It’s pretty small to be honest but it’s just so confusing to me. Why did they not bother voicing the conversations you have with NPCs by interacting with them? Everything else is voiced, even random NPC chatter in field areas. But this seemingly more “important” dialog isn’t. They actually even went to the trouble of voicing partial lines even! It’s just so weird.
Do you guys think it’s an artistic choice? Seems strange that it would be a budget constraint? Why not cut NPC chatter first in that case? Did they ever talk about this in their interviews?
FWIW this is a JRPG staple. Ever since voice acting was first introduced to JRPGs it’s been a combination of voiced and text-only lines, going back to FFX and that generation.
I don’t honestly know whether it’s a cost control measure, or whether it allows side content to be modified later in the dev process, or what. But I’ve basically come to expect it in any JRPG.