Hmm.contributor Dave said:The game really does live in those small things: the herbs, the mining, the small quests, the tedious inventory management, the stuff that could only logically be called filler. It’s the length, and even the tedium, that make this game great.
As I see it if the above´s where the game lives it´s a pretty miserable life.
The author also seems to be justifying this on a simulationist basis, but ignores what kind of figure pc is.
I have to say that after discovering what´s out there in the open world, my inquisitor was not pleased that most of the cool adventures were apparently reserved for the advisors .
Anyway, personally I don´t have a problem with "long" games per se, as long as I don´t strongly feel the length came first, content (and focus) second.
For my sake, DA:I would likely be a lot more enjoyable if the amount of open world zones was cut in half and the remaining zones were infused with a wealthy dose of more elaborate (in terms of presentation and design) side and mandatory quest content - as it is the main quest gameplay feels strongly disconnected from the open world and the filler/meat does not come with a particularly organic pacing.
Making pretty much the whole open world aspect based around nice scenery, crapton of largely low effort repetitive quests and few decent boss battles was not a design decision I appreciated at all, particularly considering fairly low amount of playtime available outside of it.
Optional or not, side content can be great for the sake of personal pacing, sense of freedom and replayability and it´s a pity that in this game taking more time than necessary rarely resulted in an enjoyable experience for me.
Basically, in this game I´ve found the open world element to be more of a waste, rather than benefit and I suspect it was largely due to "length" coming first.
On the other hand,
maybe with the exception of Skyrim´s world, I have to say I´m kinda having a hard time figuring out where the author is coming from here .Neither the world nor the characters are as engaging as other recent fantasy epics like Skyrim or Divinity: Original Sin,