How important are the side quests?

[Unknown_Gamer]

So I played the cold steel series and to prepare for Reverie and Kuro (in like 5 years) I wanted to play the other games. So I was wondering are any of the side quests important to the story throughout the series (like is there a mention of a side quest in the other games)? Or can I just play through the story only in the sky games and not lose anything when playing later games?

[Berahlen]

Nothing plot crucial. A few of the sidequests continue between the first and second games, and a carried-over file will have some flavor dialogue when people you helped recognize you. It's not critical but it's a lot of worldbuilding.

Mechanically you miss out on a few unique rewards, a few replaceable things that show up early, and bracer rank which carries a lot of unique endgame accessories.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

Sidequests aren't essential to the plot (which is why they're sidequests), but they do:

1): Flesh out the world and it's characters, and often give all sorts of little details about them. Your job as a Bracers is essentially 'do RPG sidequests' so it's kinda silly if you never do them. Returning NPC's will also remember the quests you did for them, even across games (FC to SC), which further reinforces the verisimilitude of the world.
2): Get you useful items such as Quartz and Accessories that you'd otherwise would never get, or not until much later in the game.
3): Get you money (Mira). Sidequests are by far the easiest way to get money, and you'll need it to buy new equipment all the time.
4): Get you Bracer Points (BP) which are a measure of how good you are at your job and which allow you to go up in rank, which in turn gets you even more useful items.

So yeah, you might be able to ignore the sidequests and still make it to the end of the game, but you'd be seriously gimping yourself and missing out on a lot of worldbuilding and fun. What's the point of that?

Also, you have more than a year from now to play the Sky games before Zero comes out, and then approximately half a year each for Zero and Azure before Reverie comes out, so there's no need to rush. Take your time, enjoy and have fun!

[Stabbey]

Yeah, these games are best played taking your time. Rushing through them misses a lot of the point of playing them in the first place.

Even if the other games come out before you finish, there's nothing stopping you from buying those games when they come out and waiting to play them when you finish with the others. (Other than, you know, being unsure whether you would like them or if they would run,.)

[kamikaze4kanojo]

I get it, you know they are long games, and you might be put off by how old they are, and don't really want to spend from now to 2023 slogging through them with 100% completion.

I didn't try ignoring side quests so I don't know for sure, but, I think you can probably get away with ignoring them. I would only attempt it on Normal skill. Expect that you won't be able to afford all the best gear at every point in the game, but a lot of the best gear is found in dungeons anyway. Levelling up isn't going to be a massive deal either, due to the scaling of XP gain vs harder enemies (you will do less fights but get more XP from the ones you do).

At least do all the 'exterminate monster' quests though, aye?

[Devalaous]

The sidequests are rarely filler, as you get a lot of character development out of most of them. The only filler quests are the monster killing ones, as those are, with one exception, just a challenge to fight. Some quests will affect the story to a small degree even, especially in SC, and most of the quest givers will remember you later.