Player Comments on The Hero's Journey: Fate's Crossroads

And yes, I did 100% ignore that it was for someone's birthday. I will rate this story, because it's on a public writing site. Hope they enjoy it, though.

Okay. Many things.
(P.S to the author- I'm a very amateur reviewer so please do not take every single thing I say to heart.)

SPOILERS(?) Below.

The Good Stuff:
I love a classic fantasy story, and this seems to be exactly that. There's decent world building, although I have some problems with it. The characters have slight backstory and it seems to be built much like a puzzle to figure out who the characters are. At least, that is how it is for the main character.
I enjoy the writing style when the author actually delves into it. A lot of the time, it feels bland, which leads us to-

The Meh Stuff:
A lot of this story feels like the author didn't want to write it. That's the most plain way I can put it. Most of this story seems to be the author trying to get through the parts they didn't want to write in order to get to the parts they like. In my personal experience, if you don't like writing a scene, your audience won't like reading it.

The Not Great Stuff:
The world building is delivered almost entirely in exposition, sometimes it's better to show things about the world rather than tell the reader like this: 'The deep dark forest is deep and dark and windy and scary.' (That was an oversimplification of course, but you get the point.)
The main character is not given an actual motivation, just hypothetical ones on the front page, which feels a little lazy to me. The lack of when it's an ending or a death is slightly unclear as deaths and endings have the same links toward the bottom and no actual distinction in the pages. And finally, the biggest sin of all:
IT TELLS YOU WHAT THE CHOICES ARE ON THE PAGE.
Let me elaborate, this is more of a personal hatred.
The fun of CYA and IF in general is that you rarely know exactly where your choice will lead. If you must explain a setting or an option because the character has prior knowledge of it, please, please, for the love of writing, make it slightly more natural than something like:
---> this choice will lead to A
---> this choice will lead to B
This may just be a massive pet peeve for me, but it tends to throw me out of the immersion and ruins the story.

TL;DR:
I liked the writing when the author saw fit to commit to the bit, the concept was a bit overused (save the princess!) but could have been executed well with more general care from the author, and it wasn't horrible for a first storygame. I give it a 4/8 for being just OK.
Good first attempt.