The discussion of a mountain of text vs cinematic is a different one, though my 2cents for what it’s worth is that despite being if the older generation, I prefer cinematics and speech.
Witcher 3 showed how possible it can be if you’re willing to put the effort in. I’m not sure they alllll need to be as presented, I would be happy enough for more conversation points to be with text overhead like the banter you hear whilst walking around, rather than interrupting the flow of the game all the time, but that’s a preference.
The problem at the moment is the unfinished character animations for customs, where we react either bored, smug or aghast and due to no speech deliver very little nuance.
I think that’s where the block text approach benefits because it’s allll in your own head. The moment you apply cinematics and speech you have to pour a ton of effort in to not make it look cliche or clunky. We’re not there yet, but I’m hopeful Larian will bring that part up to scratch as development continues.
