Quote Originally Posted by Enkidoh View Post
Not quite. The third mission for each city (1.3) also was basically the same regardless of nation: it involved heading into the local beastman stronghold and entering a BCNM to fight a dark dragon and ahriman. And it should go without saying the final Rank 5 mission was the same for all cities, head to Castle Zvahl and beat the crap out of the Shadowlord (that was also needed to start the Rise of the Zilart expansion missions).
2-3 :P 1-1 was like, present yourself in level 10 gear or whatever, and wasn't mandatory. 1-2 was mandatory for rank and you needed to take a crystal to your local crag and put it in, then take the drained crystal back. 2-3 was the next mandatory mission for rank up, and it was universal, visit the other nations, do what they need, the second nation takes you to fight an Ahriman and a Dark Dragon at the regional beastman stronghold BCNM! Yeehaw, Kazham airship pass requirement unlocked!

As I remember there was 1 or 2 missions mandatory per rank, but you could cheese past all non-essential missions just by trading crystals to your Signet NPCs.

The most memorable mission for me is the late rank Bastok 9-1, Salt of The Earth where you gotta fight that splitting jelly in the depths of Gustav Tunnel. By the end of the fight you'd have slain 15 jellies. Second boss in Copperbell Mines felt like a lowkey reference to it in XIV.