Originally, I started this post complaining about how my completionist nature felt more like a curse while playing Dragon Age: Inquisition than while I was playing any other game, but then I started making comparisons to and excuses about Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and I had to admit that that game, actually, was the one that made me feel the most cursed by my compulsion to do things completely and perfectly. That said, my experience with Dragon Age: Inquisition is no walk in the park, as much as it feels like a walk in the park in comparison to FF7: Rebirth. Sure, I don’t feel constantly stuck and like the only interesting or fun parts of the game are trapped behind horrible, long, and boring stretches of open-world exploration whose only benefit is to provide you with the crafting supplies you need to use a crafting system that feels like it was built solely to justify the expansive, open, and empty maps of the game, but I definitely feel like there’s way to much junk to do in this game. I’m about forty hours into the game as I writing this and I’ve only just finished the first major plot (the first face-off with Corypheus and the destruction of Haven). All because I’ve spent so much time trying to do side quests, collecting resources, gathering influence, and trying to make sure I’m well-enough supplied to make all my own armor and weapons because the stuff you find usually pales in comparison to what you can make, all of which requires a pretty significant investment of resources and time. Time you have to spend pretty regularly if you want to keep everyone wearing top-notch armor. Which feels funny to do, considering most of my party members are wearing accessories that I got in the first ten to twenty hours of the game.

There’s just so much game. There’s the resources to collect, loot to constantly pick up, the war table to manage, companions to talk to, companion-specific enemies to fight, a larger plot to follow along, and so, so many NPCs who don’t really have anything interesting to say but want to talk to you anyway. Then there’s all the secret stats and flags to track for your character and all your companions. There’s faith flag to track–to determine a lot of possible outcomes and potential options for the Inquisition down the road–all the little tidbits of character-specific lore you need to remember for your companions, and a slew of relationships to manage. You really have to stay on top of those since you absolutely get notified any time someone approves or disapproves of what you’re doing, but you’ve got no way to monitor that stat beyond the way they greet you and say farewell when you’re hanging out around your base. Even that isn’t necessarily clear-cut, though, for the whole party. Some people say the same stuff regardless of how they feel about you and others sometimes mix in an old salutation on what is supposed to be an infrequent rotation but, as I’ve found, it can actually happen quite often! It’s exhausting, trying to keep track of it without having some kind of major flag to tell me how they feel about me. I’m sure it’ll be a bit more clear once I’m more settled into Skyhold and I can start doing companion quests or lock myself into a relationship with someone (still probably going to be Solas, but I might mess around a bit first, just so I’m not completely committed to him the entire game. I need to have SOME relationship fun in this game).

To be honest, given the choice, I’d mostly focus on the relationships and quest stuff, since the characters and their interactions are more of what I’m interested in, along with the general story of the world and whatnot, but I don’t have that luxury in this game. I either have to figure out a way to quickly work through the plot without doing too much in the way of side quests and exploration, or I have to commit to the exploration and drill through it all as quickly as I can. Which will not be very quickly. A lot of these maps are huge and take several hours to work your way through. Once I get through the remainder of this “just got to Skyhold” stuff, I’ll have access to eight of them that aren’t super plot relevant at that point (though there’s plenty of side stuff at all of them) and will only have finished two, mostly finished another, and gotten a tiny bit into the fourth. The next four will take twenty to thirty hours total to work through all of them, maybe more. And that’s ignoring how often I might have to return to these places to do some additional quests or whatever that showed up late. Or that you couldn’t do at all until later, like that one corner of the Hinterlands where there’s just a dragon waiting for you, that you can just run until when you’re still in the single-digit levels, or any number of areas in the post-Skyhold part of the game when you need to sometimes do War Table missions to access areas on maps you’ve already unlocked. It’s just so bothersome because there’s just so much of it! I wouldn’t mind it nearly as much if there was less.

There’s a growing part of me that is certain my time might be better served by just focusing on the plot, not exploring, and just getting work done rather than doing my customary “wander around until I find something interesting” thing. I’ve got barely more than two weeks left as I’m writing this and just eight more days as you’re reading this until the new game comes out. I can’t afford to dillydally if I’m going to get through the plot and all the relevant DLC before Veilguard comes out. I gotta know the specifics so I can make good decisions! I still gotta romance that odious bald egg man so I can break his heart/get my heart broken when he does a heel turn! I gotta make decisions about who lives and who dies (probably)! I gotta meet Morrigan and her kid! There’s just so much game left to play and I’m really not sure I can get it all done, even if I hurry. As much as I enjoy a bountiful game, I really hope that Veilguard isn’t as long and as stuffed-to-the-gills are Inquisition is. I would love a larger focus on the plot and characters than what inquisition is giving me…