I watched the series and I am not fond of how certain characters were portrayed like Sima Yi, Lu Meng, Zhou Yu and Zhang Fei. Sima Yi is very bland and he always managed to look and sound so bored. I didn't care much about his scenes with Jingshu either and I'm not sure what's the point of putting her in there in the first place. Zhang Fei seems childish, and his voice is so exaggerated at times. I mean sure, Zhang Fei is always portrayed as a brute but he was also quite intelligent in history apparently. The portrayal in the drama really dumbed him down so much. Another similar one would be Ma Chao. Full on brute with no brains.
As for Zhou Yu, they made him too jealous and somewhat insubordinate. Why? To make Zhuge Liang, Sun Quan and Lu Su look good? And why was Lu Meng such a loyal lapdog? I could bear it at first but then it became annoying.
But this series did portray a number of characters well. I really appreciate the acting for Wei Yan, Zhang Song, Xun Yu, Fa Zheng, Sun Quan, and Lu Su. I never cared much about Wei Yan, Sun Quan and Lu Su before watching this TV series. The 1994 version of said characters were weak or one dimensional.
Many other characters could have been done better in terms of acting like Zhuge Liang and Liu Bei, who is also bland at times and speaks in monotone, considering they are the main characters. For instance in the scene where ZGL was sick and near dying. I had to stop myself from laughing when I saw that scene as well as the one where Wang Lang died though I'm pretty sure it was the background music that made me laugh in the latter scene.