Animations or expressions?

[Puffy_P_Lover]

So, I've been developing a game in rpg maker mz for some time and now, while working on the CG of the characters, I've come across a doubt that's been keeping me awake.
I know how to animate decently well in adobe after effects, and I was thinking of making all the character cards animated, but because of the engine's limitations, I found it difficult to correctly line up the changes in expressions in an animation.
The only functional method I managed to do this ended up resulting in an exaggerated consumption of Vram and very poor performance, since I needed to run several videos at the same time.

With this in mind, I could simply use static CGs, where I wouldn't have a problem with the performance and alignment of animations to prevent them from glitching when I change the expression applied.

What do you think is better, an animation without expressions (the expressions would only be displayed on the character cards next to the message), or a static image with expressions?
(Unfortunately, changing engines isn't a solution, since I've already spent a lot of money buying the plugins and assets I need.)

 

[TheHighSpire]

Depends on the scene. If you already established the atmosphere of the scene, then an animated one where they don't have to change expressions is fine. I suppose you also could use different angles to your advantage like seeing them from behind or above etc.

In scenes where there's a change of feelings, perhaps coupled with a decision, then you do it with a static image where you change image to whatever matches the scene.