Good:
I think that throwaway lines are somewhat better than in the old games or at least on par. The few cutscenes the game has are pretty good.
Bad:
The overall story is lackluster, little revelations, artificial progress and gatekeeping, the main characters aren't compelling, the story beats are recycled, the story is pretty much an exposition dump, and the ending was rushed.
If I had to trim all the narrative fat in SI&II I'd still can come up with a solid 1 hour for the first and 2/3 for the second one while still having an overall sense of introduction conflict and resolution, if I'd do the same with S3, I'm not sure where is the line between the fat and the actual plot, I'm not sure I'd even consider Sun training as actually relevant, since there's no real character development for Ryo more than an artificial gatekeep (as opposed for example to the 4 wude), I'd probably just start with the introduction and "thugs are roaming", cut to the Bailu fight and exposition for going to Niaowu, cut to Niao Sun at the warehouse, meeting Niao Sun at the castle, lan di fight and boat exposition. I'm not sure that will fill 15 minutes (and the only things plotwise left out would be the scroll exposition and the bridge flashback by old lady, Feng "I knew Iwao" and the Akane thing, even including those, I'm not sure it can fill 30 minutes).
But most than all, it's not well written, why not make Mr Muscles appear first in Bailu, defeat Ryo and then let the other guy in charge since Ryo is too weak ? It would give it continuity. Or find Niao Sun "captive" with the other stone mason for you to "rescue" her, that would already create a trust relationship with her (and she's already in a fucking boat coming from Bailu to Niaowu), or have Sun and Fei make a teacher diad (good cop/bad cop, technique vs instinct, finesse vs strenght, etc etc) and use those to elaborate about Iwao, or make Ryo have to get the boat from the red snakes, or make fat guy introduce you to fisherman, or make broom girl actually interact with anyone, or find ren having problems with the thugs instead of just randomly appearing (and I could go on for a while).
There are tons of ways of improving the story even if the main plot is just to find Yuan.