The Hildabrand questline in Final Fantasy 14 stars the titular character as a bumbling detective that you, the player, ended up helping out from time to time. Besides the detective's associates that act like they're in a detective anime, it's almost as if he's a cartoon character come to life in the serious world of Final Fantasy and lots of strange and funny things happens him and his friends that you get to witness and see close ups of hilarious facial animations that dev team could make. In the end of most of his stories he ends up helping his client become a better person somehow while you end up with a pretty cool boss fight to deal with in the mean time. Well that's the gist of what happens in the Hildabrand side story of Final Fantasy 14.

What I'm asking for is there ever a story like that PSO2 or will we never figure out why we were fighting enemies that were talking like that fat draconian guy on the floating throne?

I mean. If you were paying attention to the story of EP1/2; the Draconians arent all bad; and were actually being corrupted. There's even a quest line where you go through (and are supposed) to save them / not kill them. Vol Dragon also has a similar quest line.

But specifically a comic relief side-story? I think those also already exist as the 'side character' story arcs. For instance the robo-girl that's obsessed with guns etc.

Otherwise idk if you're going to find exactly the same type of motif that you may be looking for tbqh

PSO2 storyline has became linear without much so called "side story"

There used to be some choices when it was still on the matterboard system - and trust me you don't really want to go back to that. All of the sub story in the current story mission were optional cutscenes and there were quite a few of them removed. Like at the end of EP1, for the ARKS league or whatever it's called - you actually could choose someone other than Afin to accompany you. Other than Afin, at the end you get to fight Klariskrys or Huey and cutscene would be different whether you win or lose against them.

If you are looking for comic-relief, there's some funny parts in EP4 and the whole Apprentice arc in EP5 is comedy.

@HarmlessSyan Those were all main story content. The Hildibrand questline was 100% entirely optional. The closest we have are the character side stories. I think the closest we have is the scion trainer storyline from episodes 5 and 6 starting with Stratos' side story in episode 5 (it's the only side story that lasts for more than one episode IIRC just like Hildibrand got a new side story after the main story of every expansion except in Shadowbringers apparently, RIP "Gentleman of Darkness" jokes) but that doesn't contain any combat like the Hildibrand questline does.

@Raes said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

I mean. If you were paying attention to the story of EP1/2; the Draconians arent all bad; and were actually being corrupted. There's even a quest line where you go through (and are supposed) to save them / not kill them. Vol Dragon also has a similar quest line.

But specifically a comic relief side-story? I think those also already exist as the 'side character' story arcs. For instance the robo-girl that's obsessed with guns etc.

Otherwise idk if you're going to find exactly the same type of motif that you may be looking for tbqh

Yeah, I do know that Draconians are not evil which is why I want them around in New Genesis even if they're addressed in that game's later episodes. But the throne one seems like he could be a classic RPG villain all on his own with his own kind of story. Same goes for the Nightfallers, although if it wasn't for the fact that they're [redacted]

@HarmlessSyan said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

PSO2 storyline has became linear without much so called "side story"

There used to be some choices when it was still on the matterboard system - and trust me you don't really want to go back to that. All of the sub story in the current story mission were optional cutscenes and there were quite a few of them removed. Like at the end of EP1, for the ARKS league or whatever it's called - you actually could choose someone other than Afin to accompany you. Other than Afin, at the end you get to fight Klariskrys or Huey and cutscene would be different whether you win or lose against them.

If you are looking for comic-relief, there's some funny parts in EP4 and the whole Apprentice arc in EP5 is comedy.

I'd rather not deal with the Matterboard system either even if some other people wanted it back. I actually prefer the storylines to go in the same manner of the original PSO's stories. It'll be nice to know that they'll be some comic-relief stories which I'll assume will be set after the Episode's main plot like the others.

@Mattwo7 said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

@HarmlessSyan Those were all main story content. The Hildibrand questline was 100% entirely optional. The closest we have are the character side stories. I think the closest we have is the scion trainer storyline from episodes 5 and 6 starting with Stratos' side story in episode 5 (it's the only side story that lasts for more than one episode IIRC just like Hildibrand got a new side story after the main story of every expansion except in Shadowbringers apparently, RIP "Gentleman of Darkness" jokes) but that doesn't contain any combat like the Hildibrand questline does.

I see, so those are the side stories, I figured as much but I didn't want it to be true that we'll never get answers to some of the enemies we've been fighting and never figure out who Nyau is and why does he keep challenging us to a fight and have teleportation powers. As far as I figured Nyau might be the only character who would have a story like Hildabrand or at the very least a Hildabrand-like character.

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

I see, so those are the side stories, I figured as much but I didn't want it to be true that we'll never get answers to some of the enemies we've been fighting and never figure out who Nyau is and why does he keep challenging us to a fight and have teleportation powers. As far as I figured Nyau might be the only character who would have a story like Hildabrand or at the very least a Hildabrand-like character.

There is a more comedic character when it comes to side story cutscenes, the summoner class representative (he starts getting cutscenes on episode 4).

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

I see, so those are the side stories, I figured as much but I didn't want it to be true that we'll never get answers to some of the enemies we've been fighting and never figure out who Nyau is and why does he keep challenging us to a fight and have teleportation powers. As far as I figured Nyau might be the only character who would have a story like Hildabrand or at the very least a Hildabrand-like character.

Explaining who Nyau is would require the devs to properly tie the game directly to Phantasy Star Classic (Nyau is most likely a descendant or ancestor of Myau (because Omega contains the knowledge of all of time, we don't know when or where Alis and Lutz came from, they could come from the future or the past and even an alternate universe like the PSU/PSP2i cameos in the Japanese version, Earth in Episode 4 and the settings of Nova and Idola)) instead of constantly referencing it, which I doubt they'd ever do.

@Ezodagrom said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

I see, so those are the side stories, I figured as much but I didn't want it to be true that we'll never get answers to some of the enemies we've been fighting and never figure out who Nyau is and why does he keep challenging us to a fight and have teleportation powers. As far as I figured Nyau might be the only character who would have a story like Hildabrand or at the very least a Hildabrand-like character.

There is a more comedic character when it comes to side story cutscenes, the summoner class representative (he starts getting cutscenes on episode 4).

I knew the guy was eccentric, but I didn't think that he would end up being silly as well. Episode 4 is going to be interesting.

@Mattwo7 said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

I see, so those are the side stories, I figured as much but I didn't want it to be true that we'll never get answers to some of the enemies we've been fighting and never figure out who Nyau is and why does he keep challenging us to a fight and have teleportation powers. As far as I figured Nyau might be the only character who would have a story like Hildabrand or at the very least a Hildabrand-like character.

Explaining who Nyau is would require the devs to properly tie the game directly to Phantasy Star Classic (Nyau is most likely a descendant or ancestor of Myau (because Omega contains the knowledge of all of time, we don't know when or where Alis and Lutz came from, they could come from the future or the past and even an alternate universe like the PSU/PSP2i cameos in the Japanese version, Earth in Episode 4 and the settings of Nova and Idola)) instead of constantly referencing it, which I doubt they'd ever do.

They don't really need to go that far to explain about Nyau's attacks on you, a simple explanation like "he wants to be a hero like you and forces you to spar with him without telling you this" or "he has someone he wants to fight." Basically something like that, there's no need to go into that much history of his design, just a reason why he keeps showing up.

@Guilrel Not just Ep4, he also gets cutscenes during Ep5 and 6. ^^

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

They don't really need to go that far to explain about Nyau's attacks on you, a simple explanation like "he wants to be a hero like you and forces you to spar with him without telling you this" or "he has someone he wants to fight." Basically something like that, there's no need to go into that much history of his design, just a reason why he keeps showing up.

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

and never figure out who Nyau is

and have teleportation powers

Your questions, not mine.

@Ezodagrom Oops, let me write an actual reply first.

Aw geez, I'm trying to write a reply but I keep hitting wrong buttons.

@Ezodagrom said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

@Guilrel Not just Ep4, he also gets cutscenes during Ep5 and 6. ^^

I figured. I don't think all the characters we met would just disappear entirely but if he's the closest thing to being like Hildabrand or his allies, then I guess we'll have a good amount of side story content to enjoy.

@Mattwo7 said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

They don't really need to go that far to explain about Nyau's attacks on you, a simple explanation like "he wants to be a hero like you and forces you to spar with him without telling you this" or "he has someone he wants to fight." Basically something like that, there's no need to go into that much history of his design, just a reason why he keeps showing up.

@Guilrel said in Does this game have a Hildabrand-like side story?:

and never figure out who Nyau is

and have teleportation powers

Your questions, not mine.

I meant in regards to who he is in this universe even if he draws his power based on his previous incarnations, I don't think it should be too complicated to explain him.

@GM-Deynger And this is exactly why people should be able to delete their own posts...

What? What am I deleting?

@GM-Deynger He's simply asking that users like us should have the ability to delete our comments to the thread if we make mistakes like I did. I was trying to edit the current post I accidently made before I finished and I ended up making up another by mistake so I had to write my actual responses on the latest duplicate.

Edit: Basically, we need to be allowed to delete duplicate posts if we made one accidently and there was nothing there.