I think the desire for non-edgelord characters is very fair. It definitely is a major blind spot they have.
My favorite video game party members come from golden age Final Fantasy and Planescape: Torment.
Morte is floating skull plucked from an internal column in hell… and he is HILARIOUS. Despite a very edgy sounding background, he is actually super chill and great comic relief but with some legitimate tragedy around the edges of his story.
Vivi is sentient prototype magi-tech war machine grappling with the concept of mortality, but he is also fucking adorable.
Initially Auron appears to be just a stoic, badass, samurai / monk badass mentor. It turns out he is a ghost, but you don’t learn that until the FFX is almost over.
Larian definitely need to expand their concept of what a cool character is. They are kind of stuck in one mold, but there is a lot of ways to craft compelling characters. You can have a bunch of crazy badasses but it’s easier to pull off if there is also a few silly or comic relief characters.
