In my experience, Tamera made things worse rather than help. After every side quest completion, she'd pipe up with "All right, all right, you rescued a kitten out of a tree, HAPPY NOW?! Let's go to Maxos' Temple already!" After the third/fourth time, I thought that the game is steering me towards advancing the plot, and went to the temple way earlier than I should have.
Would've been better if there was a "minimum level check" somewhere, and instead of pestering you to move on, your imaginary girlfriend would say something like "Hm, OK, you kind of still suck and might die. Let's go practice some more before you get us both killed."
The open map I'm fine with, mostly because if I run into trouble, I can also run away from the said trouble... in most cases, anyway. Not quite the case when you are locked into a tiny room with several +2 mobs.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE open world and non-linearity (I just wish there was daytime and nighttime, too...). Despite all the hair-pulling moments, right now Ego D blows Dragon Age out of the water, and makes the latter feel like an arcade rail-shooter. That said, I would love to see somewhat more forgiving difficulty curve in the future, and fewer "no escape other than reload" situations.
