Only did one playthrough so far, plus I don't usually play with portraits if I can help it so keep those in mind. Likes (L) and dislikes (DL) will be presented as I think them up, so they aren't chronological to the story. The simplified conclusion is I like this story.
The genre and present themes (i.e fantasy, hero's party, archetypal characters) are some of my favorites, which was a big help (L).
I like that the exposition sections allow for a lot of variation in the details of what happens and who you are. There's very clearly a linear storyline, but depending on what you choose you'll move along that line from different perspectives. It gave the game some predictability while also retaining new content (L).
Its not hard to make characters mad at you; they have their own personalities, interests, and biases. The party is diverse with members from all available races and they have different priorities. Obviously there are some dialogue options you can choose that just scream '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥', but other times its more so that you unintentionally offend them by focusing on your own priorities. If you say something about gold and selling the historical relics for a profit to Kattya, who values those historical relics, she will get mad at you. If you tell the orc and exiled prince, Vid, that once he wins the succession battle he can give aid to the human cause, he'll get mad at you. This is an aspect I saw that other commenters didn't like, and its understandable why. However, for me I found it made the characters more realistic and gave my choices more weight, as what you do will directly affect how they react to you. I remember in a confrontation with the dwarves I chose to take physical violence instead of trying negotiation, and as a result Okka, the dwarf in the party, left and I barely saw him again. I was surprised that such a thing was possible, but it also gave him depth as a person and emphasized the fact that, even as an NPC, he had a certain amount of agency. It was nice to see (L).
The characters are always fighting. This was something I chose to include because I saw that other commenters included it. I liked it for the same reason I liked the fact that they somewhat easily got mad at you; it gave them depth. Since the characters are from different backgrounds and each race has its own problems going on during the story, they prioritize different things. This isn't a group of friends so much as a group that got together out of a common goal: defeating the queen. Over time, the individual situations each race has escalates, and every party member ultimately chooses to leave at some point in order to focus on their specific one. Since a lot of the situations your group gets in are directly related to multiple of the situations (the main one of which is the humans' one), the values and priorities of multiple parties are constantly clashing. With that in mind, it felt unlikely that they'd be able to get along without such things getting in the way (especially since the entire story seems to take place over the course of around one to two months, so no one actually knew each other that well). Obviously there's nothing wrong with preferring a hero's party that functions more as a group of friends, but this dynamic never actually bothered me given that it seemed to make sense for the situation (L).
I found the epilogue scene where you all get together for a last celebration to be a bit maudlin, since it treats the group as friends despite the fact that's not what they ever appeared to be. For instance, it takes place a good amount of time (maybe six months to a year?) after the end of the main story, which means these people cared enough about each other to keep in touch for that long AND arrange a meetup. Not the most implausible thing, given that a common struggle brings people together in a way that can be just as strong as friendship. However, everyone was joking with each other as if they were friends, which I honestly don't think they were. It feels like the author tried to make a story where they were friends despite their differences, but I don't think that was written well enough because that's not how it came off. It's a fairly small thing though, to be fair (DL).
The aforementioned constant fighting led me to an opinion of the other party members that some other commenters also made: that we didn't like them because they were annoying or some other negative trait. For me it was less that I disliked any of the characters (given that I understood why they acted like that, it was hard to actually dislike them or see them as people who could have been expected to act differently) and moreso that I didn't see them as friends so much as aquaintances of convenience; this is why the epilogue scene was jarring (DL).
The choices that matter (usually regarding the situations of the various races, where the interests of one conflict with the other) tend to be black, white, or nothing. Another thing I saw from another commenter (as a criticism regarding the lack of gray options), and overall I'd agree, but I also want to correct one thing there. There were a lot of times where I thought "really? I HAVE to choose one of these?" I feel like the main reason I didn't like it was that there were very few copout/non-answers, and given what I said above regarding the personalities and biases of the others, this means that very often you're put in a position of having to side with someone and upset the other person. I'm not especially mad at the presence of black and white, as honestly I find that copout answers, though preferable for maintaining the status quo, tend to be boring in terms of resulting effects. Because of that I'm actually somewhat glad they don't exist (L).
However, I will say that I don't think "nothing" came up as an option as much as the commenter gives it credit for. There were multiple times where I was looking at a dialogue pick where it was "black, white, black, white" and thinking "where is the 'I shut the ♥♥♥♥ up and pretend this isn't happening' option?" Depending on who you want your character to be, getting involved in all of these topics might not be what they want to do, and so I think it's a loss that that isn't allowed at times (DL).
'A lot of the choices don't change what happens so much as how you react to what happens' was something else I also saw. This isn't something I was ever particularly bothered by, since if I had to pick I prefer character development and relationship evolution in these stories to actual plot advancement. This is why some stories that have phenomenal plot but shallow characters are ones I don't tend to get fully engaged in, while others can have basically no plot or tolerance for variation but a lot of character interaction and I'll love it. It's more a thing about preference, so decide which one is more your style and make your judgment on this game accordingly (L).
I do agree with others that this story is very action oriented. You're always either on your way to do something enormous (the journey of which involves its own action) or doing something enormous. I can think of examples of where this was a problem for me, such as Dawn of Heroes. However, I wasn't that bothered by it here. I think that's because all the things you do mean something important to someone in your party, so it feels like the fighting was less sensationalized even though it was always there. Dawn of Heroes operates much like chapters, where each one involves a short time skip and is basically a new action scene, which makes it much more impersonal. Honestly, I didn't really notice the fact that action was always happening the first time, since there was a lot of emphasis in the story on the opinions and ideas of those in your party regarding what is happening and what should be done, which made it feel like it was less action oriented and more character oriented (L).
