I enjoyed this piece by Innerspiral on fetch quests being good as a concept and undeserving of hate:
You don’t really have to go far online to see people hate on fetch quests. They’re the go to joke for bad quest design, the dreaded “bring me ten wolf pelts” that’s apparently proof a developer ran out of ideas. Say the phrase and everyone knows exactly what you mean. The boring, repetitive filler. And yet, I’ve come to tell y’all that… I’m sorry. I absolutely love them. Fetch quests are not just one of the oldest quest structures in gaming, but also one of the most useful. They’re also doing world-building, pacing, orientation, even philosophy sometimes. If you take them out, whole genres would collapse into set-pieces without the connective tissue.
So, yeah, I’m going to defend fetch quests. Not because every fetch quests is good, because I can’t lie, there are plenty of terrible ones; but because the structure itself is vital, and that the problem has always been execution, not existence.
I’m in full agreement. I’ve never been as big into storytelling in games as most people nor do I crave hyperrealistic graphics with my games; gimme early PlayStation polygon heaven and enjoyable gameplay and I’m all yours. But a fetch quest is soothing to my autistic brain. You asked me to do something, I go do it, I have fun along the way, I get rewarded, I complete the mission. Task dopamine! Having a clear objective, even if the middle part requires some problem-solving, engages me more than a story that doesn’t resonate with me.
For example, when I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time this year, I was hyped for the story because it’s one of the most famous in gaming. But after the story left Midgar, I lost interest. Things dragged on, I didn’t relate to any of the characters and their angst, and the dialogues were heavily dated. That’s not to say I hated the game but the things I did like focused on acquisition and fetching stuff. Collecting the materia was a fetch quest in itself and I enjoyed that part because it meant gaining new moves and skills. In FFIX, I loved the Chocographs and getting Blue Magic for Quina.
Fetching gets you explore and moving and I’d rather that than trundling through a story that I don’t care about.