Text Handling, RPG-Action Adventure Title

What would be the best way to handle presenting text to the player, for a title similiar to Legend Of Zelda for the Wii.
I would need the character to be able to talk to Npc’s, and examine things.

My first thought is to apply a GUI text and parent it to the player’s object, then reference it when I need to display text. But are there any more simple ways of doing this?

I came up with using OnGUI and updating a status message with whatever relevant info I want the user to see.