The Lalafell (or Tarutaru if you wanna use XI terms) was specifically who I was thinking of. The levels sounded off but I don't have a practised ear for that shit.
One line of thought might be that they intentionally chose to up the volume on him because when he says that, that's a clue that it's time to get behind him or interrupt his meteor. I know at the least that he isn't peaking the mic, which the game admittedly hasn't really had an issue with since ARR (though I suspect this in part explains some of the... work on Wuk's voice).
If I ever wind up coming back, I'll try to give it another listen. Issue is, I made the mistake of using that... Neverending Story thing in the inns. Went back and reviewed memorable moments from all of the other expansions, and boy does it drive in just how fucking phoned in DT was top to bottom. It makes it hard to really want to come back, plain and simple.
Shadowbringers, and the good scenes in EW, have such dynamic camera movement that really frames scenes and adds life to the otherwise flat animations and emotes. ARR really has this stiff 'visual novel' atmosphere where characters just stand around and exposit, but even by HW they were clearly playing around with unlocking the camera and really adding energy to cutscenes. The comedic timing present in Gosetsu's introduction - seriously, go re-watch it. Compare that to literally every single attempt at a joke in DT and it's like 1% of the effort. i'm seasick xDDDD
I don't remember any cutscenes in Dawntrail that weren't flat angles locked on characters or hard-cuts to locked closeups with a slow-zoom. I don't even remember there being any pans. Like, sure, I'm not expecting it to match the energy of the air-trip to Azys-Lla with Ysayle's sacrifice, or literally any cutscene in the Shadowbringers endgame scenario - but it doesn't even match moments like HW's campfire conversation or when Ryne gets her name in SHB. Endwalker has a lot of 'stand around and exposit' moments as well, curiously absent from the only good parts of the story, which have led me to think that it isn't just that the writers, well, write - but that they also script and animate the scenes themselves.
I re-watched the EW scene in garlemald where the twins are being held hostage and consoling each other about their hopes for the future, and there's so much more character movement and camera movement than... literally anything in the entirety of Ultima Thule, where the characters are almost entirely standing static. Camera snaps to behind the characters, sits there static. Characters exposit. Same shit in Elpis - Selch and Hythlodaeus stand there completely static and talk about how cool they are as the camera keeps snapping to behind them and staying put.
