The problem I have with the game, or at least with the part I experienced, isn’t the amount of dialogue; it’s the quality of it. Especially those bits where the narrator just keeps going on and on with super corny lines in awkward English that add nothing to the scene, or those long-ass inner thoughts from the character that literally just describe what we’re already seeing. I’ve got no issue with filler dialogue; I actually like watching characters interact, even when the plot isn’t moving or the interaction is just everyday stuff. Even infodumps (since we are talking about Japonese VNs, of which I’m not even a fan tbh) are fine if they’re well written. But this? Yeah, not hitting the mark so far.Agreed on both fronts - to critique the amount of filler dialogue here isn't necessarily wrong, it's just curious given that I could find any number of - usually japanese style games come to mind - with LOADS of annoying filler dialogue and internal monologues, saying much about nothing.
Tony is mostly tolerable on the non-tony path, the only scene that really was jarring for me was the limo drive --> hotel --> airplane. The tone and dialogue on that made no sense on a non-tony blackmail path, everything about it felt very designed from the ground up for the with-tony path. He wouldn't even need more renders, it just needs more dialogue switches to make it flow otherwise. Stuff like having Lara chat with Mike before leaving, then in the limo have her acting more standoffish like it's a chore for work and less like a undercover call girl.
As my earlier post, only strong critique would be if a player is on the non-tony path and has Lara get it on with the ceo, tony still butts in anyway. it makes no sense, and it would have been nice to have an "ntr lite" path ABSENT TONY. But I guess we can't have that, he has plot armor that allows him to command his own ceo.
Since DoubleDabbler was kind enough to inform me that the writing quality stays the same throughout the whole thing, I’ll just drop it. I'm not saying the game was uninteresting in itself, but it just wasn’t interesting enough, with all those tired tropes I describe earlier, to make up for the writing, at least for me.
P.S.: I don’t like NTR, but I’ve got nothing against it either, so Tony wasn’t a big concern personally. Honestly, Lara was way worse as a character for me. I liked her as an antagonist, I didn't like her as a love interest. But those are personal tastes.