so i was ranting to myself - as one does - and i realized that the reason the characters in dandy's world feel so flat is because there's no story for them to be interacting with, among other things.
like i told a friend this like, MONTHS back (hello i know you will see this eventually) that there's only written conversation in the elevator and that's it. the toons don't have voices. they don't have facial expressions that change when talking. they ONLY speak on floors when using an ability or finishing a machine. the entirety of the toons' characters are shoved into, what, less than 10 second conversations? that's enough to get a grasp, and it's definitely not enough to have any of them be fleshed out.
and with the story, i feel like there'd be so much more life given into them if they were allowed to actually react outside of these scripted convos. sprout wouldn't feel so tied to cosmo if he was allowed to express his over-protectiveness for the other toons. brusha and tisha's conflict would make more sense if we could see moments that hint at whatever caused the rift. shelly being ignored to the point others forget her name? if we saw the toons doing their own thing, that aspect of her character would make so much more sense.
it's like, the more i think about dandy's world, the more i feel the game's current gameplay was the wrong choice for the setting.