Yaramaki

No offence but why bid on something you have no intention of playing or using anyway? I've got a certain moral that if i'm not interested in something leave it for somebody else who is, it's called having respect towards other posters. This is the first time i made a bid on something as it's a visual novel and you know that is right up my alley. 

Are you talking about this thread or the last game played thread? Like i said before people seem to hopping from one game to another in a matter of days which i find strange so hence this thread? Also is the number of post so important for some people, it's something that i never understood who cares about how many posts you have. 
Edit looks like i have reached the magic number 666 now 😈👿
But since i'm repeating myself and we start adding games we played recently how about i chip in with what i played during the summer.
Dragon quest 11 echoes of an elusive age  : Currently taking a break from dragon quest, i'm right near the end of act 1 maybe about 35-40 hours in, did grind a lot tough making the game a total breeze so far. Will mostlikely resume playing next week orso. Pokemon Arceus Legends : I've beaten the main story, all i need now is to get the remaining pokemon, which no doubt will require me to look up a guide online and i can already smell you can only get certain pokemon under certain special conditions unknown until you look it up for the 35 hours i put into it i've had fun with it even if it's too easy and the side quests are boring as hell. Monopoly : my go to game when i'm staying at my gf her place, we are about 20 hours in and are still playing our first game of monopoly, unlike real monopoly you can't really cheat and nobody has to be the bank so that's a bonus. You'd be suprised how good board games can be on your tv. The Council : Man what should i add about this game, a more adult version of life is strange with more puzzles minus the strange powers. About halfway trough the game, kinda aiming to complete it by the end of the weekend as work starts again on monday after a 3 week break. Got stuck on a puzzle for 2 hours tough and by the end i had to look it up as i'd probably never figured it out anyway. Aquadine : This will mostlikly my next game i'm going to play @DC gave a code away yesterday for Aquadine trough the bids for rewards program so it would be disrespecting towards him if i woulden't touch the game. Offcourse there are older titles that i play here and there whenever i get a big box from japan but those are mostly for short burst of time and is meanly to see if the games are working before shelving them.

Are you talking about this thread or the last game played thread? Like i said before people seem to hopping from one game to another in a matter of days which i find strange so hence this thread? Also is the number of post so important for some people, it's something that i never understood who cares about how many posts you have. 
Edit looks like i have reached the magic number 666 now 😈👿
But since i'm repeating myself and we start adding games we played recently how about i chip in with what i played during the summer.
Dragon quest 11 echoes of an elusive age  : Currently taking a break from dragon quest, i'm right near the end of act 1 maybe about 35-40 hours in, did grind a lot tough making the game a total breeze so far. Will mostlikely resume playing next week orso. Pokemon Arceus Legends : I've beaten the main story, all i need now is to get the remaining pokemon, which no doubt will require me to look up a guide online and i can already smell you can only get certain pokemon under certain special conditions unknown until you look it up for the 35 hours i put into it i've had fun with it even if it's too easy and the side quests are boring as hell. Monopoly : my go to game when i'm staying at my gf her place, we are about 20 hours in and are still playing our first game of monopoly, unlike real monopoly you can't really cheat and nobody has to be the bank so that's a bonus. You'd be suprised how good board games can be on your tv. The Council : Man what should i add about this game, a more adult version of life is strange with more puzzles minus the strange powers. About halfway trough the game, kinda aiming to complete it by the end of the weekend as work starts again on monday after a 3 week break. Got stuck on a puzzle for 2 hours tough and by the end i had to look it up as i'd probably never figured it out anyway. Aquadine : This will mostlikly my next game i'm going to play @DC gave a code away yesterday for Aquadine trough the bids for rewards program so it would be disrespecting towards him if i woulden't touch the game. Offcourse there are older titles that i play here and there whenever i get a big box from japan but those are mostly for short burst of time and is meanly to see if the games are working before shelving them.

Yeah i tend to agree with most that has been said here even tough silent protagonists that and the main character losing their memory are a stable of a lot of jrpg's  , i'm currently playing trough dragon quest 11 and you know the silent protagonist or hero/luminary whatever you want to call him it would add much more dept to the character if the hero had a voice.
I think nintendo is guilty with a lot of their franchises to be honest why the fuck does Link never say a word and while i'm busy let's slam the recent pokemon games why on earth aren't any pokemon games even have voice overs. Is it that hard to give the npc's a voice in the game instead of just the text we get now, it's 2022 for gods sack stop being lazy and always chosing the easy route with pokemon games.
The first two fable games also had a silent protagonist if memory serves me right. While it could have add much more to the character, fable real strength was the beautiful world and humour somewhat half decent quests and story. They changed it up with the third game which many people consider the weaker entry so i don't know really.
Don't know what else there is i could possible add, for older games and lower budget games it's tolerable and maybe text heavy games i could give those a pass but for games anno 2022 you would expect a little more while i don't mind playing as a silent protagonist as long the hero has a strong personality i'm fine with them not saying a word and there lies the problem it's very hard or damn near impossibe to give a silent character a likeable personality. Hell many devs fail to come up with interesting and likeable characters despite being fully voiced, let alone they could come up with good silent ones.
 

The difference between amiibos and skylanders is that amiibos figures feature timeless classic characters, something that cannot be said about skylanders + you know it's nintendo. You just know their hardcore fanbase is going to scoop them up and want to get as much as possible. A quick ebay search trough sold listings you'll notice some have sold for a couple of hundred dollars offcourse has to be brand new. Now i know why a particulair japanese 3ds set goes for so much money apperently the amiibo included is one of the rarest out there.
You know this makes you wondering why disney infinity flopped, like you couldn't possible have more iconic characters then from disney themselves or maybe i'm giving disney a bit to much credit.
In the end i always stayed away from amiibos and the toy to life genre as i didn't want to start collecting even more crap and 3 rooms of my house are already full with videogames and consoles and whatever else there is. Then i haven't even talked about all the stuff that i haven't moved from my parents place yet lol. Sure i've got a few toy to life starter sets myself but i bought them all on clearance.
Speaking about clearance this makes me wonder does anybody remember Starlink : battle from atlas from ubisoft that released in late 2018, i don't know who at ubisoft tought it was a good idea to release something like this when the whole toy to life trend pretty much died already?Funny thing is i still see these starter sets in toy stores all the time for as low as 10-15 bucks that is what i paid for the one i have atleast. 

I forgot about Cattails, the developer send me a code of it on switch because i backed their kickstarter campaign. You obviously play as a cat but you can get married aswell, it may be worth checking out if you like harvest moon/story of seasons and stardew valley. I probably should play it myself first before suggesting a game but you know it's got good reviews everywhere and there is a sequel coming in the near future aswell :
 
 

Makes me wonder if i coulden't have come up with a better topic title but ohwell if you have any better suggestion please tell so i can edit the topic title, it's fucking hot out here and my balls have been cooked nearly a couple of times already today so what do you expect.
So the question is what are some of your favourite video game spin-offs and if you feel like why not list some of the worst you have played?  Obviously mario and sonic had way too many spin-offs some went on to become a huge succes and became their own huge franchise like mario kart, another franchise that comes to mind is square-enix their very own cash cow offcourse it's the final fantasy franchise. 
Maybe another that should be listed first as in being milked dry is tecmo koei's very own dynasty warriors which span off into more spin-offs then anything else. Fist of the north star, Zelda, Persona, one piece, fire emblem,berserk, gundam several other real time periods have also been featured they all got the musou threatment while arguable these are great games in their own right it's once you've played one, you played them all case.
Speaking of Persona which started out as a spin-off from the shin megami tensei series which you could say is more populair then the mainline games by now had a few rhythm games, a 2d fighter and several 3d's spin offs. Before somebody points me out yes i"m aware there are also other shin megami tensei spin-offs like last bible, jack bros and and offcourse the often overlooked Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE.
My personal favourite spin-off that isn't too obscure and hard to find would be 2018 Fist of the north Star : Lost Paradise which is a spin-off of the yakuza series, not only is Fist of the north star my favourite anime, lost paradise is also the best fist of the north star game out there. Offcourse a spin-off thread wouldn't be complete if the exellent judgment and lost judgment games wouldn't have been mentioned atleast once. There are more yakuza spin-offs out there with dead souls the only one released in the west seems like a game nobody really mentions anymore, while i had fun with it and the whackyness keeps it fresh it's not really a great game imo. Obviously sega should also make work of releasing the other two spin off titles on ps4 and if it's not asking too much while we are it why not include the 2 psp yakuza games in one neat package to the west.
Let's end here knowing that i could add way more and will do so in the upcoming days, this is a thread that could have a lot of potential for a serious discussion so invite anybody who wants to join in on the fun go nuts.

When looking at the last game played thread i see people jumping from one game to another all the time. This makes me wonder how many games do you play simultaneously ?
For me 2 games simultaneously at most because otherwise i'd never get around beating a game especially when they are story driven games if you take a break from those it's sometimes hard to remember the story. But usually i don't play anything else until i've beaten a game even if that means playing the same game for an entire month.
What about you guys/girls?

You know since i didn't have much else to do today, kinda wanted to go out and do a long hike since it's cooling off a bit now, low and behold it's raining the entire day. 
I booted up Crash bash and played it for a couple of hours and goddamn look what you made me do @Withywarlock as i was supposed to be reorganizing my collection not playing old rubbish. First of all while its not great It's not that bad either to be called a worse spin off. The first 2 hours i had genuinely fun with the game, i played trough the adventure mode and after struggling for half an hour with a minigame where you have to ride a tank and blow each other up i finally made it to the second boss fight where the game suddenly spikes in difficulty, sure i probably could beat him if it weren't for the unfair 5 seconds your frozen each time you're getting hit, may aswell give up because you're getting pushed off the platform each time anyway. I'll probably give the game another chance if my gf her son comes over as i find these type of games are much more enjoyable with 2 people.
Obviously Crash bash was made to capitalise on Mario party. Considering the game is 22 years old, it was a decent enough alternative for playstation owners at the time. The only problem with the ps1 you had to get a mutitap to play with 4 people, which probably not a lot of people even owned in the first place because it wasen't the cheapest accessoiry to begin with, where with the n64 we would just bring our own controller to somebody elses place to play local multiplayer.

I'm not normally one of those people who accepts 'support' without elaboration as an answer to an action, but given Xbox's handling of Japanese games and userbase, I'd say any support can only be good. The only JRPGs on their systems that come to mind are Eternal Arms, Blue Dragon, Eternal Sonata and Lost Odyssey. And from what I understand Persona is one of those must play games, so good on them for agreeing to a port or remaster or whatever it is.
I concur, but if I were in Satoru Iwata's place I'd do the same: people will continue paying for it. Gamers are often their own worst enemies by perpetuating issues they complain about. Quote the man himself from his book, Ask Iwata: "After a piece of hardware is released, the price is gradually reduced for five years until demand has run its course. But since the demand cycle never fails, why bother reducing the price this way? My personal take on the situation is that if you lower the price over time, the manufacturer is conditioning the customer to wait for a better deal, something I've always thought to be a strange approach. Of course, this doesn't mean that I'm against lowering prices entirely, but I've always wanted to avoid a situation where the first people to step up and support us feel punished for paying top dollar, grumbling, "I guess this is the price I pay for being first in line." Emphasis my own.
Unlike PC game publishers and Steam as a platform, Nintendo have trained their customers that there's not going to be that better a deal or steep a discount. I suppose the problem PC faced was piracy (though piracy numbers have always been unhelpfully exaggerated), what with Gabe Newell wanting to offer a better safer service than illegal sites, and that likely meant selling games for a lot less.
I don't like Nintendo's approach as a customer of theirs myself, but I appreciate at least where Iwata was coming from nonetheless.
Always a pleasure, never a trial!

I feel like the ninja from the zool series deserves a shoot out, obviously a mascot that has been forgotten over the years but since i had the mega drive version of the first gam as a kid, it's a mascot i sort of have found memories off. It also served as the unofficial mascot for Chupa Chups for a while.
 
 

I coulden't believe it either that lego dimensions is still going for over 100$ on the secondary market but after looking at sold listings on ebay brand new ones are like 150-200$ (just the ps4/xbox one platforms seem to be worth money as the other platforms it was released on like 360/ps3 are like little over 30 bucks for a brand new set on amazon) makes me wonder wheter i should sell the one i bought on clearance for xbox one a couple of years ago, because pretty sure i'll never get around playing it anyway. Crazy how the market changes for certain items, during their lifecycle stores coulden't get rid of these things and after a put them on clearance after a while, now these lego sets are suddenly worth almost double the price then what they were originally selling for. 
Offcourse lego is a timeless toy that is probably going to be relevant for pretty much ever, maybe lego collectors are skooping up these sets instead of videogame collectors. Don't know much about lego myself but i suspect quite a few of these lego figurines are exclusive to the lego dimensions video game.  It's strange that only the ps4 and xbox one platforms are worth money and the ps3/360/wii u are not because one would think those platforms had a much lower print run then the ps4/xbox one versions. 

Yeah videogames (and movies) pretty much taught me English at an early age , it also helped me to think outside of the box and come up with solutions that others wouldn't probably think about in the past. As @Justin11 and @Heatman above said it also helped me with my driving skills and reacting skills when driving. I'm also from believe that gaming can be benefitial for your mental health because it's supposed to make you happy

The Blu-ray disc association are the patent holders of licensing blu-ray so let it be clear that Sony isn't the sole patent holder of the blu-ray technology, was going to react to this yesterday but it probably slipped my mind and got sidetracked along the way. It's doubtfull that sony alone would even be able to provoke microsoft their license for putting their games on blu-ray discs, besides if it were to happen nothing a big sack of cash can't solve. No with Physical media sales in decline they aren't going to stop microsoft from putting their games on blu-ray and grab whatever money they can get.
 

If there have been any they would've been discussed a very long time ago. The toys-to-life craze ended quite a while ago, but I still enjoy talking about them and what could have been. Were I a lot less environmentally conscious I'd probably be glad to hear news of their return if that were to happen. It appears that won't be the case, seeing as there's no word on Guitar Hero - the fantastic plastic before TTL - coming back yet.
I'd bought practically all of the Skylanders games but didn't have a phone compatible for the mobile games, which only used the codes that came in the boxes with the stickers and Top Trumps-like cards. They were the best out of the 'big three', the other two being Disney Something or Other, and Lego Dimensions. Disney didn't really offer much to me, bearing in mind I was in my early 20s and I wouldn't have much joy with it as a child because sandbox gameplay was never really my thing. As for Lego it was too much effort setting up the portal, but the game itself pretty decent. It's more Lego for those who want it, now with actual Lego.
I do still own a lot of my figures, which I've kept in case I play D&D with them one day, or some other purpose. But would I like them to make a comeback? ...no. As much as I like physical media, toys like this which aren't really built or made to last that long shouldn't be made. I appreciate that they're a drop in the ocean (no pun intended) compared to the other environmental impacts of plastic in our waters, but the less there is the better. If TTL have to stop existing to help that, so be it.
I will say that at least Nintendo characters are recognisable and have developed a fan following. You could have one on your desk and say "oh, that's so-and-so, from this-and-that." But even then they would mostly gather dust once you'd linked it to your device/game. Plus they were decently modelled, and didn't have elaborate designs that made for poor machine-painting.
Amen. It was like the plastic instrument phases: everyone loved them... until they didn't, and it came to the point where - among other collectable tat with physical media, Ubisoft being the worst for this - stores simply stopped taking them because they didn't have the room for it. My local CeX would only take the games, not the instruments because it was that bad. Not even charity shops were picking them up in my area, including the one I worked at for a while.
I agree with oversaturation, even Skylanders alone struggled to stand on its own two feet with the amount of releases it had and staggered content. People just couldn't afford multiple of these games, even when they were in their final days selling the larger gimmicky figures 3 for £15 (given they were £15+ per figure on release). I found the games to be good, but not £60+ good on launch.
What's left of the darkSpyro forum would like to have a word with you. 😅
Only joking. Missing those times greatly!
In closing, I think I said everything I wanted to in this video about why they came and went. It's a fairly long unscripted talk, but it covers the various reasons why I think Skylanders at least struggled.
The TL;DR for why Toys-to-Life struggled could be accurately summed up as "Activision-Blizzard," given their handling of Guitar Hero. However it's nice to talk about TTL in general and the specifics as to why they went down the portal of power.
Thanks for this thread, Yaramaki. It's nice to look back on these things every now and again, and maybe their future with Amiibo still going.

As title says What are your favourite and not so favourite videogame mascots? We have had a lot of so called gaming mascots over the years some with success others not so much so let's talk about your favourite mascots and well why not mascots that you don't like at all?
My personal favourite (apart from sonic and tails) would have to be Rayman, i always enjoyed the games he featured in well not the rabbit stuff but if you leave those out all rayman games were great and needless to say Rayman has a timeless classic design that is still appealing for many years to come. Sadly kind of a forgotten franchise these days.
No so favourite : for once can't seem to make up my mind so insert whatever 90 ies mascot that was an animan and were they tried way too hard with to make it look as cool as possible.

I'll just quote my own post because it was kinda lame and could have added more to it instead of slamming nintendo fans because deep down inside i'm one myself lol.
Remasters or remakes they have been from all times, sega in particulair has been doing it for years with rereleasing their megadrive/genesis titles and you know i keep buying these compilations as i don't mind paying 30-40 bucks for them as they are great games that stood the test of time and while i have the original cartridges for these games, it's convenience that draws me in to buy them again, pop in a disk instead, being able to rewind when you fuck and above all being able to save at any given moment. 
I've seen the name of Ea pass trough here a couple of times so let's use them as an example, they did an awesome job with the Mass Effect trilogy remaster not only was it priced at 60 bucks (full price) for arguable the best trilogy in gaming only for 60 bucks that is money well worth spend and hell yeah i'll pay that for over 150 hours of gameplay on top of that considering backwards compatibility that edtion can last another 10 years. Speaking of Bioware games i'd gladly pay 60 bucks for a beefed up version of the first dragon age with all it's dlc included.
And that leaves us with another thing with remasters where i don't mind paying full price for them granted they are good games and are worth paying full price for is Dlc, if it means the game is preserved in it's entire package and i feel like supporting that yeah i'll gladly open my wallet for a remaster because at some point Dlc for a lot of games is going to be lost in time, many older racing titles like gt 5 and 6 and a couple of forza games have been completly wipped from digital store shelves.
Take the upcoming Persona 5 royal as it's getting an xbox release, as xbox is my platform of choice and best above all it's apperently getting a physical release aswell, i'll be the first in line to spend 60 bucks on it, i already have the regulair ps4 version but never got around playing it. So here is my second chance to play it, why spend another 60 bucks on a game you already own, because i want to support these jrpg physical releases that are coming to xbox aswell as much as possible. So that is another solid reason for opening my wallet again.
Like i said in my previous post i don't really mind these re-releases that much if it means somebody who wasn't old enough or missed out a game the first time around can play the game i'm fine with that if it's a game i love, i'll gladly play trough th new version a second time. But when a company is charging full price for it, it should warrant that price tag as in the bare minimum would to include all the dlc with the package and all the games.
But usually remasters aren't full priced as i see them priced around the 40 euro mark, remakes are a completly different story tough they can charge full price for that imo as it's usually a completly different game. What created this thread is the last of us remaster for ps5/pc, i'd say 40-45 bucks would be a good price entry considering you can pick up the ps4 version for probably a lot less then 40$.
and as a last note to come full circle this brings me back to my first post that Nintendo sucked the wii u dry of it's exclusives to release them as full priced versions on switch, nobody seemed to care or mind that, If for one is to blame for full priced remasters it's nintendo and they keep getting away with it.
For the two people that read my entire post, my thanks you're absolute legends.

This is getting back into chat-style messages with little content, and is talking about the used console/games market which doesn't really have anything to do with the topic at hand, nor do the companies making the games really care about it any more. If you want to discuss the used games market, that's a topic I'm more than happy see discussed elsewhere.
The question remains the same: how do you feel about paying full price for new versions of games you have already bought? I'd like to read the opinions of those who haven't already contributed to this topic, or something not already said pertaining to the topic by those who have contributed.

I'll say now that tagging every comment was and is too much, and I apologise for handling this in the way I have. But I'm not going to be grateful for threads that don't say much of anything to begin with. It's one thing to not respond to comments, that's fine: many a time I'm satisfied with answers that I'm given in the few threads I create; but this thread doesn't begin to pose a quality question. There's nothing to bounce off of, it just encourages listing things for points.
That is your want, but don't be surprised if you're asked to elaborate (which I do of all users creating threads that don't have any commentary of their own). This forum exists for discussion which this thread - nor the four others I've commented on - doesn't promote. If you have the time to make five threads, you have the time to make at least one where you can lead the discussion with examples. And again, I know you can given your Ask Nebulous thread.
All I'm asking for is in addition to the information you've posted is perhaps a reason why you want to know, or what your own opinions are. VGR has a major problem with post farming, leading to conversation resulting in only two parties clogging up the thread, and points being so inflated that only so many users can realistically bid on prizes. Now I hope I'm wrong about you being one of those people, but I would like to see that for myself.
In future, and I ask this of all users however long they've been here, please can we try to improve the quality of discussion in the opening comments?

Makes me wonder if i coulden't have come up with a better topic title but ohwell if you have any better suggestion please tell so i can edit the topic title, it's fucking hot out here and my balls have been cooked nearly a couple of times already today so what do you expect.
So the question is what are some of your favourite video game spin-offs and if you feel like why not list some of the worst you have played?  Obviously mario and sonic had way too many spin-offs some went on to become a huge succes and became their own huge franchise like mario kart, another franchise that comes to mind is square-enix their very own cash cow offcourse it's the final fantasy franchise. 
Maybe another that should be listed first as in being milked dry is tecmo koei's very own dynasty warriors which span off into more spin-offs then anything else. Fist of the north star, Zelda, Persona, one piece, fire emblem,berserk, gundam several other real time periods have also been featured they all got the musou threatment while arguable these are great games in their own right it's once you've played one, you played them all case.
Speaking of Persona which started out as a spin-off from the shin megami tensei series which you could say is more populair then the mainline games by now had a few rhythm games, a 2d fighter and several 3d's spin offs. Before somebody points me out yes i"m aware there are also other shin megami tensei spin-offs like last bible, jack bros and and offcourse the often overlooked Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE.
My personal favourite spin-off that isn't too obscure and hard to find would be 2018 Fist of the north Star : Lost Paradise which is a spin-off of the yakuza series, not only is Fist of the north star my favourite anime, lost paradise is also the best fist of the north star game out there. Offcourse a spin-off thread wouldn't be complete if the exellent judgment and lost judgment games wouldn't have been mentioned atleast once. There are more yakuza spin-offs out there with dead souls the only one released in the west seems like a game nobody really mentions anymore, while i had fun with it and the whackyness keeps it fresh it's not really a great game imo. Obviously sega should also make work of releasing the other two spin off titles on ps4 and if it's not asking too much while we are it why not include the 2 psp yakuza games in one neat package to the west.
Let's end here knowing that i could add way more and will do so in the upcoming days, this is a thread that could have a lot of potential for a serious discussion so invite anybody who wants to join in on the fun go nuts.

I told my partner earlier in the week about this Troll Bat Rider quote from WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. And they say it's too early to have chestnuts roasting on an open fire...
~
I think the best spin-off game I played was Crash Team Racing. I've spoken at length about it before, but to sum up it's the greatest kart racer I've ever played and few rival it. However, it's not a very good Crash Bandicoot game: its music is catchy but doesn't quite capture the same style; the tracks are great but have little in relation to the mainline games; the adventure mode is decent but makes less sense than even the wackiest antics of the core of the series. But it controls well, is as rewarding as you make it, and is not at all over-designed like a lot of modern racing games today.
I would like to say Crash Bash is the worst spin-off I've played but it understood what it was supposed to be. It just didn't execute it very well. I did a very lengthy write-up on it on this here forum for those who have nothing else better to do.
Unfortunately, the 'honour' of worst spin-off goes to Overlord: Fellowship of Evil. It's a completely forgettable mixture of uninteresting characters, lacklustre minion usage, ARPG combat and overusing the great voice actor Mark Silk. Being a spin-off is no justification for being bad, and while spin-offs often get flak for the wrong reasons, Fellowship of Evil deserves the scathing review I gave it some years ago.
When talking about spin-offs, I tend to use a quote from an old review I did: Warhammer cannot make a bad game good; it can only make a good game great. In the case of Fellowship of Evil, being Overlord only elevated it slightly enough to be worth looking at.

The Blu-ray disc association are the patent holders of licensing blu-ray so let it be clear that Sony isn't the sole patent holder of the blu-ray technology, was going to react to this yesterday but it probably slipped my mind and got sidetracked along the way. It's doubtfull that sony alone would even be able to provoke microsoft their license for putting their games on blu-ray discs, besides if it were to happen nothing a big sack of cash can't solve. No with Physical media sales in decline they aren't going to stop microsoft from putting their games on blu-ray and grab whatever money they can get.
 

A good side quest imo should tell a good and compelling story, should reward you properly for completing them and above all should give a sense of satisfaction for taking the time to go of the beaten path . Some games that have brilliant side stories are skyrim, the witcher series, kingdom come deliverance and any bioware game just to give some recent examples. I'm personally a fan if they stretch out side stories over different quests and tell a complete story like the factions quests in skyrim or some of the witcher 3 quests.
Bad quests are offcourse the fetch quests that don't really have any significance to the game and are only there to lenghten the game, offcourse ubisoft games really have a habit of doing this where you have to collect a certain amount of things only to unlock a costume that isn't  anything special other then being a cosmetic item. I know i'm a sucker for this myself aslong as they are  showing on the map i don't really have a problem with this myself.
Rockstar is another company that is guilty of this as good as their games are, much of their side quest are just boring and frustrating as hell, collecing waste in gta 5 is boring and tedious as fuck let alone collecing the ufo parts that don't show up on the map once you start that mission, so you have either spend 100's of hours looking for them or look up a guide online. Same with rdr 2 where you have to collect bones, why can't they show up on the map, why isn't there an option to buy a map for them, whoever tought this was a good idea at rockstar i don't know fire them for my part.
I've also find that a lot of jrpg's have these boring side quests, since i'm currently playing dragon quest 11 let us use that game as an example like you have to get a certain material for somebody which you can only obtain by defeating a certian monster, when you complete it you get 10 silver ores, a crafting component that is common and pretty respawns at the some locations everytime you enter a certain area. What's the point atleast give me something decent for my efforts.
Alright i'm off to defeat 10 monsters in dragon quest 11 maybe that npc who gave me that quest will give me a pat on the back and will be saying good boy, you completly wasted your time here have a few herbs for your efforts.

Yeah videogames (and movies) pretty much taught me English at an early age , it also helped me to think outside of the box and come up with solutions that others wouldn't probably think about in the past. As @Justin11 and @Heatman above said it also helped me with my driving skills and reacting skills when driving. I'm also from believe that gaming can be benefitial for your mental health because it's supposed to make you happy

It has to compliment the primary gameplay loop. If it's going out of it's way to be different, and it's better or worse, then the question is "why isn't the rest of the game like this" if it's better, or "why is this in the game" if it's worse.
An example of this would be the Spyro the Dragon franchise. Nearly all of the games are collectathons: you go around seeking treasure and other things necessary to complete the game. I've played the first game more than any other because all of the activities revolve around the three gameplay mechanics: charging, flaming and movement in some fashion like jumping or gliding. Even the Flights are just upgrades to Spyro's existing abilities like full traversal and the supercharge.
Where the games fail is Spyro 2: Gateway to Glimmer onwards. Shooting lizards with rocks? OK, fine. Using the ice breath to reach platforms to ring bells? Not too shabby. Using a trolley which doesn't control well to go in two directions and use a cannon that requires laser precision? Not acceptable despite the "having trouble with the trolley, eh?" meme. The problem with that is I'm not playing the character I'm here to play: I'm playing as the trolley which is an objective downgrade. Spyro: Year of the Dragon sort of sorts this out with characters like Sheila or Bentley the Yeti, but characters like Sgt. Byrd and Agent 9 especially go against the solid movement mechanics and lack of precision required. Things get even worse in Spyro: A Hero's Tail, where Sgt. Byrd replaces Spyro in the Speedways, and Blink the Mole goes underground but isn't quite as fleshed out as he needs to be to entertain in a mini-game or his own spin-off. A Hero's Tail's other mini-games involve being in a hamster ball or firing a cannon, both are decent enough but I'm not playing as Spyro: I'm playing as a hamster ball and firing a cannon.
Let's look at Japanese RPGs for other examples. Yakuza is known for its serious story with a camp tone, but it's better known for its side quests contain nothing but goofy characters and requests from the mafia enforcer with a heart of gold. Most of the quests given to Kiryu require him to do what he already does: punch and kick lots of people. The times it doesn't such as managing businesses and collecting cash, or the other bloke's name whose name I forget who runs a club, are so confident in their ability to deliver a refreshing downtime experience. While dating sims, toy car races and arcades don't necessarily belong, they do an excellent job of grounding them into that world. Western developers take note.
However we can also look at Final Fantasy's most notorious minigames from chocobo racing to Squimball or whatever it was called in FFX. The reason Bravely Default did so well is because it wasn't full of rubbish like that: as egotistical as the name is, like Immersive Sim (more on that soon), is because it is bravely returning to its default design philosophy.
We come full circle when we look at Western RPGs: most of the quests I enjoy are the ones that are based on the core gameplay mechanics. If they're better, like Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag's sailing, then one must ask the question: why is there Assassin's Creed in my boat game? A good side-quest doesn't necessarily have to be tied to its core gameplay loop, but if it isn't it's taking a risk that may well not pay off. If the players aren't willing to go out of their way to try a new activity, why would developers go out of their way to make it work?
One final comment about Western RPGs, some of which developers call iMmErSiVe Sims (I'll be the judge of what is and is not immersive, thanks), is that these do a great job of providing the means to go about the same side-quest differently. Deus Ex is probably the best example, as one of the first games to be thoughtful about the question what if the player wanted to do [thing]? They made a point about simulating first person activity beyond solving every problem with a gun. BioShock, a spiritual successor to System Shock et al follows that exact same formula, as long as you solve every problem with some form of violence.
TL;DR it's about complimenting or being based on the primary gameplay loop. There are exceptions, but painfully few in Western game design philosophy.