Final Fantasy VII wasn't the nostalgic gem for me that it seems to be for so many others. I only got around to playing the original about a year ago and enjoyed it for what it was, so I was ready to adore the remake.

All Square Enix needed to do was follow the script's core beats and flesh it out, while fully realizing the setting's world, ambiance and characters..and they did! The visuals were stunning and the added interactions between characters added some much needed depth and characterization. And since I'm not a huge fan of turn-based combat I really appreciated the change to a real time action battle system, which boostered my enjoyment on top of many other improvements.

However, filler is a major problem here. I appreciate added scenes and dialogue but some of them are frankly boring at times and dragging on for way too long, thus ruining the pacing a lot of times. Either make the game shorter or make the padding enjoyable. The side quests are almost all basic filler fetch quests. "Go here, kill x enemies, come back, go somewhere else, repeat.", so at some point I just stopped bothering with them.

Also, the further the story progressed, the harder did the "remake" deviate from the original's story and developments. But the worst changes were made in the last chapter. The immense retcon to the story honestly bothered me more than I thought it would. The "everyone will be alive and happy" set up really feels cheap to me.

I'm happy for folks enjoying the "remake" and getting hyped for the sequels, but personally, I'm not feeling it. The thought of a more convoluted story and a bloated, open-world experience doesn't really appeal to me.