This is gonna be a doozy of a review as a heads up (all good things btw! dont worry.)
Started off by reading your story that you paired along with this, because the artwork you selected was really striking, and I'm going to be entirely honest when I say the tone I expected from this soundtrack was going to be a lot darker in nature, but was pleasantly surprised to hear a lot more of an upbeatish sound, especially through the first 4 songs. I don't know if you have heard of Slime Rancher, but this reminds me a TON of that! Absolutely check it out because if you don't already know it I think it would really help you develop these ideas even more, and seems to naturally mesh with your orchestral writing style.
I think something that surprised me a lot was to do with the actual arrangement part of this, based on the other media you shared I felt this would be darker as i mentioned and I instead got pretty different vibes from it, and after reading your explanation in the discord it really helped me nail down a bit of what I think is happening here. If you listen to the slime rancher soundtrack (going to highlight ember valley, moss blanket) you will hear they sound super playful, and I would argue one of the main proponents behind this is the arrangement and orchestration of it all. Both of these songs are characterized in different ways through their lighter and more spaced out melody ideas, with very little solid strong underlying chords which makes them feel very bouncy, and especially in ember valley these rich and full swells come in to create intrigue and awe for the listener.
I think where things got lost in translation for me is that you do a lot of similar things to the slime rancher soundtrack, but with the intent for different results. Your writing is absolutely gorgeous don't get me wrong, I'm going to be transparent and say i had this at a 4 star in every category save for quality and impression which were 5s because technically your work is amazing. The more cognitive dissonance for me stems from the fact that you have these more emotional and introspective ideas, set over a comparatively thin orchestration, that leaves a lot of the space that creates the bouncy feel that the two songs ive mentioned so far have, especially when paired with the pizzicato strings and percussion elements. This in turn makes a song that can have these incredible questioning and sorrowful melodies have a maybe on edge but also playful feel. I think this is best illustrated in Footprints in the drifts, where the emphasis on percussion and the space sometimes separate from the rest of the harmonic ideas creates a more bouncy sense, which I think tends to evoke adventure and wonder.
Something I think you could do while also sticking to your ideas because you do them so well is experiment with those more fuller sounds and more constantly present harmonic ideas to help reinforce the emotions behind the songs you are making. This is where im going to reference Ancient Ruins more because while still adding some of those elements that you have in your songs that really make you feel like you are trekking up this mountain (the moving percussion and plucked string basses), the Ancient Ruins theme still has that distinct feeling of introspection, and almost a sense of timelessness and loss in it. I think one of the driving factors in this is the use of a much more constant harmony, note the evolving texture of the string chords that adapt to the melody and really match that emotion, going higher up in the more playful parts but not afraid to sit on the lower end in the richness of the cellos when the melody gets darker (like the descending melody line at 0:55). I would recommend finding the Ancient Ruins Night theme as well if you want to really hear how this theme gets more darker and has an entirely different emotional feel just based on the context.
So this is a very long winded way of saying, experiment with the thickness of your ensemble! Diving more into the middle and low ends to really solidify the more haunting harmonies you do have present in here in the audience's ear will help to draw out that emotion as much as you can, think again about the grand swells in the ember valley theme! The thing about the constant moving parts that you have throughout these songs is that the audience will often wonder why everything is moving. Is it to create confusion? Keep you upbeat? Maybe something exciting is happening? But without that through line sometimes these complicated ideas can get a little bit lost in translation, which is such a shame because you have such great ideas here, and even if I didn't interpret them the way you had intended I really want to make sure you know that! I do actually think you got on the right track to doing what im talking about here in your more tense themes like Shades on the Trail, To Claim Oneself, and Alone. The simple, higher ended string chords create a very tense feeling in that song, and the dissonances help sell that even more! The other events happening around it help to create a feeling as if the character is pacing back and forth, not sure where to go next, and I think of the first four songs this was the one I was able to connect to your story the most with how you intended it.
Overall though, really incredible work. I know this seems like I had a lot of negative things to say, but its honestly because your story and composition style really really spoke to me and I wanted to figure out a bit more why I felt the way I did, and why that might not exactly line up with what you were thinking. I Hope that laying out my thoughts like this help you come up with more ways to approach your writing and conveying that artistic intent, while still making more really incredible works, because you have a gift and it shows in this submission!