>>96111592
I thought the upkeep was very reasonable. Depending on what path you're traveling you switch out to a different environment deck - forest, mountain, swamp, river, etc. Some major locations have their own set of cards that you'll add into the terrain deck, otherwise you'll just throw in a few generic valley cards. I think you tend to spend long enough at each location that this bit of upkeep doesn't get annoying. Then when you're in play everything moves very smoothly - choose an action, spend your resources, check modifer, run through all the icons. It's never an unreasonable amount of cards in play at once, and you'll only have to deal with a couple types of tokens really. It's definitely less annoying than Slay the Spire the board game, and I find that playable as well.
check out a picture of the valley map if you want to get a sense for when you'll need to change terrain