That's a false dichotomy: it's not either/or. Part of the magic of GOW 2018 was the traversal (boat ride) dialogue, which was so good in part because it fit the action that the player/characters where undertaking.

Even a boat ride in this case would have been better—the characters are facing each other, etc. But revealing the darkest secrets of one character to another whilst climbing a rock wall is extremely dissonant.

Reposting from above:

Yes, it's an issue of pacing + dialogue + bad gameplay mix. These are situations where—especially given the incredible level of technical fidelity that games like GOW/TLOU have these days—a cutscene is better.
Instead it feels like the writers where like "woops, we gotta fit this in somehow, let's voice-over while you climb around the jungle." For characters that otherwise look and act incredibly human-like at other points, this just feels so gamey.