10 of the Best Side Quests in Breath of the Wild

I don't think any other game has sucked me in as hard as Breath of the Wild has done. This game has brought me an insane amount of joy. The Legend of Zelda has always been my favourite game franchise. One of the things that make the games so good, are the fun side quests. I know we're all different types of gamers, and I'm of the 100% completion kind. I absolutely love side quests, and Breath of the Wild did not disappoint me. Here are the ten side quests I had the most fun completing (spoiler alert?).

1. From the Ground Up

My favourite side quest in the entire game was helping Hudson build Tarrey Town from the ground up. After you buy a house in Hateno Village, Hudson goes to Akkala to build a new little town. He needs your help, which involves bringing him bundles of wood and people to settle down in the town. What makes this challenging is that there's a town rule saying everyone who lives here must have the suffix -son in their last name. This makes it more difficult and fun looking for new inhabitants, as you need to find one from different areas of Hyrule.

2. The Mystery Polluter

This is a very typical side quest, as it involves helping a single person, and is almost completely insignificant in the bigger picture. In Gerudo Town you can talk to a small girl who wants to grow her own fruits, but her water source is contaminated. Upon inspecting it you find that there are melon rinds floating in the water. There's a lady sat on the roof eating hydromelons and carelessly throwing the rinds in the water. To get her to stop you need to go the Gerudo Highlands and get her ten wildberries. I don't know what it's about this side quest, but I just find it so cute and wholesome.

3. Missing in Action

I love this one. At the Gerudo Canyon Stable, you can talk to a traveler called Sesami, who says he's looking for his four friends who he lost when they were surrounded by bokoblins. You can find all four friends in different locations along the cliffs, captured by bokoblins. I like this quest as it's fun to see NPCs showing their personalities. The four friends react differently to being rescued, ranging from being relieved to hear that Sesami is okay, to being furious with him for not coming to save them. When you return to the stable, they've clearly argued and have decided to split up and go their separate ways.

4. Special Delivery

This is a quest I needed multiple tries to complete. On the Bank of Wishes on the road to Zora's Domain, you meet a young Zora who asks you for help to send a love letter. The letter is in a fragile container that allows it to float on the river, and you need to keep watch over it to ensure safe passage to the recipient. This task keeps you on your toes, as you need to break blockages and fight monsters along the way. If the letter container takes too much damage or floats out of your sight, it breaks and you'll have to start again. It's a long way to the destination, which is Mercay Island, and there seems to be an endless stream of obstacles and enemies on the way there. When the letter finally reaches Sasan, the recipient, he travels to Zora Domain, where you can meet them both and they'll give you a gold rupee for helping bring them together.

5. A Royal Recipe

When this quest is triggered it just feels ridiculous. To go and fetch a cookbook from the most dangerous place in the game, Hyrule Castle. To go there simply for some recipes seems a bit much. It turned out even more excessive for me, as I managed to stumble into the sanctuary... which is how you enter the boss fight. I didn't expect to be able to meet Ganon as I was so early on in the game, so I didn't think I needed to be careful. You also can't leave the boss fight once it starts. Let's just say, I didn't win, nor did I want to, and I've been careful not to do that again.

6. Leviathan Bones

This is a quest that takes you all over Hyrule. The quest starts at Serenne Stable, where a group of friends ask you to take pictures of the three leviathan skull located in the Eldin, Hebra and Gerudo regions. This is an adventurous quest that forces you to explore a great chunk of the map in order to find the skeletons. Finding the three come at different levels of difficulty. The Gerudo one I'd say is the easiest, as you can see the skeleton across the desert, it being a flat surface and all. The Hebra skeleton is the most difficult, as it's buried in a cave. It's conveniently located by a shrine, so if you have your Sheikah sensor focused on shrines, you'll be able to find it, if you go far enough into the snowy wilderness of Hebra. I don't know if a gold rupee feels like a sufficient reward for going to such great extents for pictures of skeletons, but maybe helping researchers with their work is reward enough in itself.

7. A Parent's Love

I like side quests where I need to go find an item to help someone. This quest doesn't affect anyone but the small family it involves, but it's a fun little mission. If you're in Tarrey Town at night, you can hear a couple talking from a window, about how their daughter won't eat anything. They mention cake and monsters, hinting that their daughter wants to eat monster cake. To gather the ingredients for the cake, you need to go to the general store in Rito Village. To make it a monster cake you need to buy monster extract from Kilton the Monster Parts Merchant. Finding him is another fun side quest in itself. When you deliver the cake, the girl's mother gives you a gold rupee, which is quite helpful in early game. If you don't really need money, then you can take away the fact that you helped a little girl gain a lot of energy.

8. The Secret Club's Secret

This is another side quest from Gerudo Town. When trying to enter a secret clothes shop, the owner will ask you through the door for a password. In true Zelda fashion, it's not super obvious how you find out what it is, so you need to nose around a bit. If you go to the Noble Canteen you can hear the ladies sitting there gossiping about the password, but they tell you to leave when they notice that you're eavesdropping on their conversation. When you go to the shop next door, there's a mesh window that you can listen to their conversation through, and you can hear them say the password. This quest is more useful as gaining access to the store allows you to buy an exclusive armor set.

9. Flown the Coop

I know this isn't a side quest everyone enjoys, but I simply love it as an Ocarina of Time Easter egg, as that game has the same side quest. Granted, the Ocarina of Time one has a much more important prize, as you're rewarded with a precious glass bottle, but as this was my favourite game before Breath of the Wild came along, I love this little "tribute". The quest involves locating and bringing back seven missing cuccos. It's not a difficult quest, it just might take you some time to find them all. It's definitely worth it for seeing the owner's joy when they've all been returned to him.

10. A Gift from the Monks

As a person who plays for a 100% completion rate, that of course includes beating all 120 shrines. When you finish the last one, the monk tells you to go to the Forgotten Temple. There, you find the Tunic of the Wild, the Cap of the Wild and Trousers of the Wild. This is an armor set resembling Link's typical green outfit, which I was overjoyed to receive. I know this is a pretty short side quest, but I had looked forward to it for so long, and finally doing it felt amazing.

It's so hard to pick ten of so many fun side quests, and I'm sure my top favourites change all the time. This game has definitely entertained my need for messing around and straying away from the main task at hand. I'm really sorry, Zelda. While you were straining yourself keeping Calamity Ganon at bay I was... catching cuccos and baking cakes.

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