First off, while this is a complaint post, I am otherwise absolutely loving the game!
Having reached Galawain's Tusks, I feel confident in criticising how companions work in Avowed.
All of them are interesting characters, and the narrative encourages you to frequently swap them out. But in practice, two of the companions play suboptimally, especially in late game, for a couple of reasons.
Kai and Marius effectively have to take a back-seat once you have Giatta and Yatzli if you don't want to be playing suboptimally.
Of the two ladies, Yatzli is less essential, but still has a feature that requires you take her with you if you don't have prior knowledge of the maps. Her "Special" ability to reveal illusions is the only special ability that the player character has no equivalent of.
But Giatta, being the only healer, quickly becomes essential, especially if playing on the higher difficulties.
If you're not playing with Giatta, you will be spending more on consumables to keep you alive, which will in turn eat into your ability to upgrade your equipment.
The other characters do have various control-like side effects, but none of these can compete with Giatta's healing abilities.
If you're playing to enjoy the story while also experiencing challenging combat, this adversely affects enjoyment; for example, narratively, it makes sense that Marius should be in your team almost constantly when you get to Galawain's Tusks. But mechanically, both Yatzli and Giatta trump him, as he simply can't offer the same tools that they do.
Avowed shares a lot in common with Veilguard's companion system, but there they handily avoided the Giatta problem by ensuring that everyone was capable of healing if required. I'm not saying it should be the same in Avowed, but the control options offered by the other companions should at least be equivalent to the benefits offered by Giatta's heals. Either that, or Giatta's healing is nerfed to bring her more in line with the other characters.
I know balancing healers is a perrenial issue in RPGs, but it's not impossible.
The other thing that annoys me and rips me out of the game is companions commenting on the mission or dungeon you've just completed as though they were in the party when they weren't. It may seem a minor quibble to a lot of people, but from a narrative continuity perpective, it's really jarring.
And on the minor side of things (but a broader perspective), the lack of companion gear and the relative simplicity of companion builds compared to player ones is also annoying. Not as bad as the issues outlined above, but still enough to make companions feel more like extra skills on a hotbar rather than fully fledged individuals.
Please note that none of these issues are enough to ruin the game for me!
I'm having a blast, and think that it's a more than worthwhile addition to Obsidian's Eora universe. Some things even work better in this action-RPG format than in the CRPG one, such as consumables and grenades.
But they do tarnish the experience and seem like things that are relatively easy to fix.
