I'd say that the mass effect scenes fit the overall tone of the game. I certainly didn't feel pulled out of the story. I think the linked sequence approach focused more on the intimacy of of the characters, rather than the sex itself. I would say that it's better since it leaves more to the imagination. The point of a sex scene, like any scene in a story, is to convey information to move the story forward in some way. They're meant to convey the advancement of the individuals involved. The problem in a roleplaying game is that we the players control one of the characters, which means that in a sex scene, there will inevitably be a lot of players who don't mind sex scenes in principle but will look at what eventually ends up in Baldur's Gate 3 and say 'that's not my character.' I think the explicit sex scenes in the Witcher work because Geralt is fundamentally a settled character. He can develop in some different directions but he's basically the same person in everyone's game. Our Tavs and Shepards can be wildly different, down to being different species in the former's case. Our Tavs can be nobles, entertainers, wizards and barbarians. Yet unless Larian is willing to get quite granular in a way that might not even be to the benefit of the sex scene overall, then they potentially can all have sex in the same way. So for a large section of the audience, regardless of the quality of the animation, those sex scenes will effectively take our character out of our control and have us just watch our character not really being our character for a while.
