Strange Happenings At Midnight Is Pokemon's Most Important Quest

thegamer.com:

Side quests aren't usually too much of a thing in Pokemon. Sure, you might wander into someone's house and they might ask for a trade or an item, but rarely will you actually participate in a story. You'll just get a to-do list and no real reminder of what's on it - just pop back into that stranger's house every time you pass through town and remind yourself of what it was she asked you again. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is different, loading you up with side quests of all different varieties while you go about your day stopping the sky from being ripped open or something. Enough about the space time continuum young lass, fetch me the ingredients I need for my mushroom cake!

As with any side quests, once you do enough of them, they can start to get tedious, but they're a huge upgrade on anything Pokemon has offered that enriching the world through something as simple as a fetch quest for some berries feels huge. The Mystery Dungeon series has used fetch quests before, but in that title the gameplay is so repetitive (by design, admittedly) that they never fulfil their potential. Here, with them being naturally folded into the Pokemon RPG formula and tested out in the most open world setting the series has ever embraced, that potential is being reached. Nowhere is that clearer than in the quest Strange Happenings At Midnight.

Related: Shut Up And Let Me Play PokemonYou will pick up this quest early on, and I'm not here to tell you it's the best quest ever. It's not even the best quest in Legends: Arceus. But in arriving so early, it's key in establishing exactly what side quests offer in Hisui, and provides a clear building block for them in the future.

We have to manage our expectations with Pokemon. We shouldn't, given how