing’. It isn’t something tangential to the world, but integral. It is Bioware at its best.
It was clearly also not written by the same person who did the reaper baby.
The genophage quest (and one with the geth I think) are good becase you can’t quite grind out the right answer with Paragon points. You actually had to take what you knew about the universe and make your own decision as a player. Of course we’re praising it for what should be the norm, but it was much better relative to the quests you could powergame through.
I have a bad memory so I can’t think of any great quests. I’ll just go with the frying pan in The Witcher 3.
My memory is too bad to think of a quest from a game I played many games ago, but I also loved the genophage quest. My gut tells me there was probably one that involved Morrigan, but damned if I can remember a specific one.
It wasn’t honestly much of a quest, but I loved blowing up the outhouse in a minor Fallout 2 side quest and covering the whole evil, corrupt town in shit.
Speaking of Fallout 2, I loved it when I was trying to get away from this frisky farm girl whose house I was staying in, and she kept getting more and more turned on until she started tearing my clothes off, and the father came in and caught us in the act. So the next morning I was forced to marry her at gunpoint. And throughout the rest of the game, my wife was going everywhere with me.
Hmmm, come to think of it, that might not count as a side quest. More like a side incident instead.
The monk epic quest in Everquest, back when you needed 50 people for the final fight. I think it took me…4 months to actually do it? The ring war in Everquest is also up there, talk about epic.
