>>39373806That comes down to more a design choice in that aspect. Hop and Hau definitely have similar personalities and are at least starting form the same place. That said we've only seen Hop from the start of the game and have no clue how he could develop.
As for the animation, I don't think Hop and Hau are the only ones to use it. It seems much more like a generic animation for use in the generic cutscenes.
A lot of people don't seem to care about the difference between minor and major cutscenes when it comes to this stuff. The reused animation just conveys generic "explaining excitedly". I wouldn't be surprised if there's other NPCs that do it in SM or in S/S. By contrast, the animation from his intro is clearly given more uniqueness and personality. It's most likely from either his first battle or just a major introduction cutscene.
>>39373835>pre-rendered cutsceneYou don't know what that means, do you?
Pre-rendered means it was done in advance and is being played out of engine as a video/animation. Nothing so far has seemed to be pre-rendered honestly, because they made the NPCs in-game have as much quality as you usually see in pre-rendered things. I wouldn't be suprised if all cutscenes in the game are in-engine.
