There are a lot of people who prefer to play their games for the story. No one can be shamed for simply wanting to experience the main narrative of a game. Still, it is worth pointing out that those people might miss out on the unique experiences and character interactions that side quests can provide.
There’s no shortage of side quests in Tales Of Symphonia Remastered, but many of them demand that you go out of your way to find them. While you may need to put in some extra work, the rewards are well worth it for the biggest fans of the series.
10 Colette Loves Dogs
To some, this side quest might be a bit tedious, but for those who believe in making sure even video game animals get the love they deserve, this might just be for you. Throughout the game, you’ll come across tons of dogs, and Colette can have a funny little interaction with all of them.
Once you notice this, you’ll probably be interested in finding all of the dogs, and it’s actually a goofy little side quest to accomplish. For all your effort in tracking down all those dogs, you’ll be rewarded with the “Dog Lover” title for the Chosen.
9 Restoring Luin
At a certain point in the game’s narrative, you’ll find that the town of Luin is in ruins, and it falls onto you to fund its restoration. While that sounds quite simple, and it honestly is, the tricky part is just how much Gald is ultimately required to finish the quest.
It’s a lot of effort to scrape together the nearly half a million Gald, but in the end, it’s more than worth it. The satisfaction of saving a city alone is great, but it’s all the more rewarding when you find out that the city is where Lloyd’s mother grew up.
8 Defeating The Sword Dancer
Tracking down and facing the Sword Dancer isn’t for the faint of heart. It's like one of those incredibly difficult optional bosses you try to skip in a Souls game. You have to face the beast of an optional boss on three separate occasions, with the boss getting more difficult in each face-off.
While finding the boss isn’t that tough for a player who explores, beating it will be. You need to have the best gear available for your point of the story each time you face it, and even then, you’ll need to be blazing through battles to make sure your level is high enough to succeed each time.
7 The Model Student
What makes this side quest at the Palmacosta Academy so much fun is that you can do it at any point with your many party members to see how they all react to tests. Through this brief little quest, you can see how your party ranks in terms of their smarts, thanks to a short quiz.
Genis’ score is based on how you do when answering a series of questions, but you also get to learn just how poor students Lloyd and Colette are. Some of the other scores may also surprise you, but the fun little detour is worth it for those who are set on collecting every title since you’ll earn one for Genis here.
6 Zelos The Ladies Man
Much like Colette’s humorous dog-based side quest, Zelos can go on his own unique little journey. Instead of dogs, Zelos does exactly what everyone would expect Zelos to do, hunt for some ladies.
You need to swap control over to Zelos while you explore the sprawling worlds for every female NPC in the game. If you can talk to them all, Zelos will finally receive the funny moniker of “Gigolo” as a unique title. Whether or not the side quest is worth it is debatable, but Zelos wouldn’t be who he is if he didn’t have a little quest like that.
5 Mastering The Colisseum
The Colisseum is the kind of challenge that someone who loves the game’s combat will want to undertake. It doesn’t act as a simple gauntlet for your preferred team, but instead, you’ll have to master each individual character.
Once you’ve mastered your characters, you can enter the advanced singles competitions that can net you some of the best weapons in the game. Completing everything on offer with every character will take a lot of time and effort, but it’s worth it for those devastating weapons in the endgame.
4 Sheena the Treasure Hunter
An adventure that those who love to collect things in games will enjoy is the one that Sheena can have. Technically, it doesn’t matter who opens the chests to ultimately get the title for Sheena, but since it directly involves her, it kind of is her side quest.
The idea is that Sheena can receive a unique title if you manage to travel across the two worlds and open every single chest in the game. Once you've found every chest, you get the “Treasure Hunter” title in the slightly hidden Katz Village.
3 The Pink Pearl Ring
You can find this little side quest in Sybak, though a lot of people will probably end up avoiding it once they learn there isn’t much of a reward for completing it. The reward here is knowing you’ve done a good deed for a couple.
The entire side quest is really there to show the relationship between two NPCs, Joshua and Rosa. While the whole thing will take a lot of time and take you across Tethe’alla, completionists with a lot of heart will probably find themselves enjoying this side quest.
2 Save The Princess
The little side quest to save the quirky princess isn’t the most complicated thing in the world, but it is a good task to undertake if you’re interested in seeing a unique cutscene with Zelos later on. Essentially, the princess of Meltokio has been taken, and it’s up to you to save her.
After some shenanigans and more than a few encounters, you’ll have finally saved the princess. Doing all of this results in Zelos earning the “Princess Guard” title, but it also allows you to later experience a unique dinner party as well.
1 The Devil’s Arms
This quest aims to give you access to a set of cursed weapons that can unleash some serious devastation once the right conditions have been met. You have to travel the world to collect all of the Devil’s Arms to take on the toughest boss in the game, Abyssion.
Once you’ve overcome the brutally difficult challenge, the weapons will become some of the most powerful in the game. Each weapon’s attack will reflect the number of kills that character has. It’s a great reward, but this side quest will probably end up being the last thing you do in a play-through.