Chadley may be an interesting avatar of SHINRA's desire to dissect and extract every nugget of value from the planet, and therefore reflect the modern player's desire to do every peabrained activity if it has a node on a world map but he still SUCKS.

Rebirth is boring open world busywork in between the actual interesting bits that made Remake such a fantastic game. I still like those bits, I still like the whole conceit of these sequels, but this is an unnecessarily bloated recitation of those elements.

The sidequests are not far removed from the pointless overworld nonsense and are as weak as they were in Remake. The world at this fidelity just isnt as symmetrical or foreboding as it was on PSX; the party dont fade into the background of the world, they tower over it with far more colored in personality. I believe, for a number of reasons, that this is fine considering the nature of the game's existence and what it's saying about FF7 as a cultural product, but it also means that the more this new series becomes a by-the-numbers AAA rpg the more a contradiction arises.