Developers Weigh In On Octopath Traveler's Partial Spoken Dialogue

I'm currently on a role-playing game kick. My time is divided between Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, which I'm approximately 60 hours into, and Octopath Traveler, which I just began a day ago. The two games couldn't be more different in tone, story, or gameplay, but I'm finding both are jarring for the same odd reason: only a portion of their stories feature spoken dialogue. I know this isn't a new thing that is happening in games. RPGs in particular have been offering a mix of spoken dialogue...