I think incorporating that very real trauma with a bunch of other traumas that seem to be disconnected (to my knowledge) in the service of just making the character more empathetic ultimately just results in a hodgeposh of disconnected traumas that feel more like shock value to make the character more "interesting." The handling of them being trans is especially poorly handled and exceedingly inconsistent to the point that it feels the writing doesn't know what it wants to be half the time. By the end of the true route's story (Specifically the only where the final dungeon is revisiting the first dungeon and you fight the wolf at the end.), me and my friends zoned out of the story so hard because it felt incredibly bloated.
I think the story tried to do too many things with the concept it was given and as a result, it made more missteps in its storytelling than it should have. Given a lot of the story isn't nearly as subtextual as it wants to be (Many things are just directly stated, and when people ask about them, you just completely spell it out for people, and I think that kind of hurts the subtext completely.). I think the lack of indication as well that the character is meant to be an antagonist for a future game actively leads people to a similar conclusion that Rambly would reach.
Now mind you, if you want to know what I actually liked about the quest, some of the dungeons are some of the most distinctly unique and interesting dungeons I've ever seen in a ZC Quest. A couple of standouts include Bob's Dream (As much as I didn't like the story of it, I think the execution of going to points in Bob's life in a single screen to solve puzzles was absolutely fantastic.) The entire dream hopping section just in general was pretty well done, and the Monkey's Dream (Forgot their name), specifically the version where you step on tiles to change the numbers of the rocks and it goes into sideview on 8 was particularly excellent. Those are the three that stuck out to me the most as being really damn cool. I wasn't really big on any of the If fights if I'm honest. I think most of them outstay their welcome for a little too long, but I appreciate the ambition.
As for areas I don't like, while Bob's dream was great, Bob's dungeon in one of the other routes seemed more tedious than fun. Plus, there's the entire "Zelda" route, which I think just has no place in the quest. It felt more like sacrificing gameplay in favor of a message about making a "boring Zelda game", and I think you can have that message while still making that route fun and interesting from a gameplay standpoint. Because I'm just running off of memory, I don't really remember every dungeon I liked or disliked, but the point is, while it was a mixed bag, some of the better dungeons in the quest are super cool.
I think you do have serious potential as a questmaker, and I think just because people aren't receiving the latter half of this first entry particularly well doesn't mean you have to let it destroy you. The criticisms are harsh, but if the quest has such an emphasis on story, and you want people to have discourse on the story, I think those critiques are worth listening to and discussing. While yes, there's the language barrier to deal with, I don't think much of the handling of the quest can just be chalked down to that, and I, again, think that's discourse worth having.