I've played the game a year ago and I still remember:
- the story where a guy agrees to be crucified on live TV
- the whole detective sidequest - it's a shame you only remember him being annoying, the entire story about family, about finding your relative, about solving a horrendous crime mystery - absolute masterpiece.
- the whole Panam sidequest - she grew from someone I didn't care about to being a close companion. And the quest where her and the rest of the aldecaldos go to steal the neural-link driven tank is just epic. Also her relationship with the aldecaldos.
- whole Judy storyline, where she comes to gripes with the death of her close friend and how the system doesn't care about any of them. The moment when you sit with her at the edge of a poisoned lake and talk about life will always be in my memory.
- the side quest with destroying the prostitution gang owners so that the women could basically get revenge and run it themselves - 10/10 for some moral choices.
- the entire Rogue + Johnny content that wasn't necessary for the main mission. Damn that character goes through a redemption arc like no other.
- the AI taxi quest was actually stupid and it felt like an excuse to make some out of universe jokes(with one taxi being voiced by Glados from Portal if I remember correctly). But I mean....meh. The final choice was cool.
All of the above adds to the fact that at the end of the game you actually care about the characters that surround you and you want to see them there with you. I've gone back and played through every possible ending(other than the secret one because it's so bloody hard) just to see what happens. And in the endings where you don't contact Pam or Judy...man it's actually heartbreaking. Like it makes you feel like shit. None of this would happen if their sidequests weren't actually good.
- the story where a guy agrees to be crucified on live TV
- the whole detective sidequest - it's a shame you only remember him being annoying, the entire story about family, about finding your relative, about solving a horrendous crime mystery - absolute masterpiece.
- the whole Panam sidequest - she grew from someone I didn't care about to being a close companion. And the quest where her and the rest of the aldecaldos go to steal the neural-link driven tank is just epic. Also her relationship with the aldecaldos.
- whole Judy storyline, where she comes to gripes with the death of her close friend and how the system doesn't care about any of them. The moment when you sit with her at the edge of a poisoned lake and talk about life will always be in my memory.
- the side quest with destroying the prostitution gang owners so that the women could basically get revenge and run it themselves - 10/10 for some moral choices.
- the entire Rogue + Johnny content that wasn't necessary for the main mission. Damn that character goes through a redemption arc like no other.
- the AI taxi quest was actually stupid and it felt like an excuse to make some out of universe jokes(with one taxi being voiced by Glados from Portal if I remember correctly). But I mean....meh. The final choice was cool.
All of the above adds to the fact that at the end of the game you actually care about the characters that surround you and you want to see them there with you. I've gone back and played through every possible ending(other than the secret one because it's so bloody hard) just to see what happens. And in the endings where you don't contact Pam or Judy...man it's actually heartbreaking. Like it makes you feel like shit. None of this would happen if their sidequests weren't actually good.