Collection Sidequest

"Saving the world can wait, I almost have a full horoscope!"

"But if you wanna find everything, get yourself a guide and a sandwich, because you're in for a long haul."

— TOM 3.0, in his review of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on Toonami.

Everyone knows that no hero can resist collecting things in video games. The Collection Sidequest can be the ultimate time waster in a game, if the player ends up collecting completely useless items for the sake of owning them, often for 100% Completion. But once in a while, they give rewards that make the effort worth it.

Many games (especially RPGs) have some kind of optional collectible hidden throughout the game, usually to have no purpose but to be required for 100% Completion. But there are frequently rewards for getting certain numbers of them, and collecting them all often gives you a powerful (but frequently unneeded) item, or unlocks a super-hard Optional Boss.

If you're lucky, the game will keep track of how many you've found and how many are left. If you're really, really, lucky, the game will even provide a way to tell which ones you've already found, so that when you inevitably look up on the internet where the last 2 of 500 are, you'll know which ones you need without trying them all.

At least one is likely to be Permanently Missable. Recollection Sidequest is a Sub-Trope where the collectables are flashbacks of an Amnesiac Hero's backstory.

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Examples:

Video Games

• 2Dark: Every level has around a dozen of hidden candies to collect, and your final star rating is affected by how many you have found. They do serve a practical gameplay function - they help to quiet the children you are rescuing, or attract their attention so that they don't stray too far - but it's still a pretty bizarre element in such a dark game
• Afterimage: The "Words of Shenlong" sidequest from the fairy Se requires you to find all Shenlong Glyphs all over Engardin, and then return to her.
• Anachronox has a few of these, namely taking pictures of little nonentities that appear in obscure places for extremely short times with long times between appearances and collecting TACOs. TACOs are given a long in-game explanation that amounts to something much like beanie babies, where someone noticed something was popular, created them, people started collecting them madly, then the market collapsed and nobody wanted them anymore, which now makes them rare. They are a small box with a rotating radar dish on top, and "TACO" on the side. TACO stands for Totally Arbitrary Collectible Object.
• ANNO: Mutationem: Cyber Nekos and Posters are collectibles that are hidden throughout several areas. Unlike many collectibles in games, the Cyber Neko also work as currency that Ann can exchange for cosmetics, such as new outfits or alternate designs for her vehicle.
• Assassin's Creed:
  • Assassin's Creed: The flags were put in as a mockery of this trope. The developer joked that no one would collect hundreds for no reward except for an achievement
  • Assassin's Creed II much improves on its predecessor; the number of things to be collected is reduced greatly, most are much easier to find, and most of all, you actually get rewards: special armour for collecting the seals, challenging puzzles and a nifty cinematic for collecting the glyphs, money for getting the treasures chests, and a hammer, special cloak, and closure to a certain subplot for collecting the feathers. The Codex Pages are somewhere halfway between this trope and Plot Coupon. They're treated as a useful Side Quest until the very end of the game, where collecting all 30 is required to access the Very Definitely Final Dungeon. That being said, the game subtly encourages you to collect them in several cutscenes, and you can start doing so at any time, even before Ezio becomes an Assassin.
• Baten Kaitos has two; Pieces of the Star Map and members of Quzman's family, as well as every kind of Magnus there is.
• The Batman: Arkham Series has Riddler trophies, green glowing question marks that either are locked behind a puzzle or just lie around for Batman to collect. In each game (sans Origins, where he escapes), collecting all of them results in Riddler's arrest, either by Batman or unseen police officers.
• The Bayonetta series has the Umbran Tears Of Blood, half of which are collected through an Achievement System and the other half through collecting small crows scattered through the various levels. The first game features a whopping 101 Umbran tears (50 Achievements/51 Crows), and the sequel has just 50 (30 Achievements/20 Crows). In both games, they unlock the same accessories, Eternal Testimony (automatically replenishes 2 Magic Orbs when empty) for collecting half the Tears, and the Climax Bracer (endless Serious Mode in the first game, endless magic in the second) for getting all of them. There's also the many Journals that can be collected throughout the levels, but beyond getting all of them being a requirement for getting one of the Umbran Tears, all they do is give backstory for characters, history, and locations in the game.
• BioShock: The Little Sisters. There's even an achievement for this mandatory collection sidequest, because you need to deal with every Little Sister to gather ADAM, used for upgrades in-game. This is made even harder in BioShock 2, where Subjects Delta and Sigma not only have to kill the Big Daddy defending the Little Sister, but proceed to do the same job three times against waves of angry Splicers before they can harvest enough ADAM.
• Blast Corps has RDUs, satellite beacons, survivors, and scientists. Like the main plot, the rationale is threadbare.
• Bomb Chicken: Littered through every level are blue gems. Their practical purpose is that you can can use them to purchase extra lives, but many gamers also see collecting them all as a test of their puzzle-platforming skills.
• BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm has plenty of these. The biggest involves finding 30 Bitcoins, which can be used as currency at a special accessory shop. There's also the seven keys to unlock the Deep Web, the four Sacred Seeds for Mint Leaf's garden, and the six Rare NES Games, which can be traded to a collector to unlock special skills.
• Brave Fencer Musashi has the Minku, which drop Longevity Berries when caught. The action figures can also count, though there seems to be no apparent reward for collecting them (and one or two of those are a serious Guide Dang It! and/or potential Permanently Missable Content).
• Bread & Fred: There are various photographs scattered across the mountain that the titular duo of Cartoon Penguins is attempting to scale. Collecting these rewards the player with the pictures themselves, along with tidbits of lore recounting the history of the old penguin who lost them in the first place.
• Bully: Collect all 75 rubber bands and all 40 Grottos and Gremlins cards; destroy all 27 pumpkins, all 25 garden gnomes, and all 19 tombstones. And Your Reward Is Clothes, plus some mementos for your room.
• Chicory: A Colorful Tale: Many collectibles are scattered all around Picnic, including lost kids, litter, clothes, brush styles, and a mail delivery quest.
• Club Penguin many many examples. You had to complete certain tasks in the minigames, parties, or the island itself to earn stamps. Another thing to collect were the pins, which were hidden. Every month brought a new pin.
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn had crates with nuclear components hidden underneath some enemy buildings when playing the Nod campaign. The game's FAQ file said the full set had to be collected to get the nuclear missile in the final mission. In the end, the whole system was removed with a patch (v1.19) because the number of collected crates was not reliably saved in the game's savegames. With the patch, players simply always get the nuke in the last mission.
• Crackdown:
  • The first game has you pick up agility orbs, hidden orbs, and stunt rings that require you to jump at them with a vehicle. They serve a useful purpose as they increase your stats, but you're guaranteed to max out your agility long before collecting all 500 agility orbs and all other stats are more easily raised in combat.
  • A DLC adds collecting cars for the Agency garage.
  • Crackdown 2 has all this and also audio logs (short messages of plot exposition), online orbs that can only be collected in multiplayer, renegade agility and driving orbs that fly away from you so you have to chase them, on foot or in a car depending on type, and another type of stunt rings you have to collect by gliding with the "wingsuit".
• In the Crash Bandicoot series, you not only have to find all of the crystals, you also have to find all of the gems.
• The Crew features a collection sidequest where you hunt down abandoned wrecks. Completion results in a new car. It's implied that you're scavenging parts from the wrecks to build the new car, thus giving an in-game explanation.
• Dark Chronicle has the photography sidequest. Many of the photos you can take aren't useful for anything except photography points.
• Death's Door: Shiny Things. Over the course of the game, the player can find random collectibles, which can give hints about the world and the lore of the world, but they're usually hidden away and require investigating. Only one of them is necessary to complete the main story, but three of them are necessary for the post-game: Old Photograph, used to solve a puzzle and find the secret garden; Rusty Belltower Key, to access the belltower; and the Mysterious Locket, which unlocks an Optional Boss fight necessary for the Golden Ending. The Shiny things you collect are exhibited in your desk on the headquarters and in the main screen.
• Bluepoint Games' Demon's Souls remake features 13 ceramic coins hidden throughout the game, only available in Fractured mode and on certain world tendencies. Trading 26 of these (only possible in New Game Plus) to Sparkly the Crow gets you a rusted key, which can be used on a hidden door in Boletaria Palace. Behind that door is the Penetrator's armor set. The coins can not be traded with other players, as dropping them on the ground shatters them, and the area with the armor set is in an invisible box, so you can't glitch through it.
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution has this in the form of its Doctorate achievement, which requires collecting 29 "XP Books" which, unlike most pieces of flavour text in the game, only appear once and can easily be a case of Permanently Missable Content. Needless to say, apart from their slight XP bonus, they offer no purpose but to provide more lore for the world.
• Disaster Report: You can collect compasses across playthroughs, which can be equipped and displayed on the HUD.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Mini-Medals in most of games from Dragon Quest III onward.
  • Dragon Quest V: The PS2 and the DS versions includes Knick-knacks. Lots of Knick-knacks. Some of which can be used as equipment.
• Dungeon Siege: The second installment gives the player no fewer than three sidequests that involve collecting magical reagents. At the same time, the game subverts this by letting you just buy the damned things from a merchant.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • In general, throughout the series, you can make unofficial collection quests out of whatever you want. Want to collect all of the game's legendary artifacts? Absolutely. Want to pick up a copy of every in-game book? Heck yes. Want to collect every piece of a type of Shop Fodder instead? You can do that too. Weapons, armor, wheels of cheese, pots, skulls, forks, bolts of cloth, specific Organ Drops... The list goes on. And because most games allow you to purchase or build a home (or several), you'll have a handy place for storing whatever it is you've chosen to collect.
  • In Daggerfall, quests are well-rounded, but do contain their quota of collection missions. The main quest includes a good number of fetch quests. There is also that Merchant quest where you have to retrieve four gold bars - one from a house, one from a bank, one from a palace, and one from a dungeon.
  • Morrowind features several. The Threads of the Webspinner quest for the Morag Tong has you finding 26 enchanted items with a major case of Guide Dang It!. Finding all of the Propylon Indexes is an unofficial one, though you can turn them in for a "Master Index" in an official add-on. The "Eggs of Gold" quest for the Fighters Guild is another. The eggs are thankfully all in the same area, but weigh 30lbs each, which makes carrying them all at once rather challenging.
  • Oblivion has this in form of a Nirnroot (a semi-rare plant only found near or in bodies of water) sidequest which has you collect 100 of these.
  • Skyrim has the "No Stone Unturned" quest, in which you must find 24 Stones of Barenziah to turn in to a Thieves' Guild NPC, after which you go to a dungeon to find the crown from which the Stones were originally from. Your reward is a perk that raises the probability of finding gems in treasure chests.
  • If that isn't enough, there's a massive mod called Legacy of the Dragonborn. It adds a massive museum with a slot for practically every unique item in the game, displays for all the regular weapons and armor, and unique displays showing off choices you've made in the game. It also adds loads more items to find in case your kleptomania was still unsatisfied.
• In Endeavor, though there isn't a reward for this, an optional challenge is to touch every flower and find every gem in the game.
• Epic Battle Fantasy 5 introduced Monster Cards in the v2 update, a set of 50 trading cards which grant bonuses when collected - increasing maximum SP, making Summons more powerful, increasing gold from enemies, or making enemies easier to capture. Collecting 25 earns the "Trading Cards" medal, whilst collecting all 50 earns "Card Shark".
• Endless Ocean has several treasure and coin collection sidequests in its two games.
• Eternal Sonata has score pieces and EZI items. Neither can be completed on the first playthrough, and the EZI items won't be carried over into a New Game Plus so you need to start over. You only get an Achievement for finishing each collection, though the score pieces can be used to acquire useful items during the game.
• The Evil Within 2: Photo slides. Spread around town are small slides Sebastian can collect; gathering all ten of them unlocks an eleventh one that gives a Sequel Hook to the game.
• The Fable series has a number of variations on this, including the Silver Keys, the Hero Dolls from the first two games, and the rare books from the third game.
• Fallout:
  • Fallout 3 has a quest where you wander the wastelands looking for bottles of Nuka-Cola Quantum. This creates a bizarre conflict of interest—cashing them in eventually rewards you with the final schematic for Infinity Plus One Grenades, which require the extremely-limited Quantum as an ingredient.
  • Fallout: New Vegas has two: Collecting snowglobes in certain places of the game that can be given to Mr. House, who collects them, for a good amount of cash. There's also the "Legend of the Star" sidequest, where you collect 50 Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Caps for a story about the origins of Sunset Sarsaparilla, which later leads to a bunch of bottle caps and a very powerful laser pistol.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Triple Triad in Final Fantasy VIII. Some of the rare, hard-to-get Character Cards can also be transformed into extremely rare and powerful potions, like Holy War or Hero Drink. But of course, no real collector would trade his precious Gilgamesh Card for 10 potions that can turn your entire party invulnerable for several turns.
  • The thirteen Stellazio coins in Final Fantasy IX.
  • While not a standard collection quest, it is worth mentioning that in Final Fantasy XI, ever since the inception of the game, there was a pair of Elvaan whom you had the choice of collecting 10000 moat carp for, either fished or purchased, it didn't matter. Fishing them was simple, but slow. Handing in the fish earns you what is now the game's second best fishing rod (and required to get the best), as well as a key item called a Testimonial, which reads as follows.
    "This testimonial is given to attest that this person has collected no less than 10000 Moat Carp. Please spend your time in a manner more beneficial to society. The only thing noteworthy of this achievement is its utter lack of meaning. With heartfelt disapproval, (The two brothers)"
  • Final Fantasy XIII has a particularly vicious sidequest of collecting every weapon and accessory in the game, which gives you the "Treasure Hunter" achievement. The "vicious" part here is that a lot of said items can be Permanently Missable if you miss the single spot they can be found in the entire 50+ hour-long game. Add to that the fact that "Treasure Hunter" comes with an interface theme featuring one of the more popular characters in the game, Fang, and it becomes plain sadistic.
• Freddi Fish has purple sea urchins.
• Game Master Plus: The Blue Crystals can be delivered to the jeweler for rewards. These crystals are disguised as ordinary objects that are usually indicated by having a blue color scheme. The jeweler is part of a conspiracy to delete and replace the world of Espheria, and the crystals give him the power to do so. This results in Elsa fighting him as a boss and learning about the truth behind the digital world, leading to the true ending of the game.
• Garfield's Fun Fest: Levels usually have a kind of collectible for Garfield to gather, depending on the levels' type. In each category, getting all of them in every level nets you an Award:
  • Dingle balls are collected during the Odie-riding stages.
  • Red balloons are collected during the paraglider stages.
  • Each on-foot platformer levels has Pooky as a collectible. It's well-hidden in some of them.
• In Ghostrunner, you can find various collectible items and occasional audiologs scattered throughout the levels. They can shed some light on the backstory of the world and its characters
• God of War (PS4):
  • Each major area in the game has a group of four to eight artifacts sprinkled throughout that Kratos can collect for some money and 100% completion. Most are fairly flavorful, like the mystical masks near the Witch's house or the cups that once belonged to the giants in the mountain.
  • There are over 50 of Odin's Ravens stationary throught the world that serve no purpose but to be killed by Kratos in order to gain 100% completion (plus some experience for killing them all). It does continue a trend of sidequest dedicated to finding and "collecting" means of Sinister Surveillance from games like Batman: Arkham City and inFAMOUS: Second Son.
• Go Vacation has the Treasure Chests and the Photo Ops. Each treasure chest offers you new clothes to wear, but the photo ops are just that... places to take pictures.
• Grand Theft Auto has objects to collect for no given in-game reason, photographs to take, and cars to collect. It's needed for 100% completion, but they also give rewards such as free weapons at your safehouse, that can be picked up as many times as you need.
  • In Grand Theft Auto III, you collect packages of what's assumed to be Spank, the drug du jour of Liberty City. Each 10 packages (of 100) grants you an additional weapon at your safehouse.
  • In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City you have to collect Maltese Falcons. Again, each 10 gives you a new weapon. After collecting enough of them, a broken one appears in the first safehouse with cocaine pouring out.
  • In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas you have to spray the opposing gangs' tags, take pictures of certain things, and collect horseshoes. Completing each of the three collection quests gives you certain weapons at certain hideouts.
  • In Grand Theft Auto IV you "collect" pigeons by shooting them.
  • Grand Theft Auto V has several collection sidequests (letter scraps, spaceship pieces, Epsilon tracts, submarine pieces). In an interesting twist, completing some collection sidequests unlocks a separate mission. Meanwhile, in the online mode of the game, an update added playing cards to find.
• The Great Gaias: The player can collect up to 110 Celestium Shards, with prizes for every tenth shard. These shards are broken pieces of the Celestial Realm, which have enough power that the shard collector can make powerful equipment from them.
• Grey Area (2023): Each world, except for the last one, has 10 hidden items scattered throughout. Finding them all will unlock a new ability to use in the next world. Sometimes, getting some of these items will require you to use an ability from a previous item, so you can't do them in any order.
• The Harvest Moon series has a couple in completing your recipe and shipping lists. Some game items are rare, only occur in certain places at certain times, or you have to make yourself. And half the time, you need two of said item: One to ship and one to use as an ingredient. If 100% Completion isn't used as a requirement to unlock a marriage candidate (Usually the Harvest Goddess), it's pure Bragging Rights Reward.
• Each level in Heavenly Bodies has a hidden collectible you have to complete one of the level's Hidden Challenges. Most you have to bring back to the starting area from the precarious position they've been placed in.
• Henry Stickmin: The Collection offers Character Bios. You obtain a character's bio by right-clicking on them. Each game has their own mini-collection quest; Prison (doughnuts), Diamond (paintings), Complex (appearances by a G-Man Captain Ersatz), and Mission (Among Us character plushies) have separate collection sidequests of their own.
• Tiny Medals in freeware RPG Hero's Realm.
• Red jewels in Illusion of Gaia are found throughout the game, with a grand total of fifty of them. Collecting them and talking to the Jeweler gives Will various upgrades, including longer health bars and bonuses to special attacks. The trouble is that most of these jewels are Permanently Missable after completing certain dungeons since leaving a continent means you can never return to it. The red jewels are found in very obscure places, and the game gives you no hints whatsoever about where they might be located. Managing to find all fifty is difficult, but doing so provides access to the Superboss. The original SNES release was also nice enough to include the locations of all fifty red jewels in its instruction booklet, just because they were so hard to find.
• Infamous has blast shards. They actually have an effect on the game, as collecting certain amounts of them gives Cole more space to store energy, helping him in combat.
• Infinite Undiscovery also has a "get all the items in the game" collection. With the critical difference that there is no visible list or any other way of telling how close you are to finishing it or if one of the many missable items was lost forever.
• In Jade Cocoon 2, you collect a whole heap of figurines of various characters - which serve no purpose, other than being a lasting depiction of particular "states" characters have been in (such as catching the main character's "Angelic Form" from right before the final battle). There are even Special Chrome Edition statues to collect.
• Just Cause has collect missions that help you get better stuff (vehicles, guns, etc.) from your allies.
• Kindergarten has Monstermon cards, 25 in the first game and 50 in the sequel. Some are hidden around the school, others are obtained by doing certain things at certain times, and in the sequel you get a few of them by completing different characters' missions and, once you've collected enough to make a deck, beating them in Monstermon battles. Once you've finished the story, you're given hints for how to get all the ones you're missing, and when you've collected all of them, you unlock a secret ending. The sequel also has outfits for you to collect, most of them copies of different characters' outfits. You earn these too by completing story missions or doing certain things at certain times, many of which involve killing the character whose outfit you get.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kingdom Hearts:
  • Dalmatian puppies, 99 in all (the two parents are already home at the start of the game to account for all 101). You also find the puppies in sets of three, meaning there are really only 33 chests that contain them. On the bright side, you get rewards at specific intervals for collecting them, with the reward for all 99 being a respectable amount of EVERY ship part in the game. Unfortunately the second game didn't have this and instead one of its major collectathons was actually getting all the ship parts. On the down side, one of the chests (accessed via a red Trinity Mark) becomes Permanently Missable if you don't collect it prior to defeating Oogie Boogie in Halloween Town (luckily, the Japan-only remake and the Updated Re-Release for PS3 fixed this by relocating that particular Trinity Mark).
    • There's a minor side quest in Traverse Town in which ten Postcards are scattered around and must be mailed to receive a reward each (healing items, synthesis items, and two consumable stat-boosting items). While six can be found during the first trip, total completion requires use of the Thunder Spell (gained in the first trip to Olympus Coliseum), the ability to use Green Trinity Marks (gained for clearing Agrabah), and access to Geppetto's house (gained by clearing Monstro).
  • Kingdom Hearts II:
    • Early in the game, the Heartless steal pages out of the Winnie the Pooh book and cause Pooh's memories to get erased. Sora gets tasked with finding all of the pages to restore the book and Pooh's memories.
    • The Final Mix version adds 144 puzzle pieces to grab throughout the worlds, which are then used to piece together 6 images. Once you complete an image, you are rewarded with a rare or one-of-a-kind item.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: After getting the Gummiphone, the player is introduced to Lucky Emblems (i.e. Hidden Mickeys)—ninety icons of Mickey's head that are hidden throughout the worlds. Taking pictures of them allows Sora to receive eighteen special rewards (be they Items, Accessories, Armor, or an Orichalcum+, one of seven required to make the Ultima Weapon keychain) after photographing a certain total amount. As a bonus, if a certain amount are photographed (which varies depending on the difficulty level - thirty on Proud Mode, sixty on Standard Mode and all ninety on Beginner Mode), it unlocks the secret ending.
  • Every game since II has a checklist in the journal of every treasure chest you can find in every world. They also list the contents of those chests you've already opened, making the inevitable GameFAQs trip a lot shorter. The only reward is a Mickey head of 100% Completion.
• In Kingdom of Loathing, this is a huge part of the metagame, as you can get a display case and fill it with tiny plastic versions of some of the monsters you fight, or of any random thing in the game if you want. There are also trophies you get for doing strange things in game, tattoos you can get for collecting outfits, and the various familiars you can acquire.
• The MSX ROMs in La-Mulana. Most of them do nothing useful when equipped in any combination, though a few are essential. The game is remarkably merciful in showing exactly which ROMs you have, though tracking down the ones you don't is a very big Guide Dang It!. One hidden NPC who gives you a ROM promises "something good will happen" if you find all of them, but this is not true.
• In Lara Croft GO, many levels have hidden urns hidden containing pieces of jewels to collect. The urns are often in places where Lara can't actually go, so they're more a collection quest for the player than for her.
• The Last Airbender has 100 coins scattered throughout the game. Each level has a certain amount of collectables, which contain a piece of movie concept art. The art is specific to different nations based on the symbol on the coin.
• Stardust fragments in The Legend of Dragoon.
• The Legend of Heroes: Trails series often has a collection quest in the early start of games, gathering a variety of unique items throughout the story and completing it will present useful endgame items.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Heart containers, which are series-wide.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening: Secret Seashells are scattered through all of Koholint Island and can be traded in a manor found east of the island for a sword upgrade.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Golden Skulltulas' tokens, which are necessary to dispel the curse of an affected family in Kakariko Village. On a lesser scale, there's also a Big Poe hunt to deliver their souls to a character.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Masks, many of which in turn are collected after completing other sidequests. There are also collection quests in specific areas, such as Skulltula Tokens (in Skulltula Houses) and Stray Fairies (dungeons).
  • The Oracle Games have the ring collections. Some are useful, most are not.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: A variety of collectibles in the game, such as Treasure Charts (which themselves pinpoint various collectibles sunken in the sea like Heart Pieces, high-value Rupees and Special Charts), enemy drops that have each specific purposes, and delivery items.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: At Hyrule Town, Link can trade in the mysterious shells to obtain figurines of characters/enemies after he's encountered them once.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: The Poe Souls and golden bugs. The former are necessary to restore Jovani's body to normal, while the latter have to be delivered to Agitha to receive money rewards. Both characters await you in Hyrule Castle Town.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass: Treasure Charts and Spirit Gems. The former, like in The Wind Waker, pinpoint sunken collectibles; the latter are used to obtain unique upgrades. The game also has the numerous Ship Parts for the boat, divided in eight categories based on specific areas of the vehicle (cannon, stern, etc.)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: Train Parts, Rabbits, Force Gems and Train Stamps for the stamp book. The Train Parts work like the Ship Parts in Phantom Hourglass, as they help Link customize the Spirit Train and increase its Life Meter when a full set is in use; however, for the sake of convenience, the parts come in only four categories instead of eight. The Rabbits are spread all over Hyrule, and in each region there's a specific breed; bringing them to a rabbit corral northwest of the Forest Realm will yield rewards for Link. The Force Gems, earned by completing character-driven sidequests, unlock new rails for the Spirit Train to traverse, which in turns unlocks new shortcuts, new stations and lurking parts for Rabbits. The Train Stamps are located in major stations, and Link has to add their marks onto a book Niko entrusted to him; collecting 10 will allow Link to switch between his Hero Clothes and the train uniform, while collecting all 20 unlocks a sword skill.
  • Gratitude Crystals and Goddess Cubes in Skyward Sword. Bug collecting and enemy drops return as well, but they're used for Item Crafting.
  • Maiamais in A Link Between Worlds. Every ten you collect will let you upgrade an item (provided you've bought it from Ravio, rather than merely having rented it). Collecting all 100 unlocks an upgrade for your Spin Attack.
  • Breath of the Wild has the Spirit Orbs from the Shrines and the Korok Seeds. Getting a certain amount of each will get you a health or stamina upgrade for the former and an expanded inventory for the latter. Getting all of each will get you Link's Iconic Outfit for the former and an item that can make Hestu dance for the latter.
  • Cadence of Hyrule has Deku Nuts. Bringing 10 to Tingle will double your magic meter, and bringing an additional 10 will unlock Yves as a playable character.
  • Tears of the Kingdom returns with Korok Seeds and replaces Spirit Orbs with Lights of Blessing, both of which have seen an increase in number. There's also Sage's Wills to increase the power of the Sage's Avatar that follows you around, Bubbul Gems which can be traded to an NPC for monster parts and monster gear, Poes for rare items at specific statues, and Crystaline Charges which can increase your battery meter.
• Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail!: The "Where's Dildo?" sidequest, which involves finding all the red-and-white-striped dildos scattered around the ship.
• Little Big Adventure and its sequel have the clover boxes, which you can find lying around and which will increase your total extra lives. There are three clover box pick-ups in the first game, and the sequel has seven to eight. The eighth clover box is a special case which will only appear if you didn't grab the Island of the Volcano clover box beforehand.
• In many ways, LittleBigPlanet is one big Collection Sidequest. The things you collect expand your range of options in the editor.
• Little King's Story features many of these. Each of the game's seven princesses sends you to collect something, fortunately mostly things that you'll run across without backtracking. Plus, there's a quest to collect concept art throughout the game world.
• Dragon eggs in Lufia & The Fortress of Doom and Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals, four sets of eight. The latter game is rather unusual in that after finding the first set of eight, they're re-distributed into random treasure chests throughout the world that you've already opened.
• Mario Party:
  • Mario Party 4: There's a total of 60 birthday presents to collect in the game, and getting them all is a tall order: For each playable character, there are six presents that can be earned in Story Mode by becoming the Party Star of their respective boards (defeating the hosts in minigames is also required); since there are eight playable characters in the game, this means Story Mode has to be played at least eight times (once with each character) in order to gather 48 presents from that mode alone. Then there are 11 additional presents based on the boards' hosts, acquired by breaking records in certain minigames, and finally an extra present given when all others were earned.
  • Mario Party 6: The pages of the Miracle Books. They can be purchased in the Star Bank for varying Star prices, and getting them will show pop-up drawings of characters playing certain minigames. Purchasing all the pages is necessary to complete the game, as it will motivate Brighton and Twila to stop fighting (since the stars you use to pay for the pages are bought from them in the Party Mode sessions).
  • Mario Party 7: Fitting the game's vacation theme, it's possible to purchase several souvenirs based on the destinations (three per board). Once a souvenir is purchased, it can be viewed in detail from a stand; the player can then pick the Mic and say "Surprise" to make the souvenir perform a special action. Three souvenirs require the player to do something so they're available for purchased.^note The MSS Sea Star figurine requires that all boards are played at least once each, the Free-Play Sub figurine requires that all minigames are unlocked, and the Chop Chop Helicopter figurine requires that the Deluxe Cruise is played at least five times Lastly, the final three souvenirs can only be obtained from the King of the River mode, one per difficulty level, but you won't need to purchase them as they'll be given to you as direct rewards; something special about the very last souvenir is that Saying "Surprise" while looking at it will unlock the game's credits.
  • Mario Party DS: There's a wide array of trophies, figurines and badges that can be unlocked by completing achievements related to the game's various modes. Specifically, there are 30 Character Trophies, 71 Board Features, 25 Boss Trophies, and 30 Badges.
• Mario & Luigi
  • Superstar Saga has two collection sidequests in the castle town: collecting five stray Beanlets and digging up 10 Beanstones. Although the two side quests could become Permanently Missable if the plot goes too far ahead where Cackletta wrecks the Bean Bean Kingdom again, making the side quests vanish forever.
  • Bowser's Inside Story has the Blitties, cat-like block creatures that Bowser must "capture" by inhaling them in battle. Finding all of them unlocks Broggie as a Special Attack.
  • Pi'illos in Dream Team. Some Pi'illos are actually mandatory to progress in the game, but, like the Blitties, finding them all would unlock a special Bro Attack for Mario.
• Mass Effect has some extraordinarily silly examples of these: You fly around the galaxy surveying minerals and discovering needle-in-haystack objects like old letters displaying the insignia of a destroyed Turian colony or the dog tags of Salarian commandos killed centuries ago. It is not too bad when you can just scan the planet from orbit in order to discover them, and you do get an XP and cash reward, but when you have to drive around on the surface in the Mako and manually survey them, it is just tiresome.
• Max Payne 3 has two: Clues, which are interactive items that, like in the previous games, provide additional context to the story (but now count for an achievement), and Golden Gun parts, which allow you to use upgraded, gold-plated versions of the standard arsenal once all the parts for each gun are collected.
• The Messenger (2018): Collecting the 45 Power Seals is not necessary to beat the game, but unlocks the Windmill Shuriken.
• Metal Gear:
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty has dog tags, which you get by holding up enemy soldiers, with a wide set of guards who have different tags per difficulty. If you collect enough, you unlock things for the two chapters, the Tanker's tags getting you Snake's infinite-ammo bandana and stealth camo, and the Plant's ones getting the same stealth camo and a larger variety of wigs with different effects (including infinite oxygen while underwater for Raiden.
  • Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain: Many missions in the game have collection elements tied into them.
    • In order to unlock pieces for your Mother Base emblem, they must be earned by completing various tasks through the game (getting certain ranks, accomplishing all mission tasks, completing a mission using a certain playstyle). This quickly runs into Gotta Catch Them All territory when factoring in the emblem pieces that are only offered through the FOB mode.
    • Many blueprints (27 in all) have to be collected by either completing Dispatch Missions (where soldiers from Mother Base are sent away for a set period of time to complete a task), or via optional tasks in certain main missions.
    • The Animal Conservation Platform. Soon after Diamond Dogs is formed, Kaz calls you to relay that a contract was sent to him from an environmental NGO that wants them to rescue animals. You can then rescue animals (large and small) throughout the Afghanistan and Africa operating theaters, which will be sent to a separate platform to live. Completing this sidequest (via catching one of every animal) is a requirement for 100% Completion.
    • There's also the Cardboard Box Delivery sidequest, which isn't explained properly in the game itself. Each base has a "Delivery Point" where an invoice can be taken from it. Doing so unlocks that base as a fast-travel destination on the map, but it requires you to have a Cardboard Box and know that sitting in the box on the delivery point will open up the option to go to another place. Collecting all of the invoices in one region unlocks a water-resistant Cardboard Box (which won't fall apart in inclement weather conditions), and collecting all invoices in both regions unlocks a smoke-deploying box that shoots out a smoke screen when destroyed.
    • The "Paz Photos", which are collected by completing the Wandering Mother Base Soldier side missions and returning to the secret room on the Medical Platform. Collecting all of them unlocks a set of additional audio cassettes and the final "Morpho Butterfly" photo after the final cutscene is viewed.
• The Mystery Trackers series have an achievement that involves finding all the frogs in a particular game, while several other hidden object games have one for "void objects", which shift from one object to another and then back again.
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2's S missions just give you a certificate for completion.
• In The Night of the Rabbit you can collect eight audiobooks with stories about the game setting Mousewood, 32 dewdrops hidden through Mousewood (which reveals that your mentor Marquis de Hoto was also the mentor of the Big Bad Great Zaroff), and 32 cards which can be used to play a mini game.
• No More Heroes:
  • The first game features this in the form of collectible cards. You must beat the game twice minimum if you fail to acquire one of the cards on a playthrough. The second playthrough allows you to collect a new, different, second set of cards. Other collectibles include Lovikov Balls (which are used to earn new skills) and unique T-shirts hidden in the city of Santa Destroy.
  • No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle: The trope is downplayed due to the absence of an overworld, but there are still many goodies (such as Bizarre Jelly 5 posters and special furniture for Travis' room) that are present in the rank stage as well as in the optional Revenge Missions.
  • No More Heroes III: There are many collectibles and similar quantifiable features that are tied to sidequests, and can be found as Travis explores Santa Destroy and the other playable cities: Scorpions that Travis has to grab carefully and deliver to a Sushi kiosk close to the No More Heroes motel, Moai statues Travis is tasked to destroy, soils where he is tasked to plant magical seeds so they grow into WESN-generating trees, spots where Travis has to spot a doppelganger of his, clothes he can earn from friendly aliens by meeting specific conditions, Jeane's stray kittens, and stickers he can deliver to Bishop. There are also gacha figurines he can earn from dispensers in a room within the motel.
• In Ōkami, you can collect 100 Stray Beads throughout the course of the game to obtain the Infinity Plus One Accessory, but it's really really hard. Only the first 99 Beads are available during a first playthrough; the 100th Bead is rewarded upon finishing the game. This makes them an utterly worthless collectible for at least the first time you play, and probably several subsequent playthroughs, as well. Ōkamiden is considerably easier in this regard, but make no mistake: there is a large number of Masterpieces that can be permanently missed. And the game doesn't ask if you are ready for what is to come, nor shows in any way that there is no going back.
• Pajama Sam: Every game had something for Sam to find during his adventures No Need To Hide When It's Dark Outside has his socks, Thunder And Lightning Aren't So Frightening has puzzle pieces, and You Are What You Eat From Your Head To Your Feet has cookie tops. These collectibles are purely a distraction, so finding them doesn't do anything.
• Pokémon:
  • Catching all Pokémon. Despite early games even having the tagline of "Gotta Catch 'Em All" in Western markets, no game in the series actually requires you to do this outside Pokémon Legends: Arceus^note (and even then, that's just for the True Final Boss; you can beat the main game by only catching a mere ten Pokémon if you know what you're doing). Your reward for doing so is a diploma, with Gens III through VI giving you separate ones for the Regional Pokédex and the National Pokédex. Completing the National Dex in Gens V through VI, and the Regional Dex from Gen VII onward, also nets you the Shiny Charm, an item that increases your chances of finding Shiny Pokémon. And none of these rewards require you to get any Mythical Pokémon, due to those being Temporary Online Content.
  • Contest Ribbons in Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald also in Pokémon Diamond, Pearl and Platinum.
  • In the original Sun and Moon, there's a sidequest to assemble the legendary Pokémon Zygarde from 100 cells and five "cores" scattered around Alola. Its form depends on how many cells you've collected.
  • Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon replaces the above Zygarde cell collection with a scavenger hunt for Totem Stickers. Each time you collect a certain number, Professor Samson Oak will gift you a Totem-sized version of an Alolan Pokémon which you can't get otherwise.
  • Pokémon Sword and Shield:
    • The Isle of Armor has a trainer ask you to find 151 Alolan Diglett across the island. As you complete this task, he'll gift you different Alolan Form Pokémon, the Alolan starters, and a Kantonian Slowpoke, all with their Hidden Abilities.
    • The Crown Tundra has Sonia ask you to find the footprints of the Swords of Justice (a trio of legendary Pokémon) so that you can track them, of which a total of 150 are scattered across the Tundra (50 tracks for each 'mon). Your grand prize for all this is Keldeo, the fourth member.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus:
    • Request 22 (Eerie Apparitions in the Night) has a girl named Vessa ask you to go around Hisui and collect the 107 escaped wisps back into the Odd Keystone. Completing the request allows you to fight and capture Spiritomb.
    • After returning from Solaceon Ruins, Unown will start hiding all around Hisui, and completing the Unown PokéDex entry requires you to find all 28 of them.
    • A total of 20 Old Verses is hidden throughout the lands and can be dug up by Ursaluna, providing history and poetry about Hisui when read.
  • Pokémon Scarlet and Violet
    • Evolving Gimmieghoul into Goldengo is one as you need to collect coins from finding Gimmieghoul all over Paldea. Roaming form only give you a single digit amount of coins, but runaway after finding them, while Chest form can give you double digits in coins, but you have to defeat or catch them.
• [PROTOTYPE] has you collecting blue and purple balls of light, appropriately named landmark collectibles and hint collectibles.
• Psychonauts has a bunch of these, including Mental Cobwebs, Emotional Baggage, and even a literal Scavenger Hunt. Due to the game's otherwise-unique nature, the game was dinged by a few review sources for having stooped to this.
• Rare is known for their collectathons, taken to an extreme in Donkey Kong 64, as Merus explains. They took jabs at themselves for this in the prologue of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
• Ratchet & Clank is filled to the gills with these types of quests.
  • They usually require you to get a new piece of gear or a gadget from a new planet before you can return to the previous planet and finish the available quests there. Some planets only exist for the sole purpose of making you go fetch the required item (besides optional side-quests). These quests are often enjoyable, however, even though they serve no purpose other than extending the length of the game.
  • Almost all of the games have some sort of rare Bolts that you can collect (Gold, Platinum, Titanium, etc.), and doing so unlocks various things, from buying mods for your guns in Going Commando to earning skins in A Crack in Time.
  • In Tools of Destruction, A Crack in Time, Into the Nexus, and Ratchet & Clank '16, getting the Infinity Plus One Swords requires collecting a certain number of holoplans (holocards in R&C '16) and giving them to a certain character in exchange for the weapon.
  • All 4 One has you collecting small animals. Accessing the Croid Labs to get the RYNO VI pieces requires you to have a certain number of them.
  • Ratchet & Clank '16 has holocards in two sets: regular, and RYNO. The RYNO cards are hidden like the holoplans, but the regular ones are randomly dropped from enemies, and there are also holocard packs (which contain 3 cards) hidden around. Collecting the 3 cards of a set will either let you get the Omega form of the weapon it's for in Challenge Mode if it's a weapon set, give you a stacking passive bonus to holocard, Raritanium, and bolt drops if it's a character or location set, or increase the damage you do with the Omniwrench if it's the (singular) wrench set.
• Resident Evil: Outbreak has SP Items. These are items which are entirely reliant on what scenario you're playing, who you're playing as, what difficulty you're playing on, and whether your scenario gets flagged at load up as either "A" or "B". And they're completely invisible. File 2 is a little more merciful in that the A or B scenario was done away with.
• Rogue Galaxy has several sidequests which qualify as this, or variants of this: the Rare Item collection, the factory, the frog log, etc.
• Shantae:
  • Shantae (2002) has twelve fireflies you can collect. Going to the Firefly Shrine in Water Town with all twelve unlocks a special dance that allows Shantae to Heal Thyself in exchange for gems.
  • Shantae: Risky's Revenge has the Magic Jams, which are needed to buy the higher level upgrades from the Item Shop. You need to find all of the Magic Jams, buy all the upgrades, and get all the Heart Holders if you want the 100% Completion endings.
  • Shantae and the Pirate's Curse has the 20 Dark Magic you collect from defeated Cacklebats. Getting them all unlocks the True Final Boss and the Golden Ending.
  • Shantae: Half-Genie Hero has you scouring the land for ten Gallery Keys that will let you unlock doors in the Art Gallery to view various official art and backer-submitted Fan Art. Finding all of the keys and unlocking all the doors gives Shantae a Magical Tiara that grants her unlimited mana.
• Sheep, Dog 'n' Wolf has a punch clock hidden somewhere in each level. Using any gives you bonus points that can be spent on bonus content.
• Each level in Shrek 2 has certain things you need to collect or rescue to obtain snapshots, such as the seven dwarves, magic beans or prisoners. Your scrapbook has these categories and shows what you've cleared.
• Sniper Elite:
  • Sniper Elite V2 has a hundred bars of Nazi Gold scattered throughout the game (ten per level over ten levels). There are also 38 wine bottles, which you "collect" by shooting them with your sniper rifle.
  • Sniper Elite III has sixty war diaries and twenty playing cards to collect.
• Spirit Hunter: NG has texts periodically sent to Akira by D-Man, who's hidden cards in various locations for him to find. Each of them has exposition on a different spirit, and if all are collected then D-Man himself will show up for a special scene with Akira.
• Solatorobo has the photos that were stolen and torn up by the Black Cats gang. Collect all the pieces of all the photos (which are suspiciously of Red and friends, despite first meeting the photographer after the photos are already stolen) and show them to the photographer to earn... another photo!
• Spelling Jungle: Every tenth level has an extra Trinket in it, which Wali can collect as a bonus, and which are shown on the map afterward. They don't grant anything besides bragging rights though.
• Splatoon: Every game has the Sunken Scrolls. One is hidden in every single-player level, and each of them reveals different details about the world of the game, from about the Inklings, Octarians, and various other creatures that inhabit it, to its backstory.
• In the Spyro the Dragon series, you have to find all of the gems and all of the game's main collectables for 100% completion.
• Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People has a number of collectibles in each episode, including manual pages for the various Videlectrix games, Coach Z's trophies from "Homestar Ruiner", and the miniature flags from "Strong Badia the Free".
• Tales of Symphonia has the Devil's Arms, which are weapons which grow more powerful the more enemies you beat with that character, making them potential Game-Breaker equipment. Collecting them all gives you access to an Optional Boss.
• In Temtem, a woman called Feriha gives the player a sticker album and tells them to collect stickers. They can be found all over the world as white sparkles on the ground, but there's a finite number of them and you're guaranteed to get duplicates. The only way to complete the album is to trade with other players, and you get various rewards from talking to Feriha once you've reached certain milestones.
• Theia - The Crimson Eclipse has collectible Gaia Shards, which can be turned in for rewards at an unnamed altar. However, some shards are missable and it's impossible to collect all 99 shards on easy mode, due to the Extremordeal being inaccessible on that difficulty.
• The Tiamat Sacrament: Collecting Dragon Shards will get you prizes at certain thresholds. You are very unlikely to find them all before completing the game, though you do get an item that can help you find them upon doing so. Unfortunately, this quest isn't as benign as it appears. The friendly merchant, Darius, who was enticing you to find the shards? Well, it turns out that they're the pieces of Saphira's stone, and he was manipulating you into finding them for him so he could harness her power for himself and Lord Nephron. Even if the player defeats Darius to claim Saphira's seal, this just enables Ry'jin to gain even more power in the True Final Boss battle.
• Toy Story 3: The story mode has collectible cards and items littered throughout the levels, while Toy Box mode has capsules littered around the game world with unlockable cosmetics inside.
• Tunic: Finding pages from the game's manual allows you to fully understand the game's story and mechanics. Finding all of the pages allows you to get the best ending. You need to find at least ten of the twenty Secret Fairies to get the front cover, and you need to solve a very hard puzzle to get the back cover.
• Uncharted:
  • The games have treasures hidden on each level. Collecting them adds them to your collection from where you can get a better look at them, and rewards the players with ways to get goodies such as perks, skin swaps, or weapons.
  • Uncharted: The Lost Legacy has a sidequest in the Western Ghats section where you go around collecting eleven tokens to unlock a jeweled bracelet that will help you find treasure more easily.
• The Ghost Flowers in An Untitled Story. Most of them can be found near the save statues.
• Watch_Dogs has a number of collection sidequests, but the challenge isn't finding the items, which are even marked on the map. The challenge is acquiring them, as they're rarely sitting within your immediate grasp. Like Grand Theft Auto V, completing them unlocks a bonus mission.
• Witch's Wish allows you to collect fruit and badges in order to unlock pictures and music.
• World's Dawn has the 28 Dusk Hoppers (a mix of firefly and grasshopper), and at least one festival that has you looking for apples to feed horses.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1 has the Collectopaedia for each area of the game, plus an extra one for rare items that are usually only obtained through trading. Collectopaedias in later areas have items which can not be obtained through trading, making it a straight example of this trope. Completing a row of each Collectopaedia usually grants a gem and completing the whole Collectopaedia grants equipment, usually for Reyn.
• Yoku's Island Express: While the game's "ending" only requires that you retrieve the three island leaders and beat the final boss, seeing the true ending requires that you gather the 80 Wickerlings scattered throughout the entire island. You can purchase trackers that will tell you where they all are, but actually getting to them can take patience and ingenuity. There are also quests to deliver mail to all the mailboxes and three overdue packages, gather pieces of a statue, deliver spores to various locations, and several minor errands. If you like sidequests, this game has you covered.
• Yoshi's Story: This is actually the main quest, in which you have to eat 30 pieces of fruit in each level to progress through the game. Unlike most examples, the food is plentiful, but many gamers have put a Self-Imposed Challenge on only eating the limited number of melons.

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