"Breach mechanic" from
Chimera Squad comes to mind (time stamp 00:44), but I wouldn't want whole zoom in, everytime I need to make a decision. I am sure they could make it look dynamic, while giving players all the time in the world to make the decision. A nice "Woosh" sound, some freeze animation of enemy in action, and your character readying for response and it's all cool again.
Maybe a bullet time slow-mo thing?
The reaction mechanic is the only thing I really, really dislike because it removes the majority of control, strategy, and control involved with the way Reactions works.
You know what? It could actually work as a compromise. Re-watching the Chimera Squad clip somewhat sold me on the idea.
Make some quick (and let me stress it: quick and snappy, PLEASE) zoom-in with slow-mo on the enemy doing his thing (moving away for AoO, casting for counter-spell, etc) and on the player side something intuitive like "Left click to confirm your reaction, right click to skip it".
We would get what we want, which is some more involved reaction system that goes beyond an automated response with a toggle, and Larian could salvage the pretense of maintaining a sleek, mostly-seamless cinematic presentation without those "pesky text pop-up for nerds".
