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in general could have been much longer, needed way more time between story beats, way more transitional parts, way more conflict, everything just needed more

companion story arcs are set up as this grand thing by the Varric storybook pieces (which I love btw) and don't actually live up to how exciting they frame them as

not enough interaction with Rook at the lighthouse. if we can't talk to the companions whenever we want, we shouldn't be excluded from conversations when they happen in the lighthouse as this disincentivises you from spending time there

sooooo many awkward facial animations. that half-grin/smirk is haunting me in my dreams and appears at completely inappropriate moments

sooooooooooo many awkward body animations. Recycled hands-on-hips animation in almost every interaction really kills it for me

animations and facial expressions completely not matching the tone of the scene or sentence

so many of Rook's dialogue options don't match the option you pick in the dialogue wheel or are completely different from what the option suggests Rook will say

a lot of messy, very awkward dialogue that could have been written much better. I can only hear Rook say "I'm so sorry" so many times without it seeming like a fall-back when they could have said so much more or said things differently according to the context of the conversation

forces you to be monogamous but keeps in flirting between companions if you're romancing one of them

Rook feels completely disconnected from the factions and companions in terms of power. A lot of the forward action in the game is just "hey [companion] go get me a contact/set up a meeting", lots of the connections happen off-screen "oh hey Rook this person wants to meet"

obvious favouritism for certain Rook backgrounds. Playing as LoF Rook felt like my background didn't even matter, might as well have picked nothing

SO. MANY. UGLY. ARMOUR. SETS.

very minimal ways to customise your armour

previous game characters handled as cameos akin to marvel post-credits scenes

every single decision felt too easy. characters just go along with whatever happens like they've got a word count limit

not enough time with the bad guys. narratively they felt like brooding cartoon villains in a big castle that would occasionally come down to throw a fireball at the siege at their gates then go back in

SO MANY OBVIOUS TUTORIAL NPC ASS LINES THAT DONT EVER STOP. I KNOW I CAN OPEN THE DOOR NOW. I KNOW I HAVE TO DESTROY THE CRYSTAL. I KNOW WE CAN GO DOWN NOW. SHUT UPPPPPP

not enough characterisation for Rook. like they couldn't decide whether they wanted to create an established character for you to play or for you to have a sandbox character to leech your personality onto, and it resulted in an awkward half-character that failed on both fronts

spirits being blue glowing people now. I hate it

severe lack of so many things but why the hell do we hardly see, hear from, or interact with the Dalish

story so bad we have to get crumbs from fired writers' twitter/reddit/bluesky/etc. (fyi entirely framing this as an executive issue, not a writer issue)

reducing "the south" to a few letters from the inquisitor

most of the hair options are ugly

everything is so peachy and bright and righteous like nothing bad ever happens and we're all the good guys and we forgive everyone (cough, crows). it's like the game wants you to be convinced no one around you is ACTUALLY doing anything bad, oh we don't ACTUALLY hurt or steal or kill it's all harmless :)

forces found family but doesn't actually let you enjoy the found family

the whole "we're distracted" thing came out of NOWHERE and was NOT at all what I thought coming out of weishauppt. there was zero set-up for it and it was so unbelievable, could have been handled way better

can't believe I'm saying this but not enough religion. just everywhere, in everything. how can you deal with religious themes and fail to put any in

such an offensive lack of awareness for mixed race/culture peoples in Taash's storyline

also on that note, gross stereotyping even in a game with revolutionary progression

so much of the banter between companions is just full of nothing. you could've used that precious resource to build character, deliver lore, but there's so many empty and wasted words. so much of it feels like padding and without purpose.

Bellara's storyline kind of came out of nowhere. it just felt like "oh btw I have a brother and he's doing some shit" and we deal with it and it's over. the best part of that storyline was the funeral

every mention of events, people, or other things from previous games just feels like someone's poor attempt at saying "hey remember this? :) pretty cool right? :)" and not wanting to do anything more than making a cool reference