5hrs in on wii u, first time playing this and as above the sidequests add nothing to the story, they literally complete themselves as you play and kill things and they auto-complete so no need to hand them in. Its just this games take on grinding imo, gives you nice exp rather than just killing monsters over and over to level up!
Love it so far, only downside is the constart party chatter during a fight! This may not be present in the 3ds one as it may have been tweaked but in this they dont shut up lol! Constantly saying the same lines over the top of each other and theres no option to mute it