Companions/Origin Stories in BG3
One of the things BG1/BG2 did best was companions. So much so that they still stand out today compared to nearly all RPG companions from the games that came after. One of the reasons for this was the uniqueness of the characters. They were all larger than life and highly interesting. (Personality & Visual Design)
Currently, Lae'zel is unique/interesting because she's a githyanki. Astarion is also interesting and larger than life (regardless of whether you like the character or not).
To me, that's it. Shadowheart is very generic. If someone did fan art of her, you'd have no idea who she was. Just another fantasy elf. Gale is similar. A very generic character. If you think in terms of comic books, one of the reasons those characters stand the test of time is because their visual design highly stands out, and the personalities are over the top (BG2 understood this). If we have to play for an hour or two to "find out" why Shadowheart is interesting, then the game has failed to make her interesting. It should be instantly apparent why she is enticing to have as part of your story. We should know immediately why Gale is cool. No one wants to play for hours with a boring character to discover if they aren't boring. Why would I go see a movie to "find out" if the characters are interesting? The trailer needs to hook us on the characters or we never go see the film.
Wyll - We've seen so little of this character that I'll reserve judgment, but so far he looks/feels almost interchangeable with Gale. They just have different skin colors. In the right light, they look like the same character, which is a MAJOR fail (just look at the banner at the top of the page). Each one should be so distinct that there's no mixing them up.
