The story isn't "bland," it's quite well-written until you get to the ending. At that point, YMMV, and I think that depends entirely on how well-read you are. You'll think it's a great ending if you're unfamiliar with twist endings and their overuse, or just don't like happy endings, in which case you'll
love this ending.
What "bugs" it has I think are limited to the control scheme and its ties to character animations, as it's eminently possible for a player character to be completely shut down by ranged fire as you're forced to watch the injury animation play out with no means of countering it, your control over the character being effectively removed for the duration of the animation (the problem, of course, is when you're hit in rapid succession, you can't recover fast enough to avoid getting hit again). Related to this is how after every single bit of dialogue, your character has his weapon sheathed, so dialogue ends, you immediately get hit with ranged/magic damage, you don't even have your weapon out, and you're screwed by a game that's
Nintendo Hard for all the wrong reasons (and really, who wouldn't confront a Bad Guy and not have their weapon out, hmm?)
Also, related to animations, every single enemy has but one death animation. Kill a bunch of enemies at the same time, and watch them collapse to the ground in perfect synchronicity.
