Solasta has the dwarf and/or the spy and/or the guy or female soldier from the outpost. Then later you travel for like a hot second with Merton. In the Lost Valley, you have a choice also of three characters, I believe. All of which are... Toast. So yeah, Solasta is probably the worst in terms of companions.
But what I'm hearing, really, is Pathfinder is mid when it comes to companions, and I agree with that. They are okay, but they aren't captivating. In both Kingmaker and WotR, I created parties of 5 custom characters partially because the companions weren't really doing it for me. Their builds weren't all that great and their stories weren't super engaging. I left just enough room in the party to always take 1 companion with for story quests, and that seems to work perfectly enough.
I will also say that I very much enjoy the characters in BG3. For me, they are closer to KOTOR than Pathfinder or anything on that same level. My primary complaints are that Shadowheart is too obviously a Sharran cleric but the game makes it seem like a huge surprise, and the same goes for Wyll and Mizora. Still, at least they have more personality, and if you ever play party of 6 mod so they're all together while traveling they interact a whole lot more and more naturally. Oh, and the only other issue I have is that certain dialogues are only triggered during long rests. They got just as well if you take a short rest or whatever, and could be triggered by something like short rests, but no. Unless you long rest a lot, you miss out on some fun interactions.
I liked how KOTOR would often give you the ability to simply stop right where you were and have discussions in the street if you wanted, flirting, joking, talking about real issues. It made the companions feel more alive and not just grunt minions.
