So then you have all the weird parallel / future universe stuff, have exactly the fight with Sephiroth that was meant to be at the very end of the final game, and it appears to then get back to normal almost as if none of it ever happened and you just escaped Midgar like the original. Oh apart from the weird bits where you see Zack, who you're not supposed to know about until WAY later when Sephy is screwing with your mind. Oh just... whatever. A lot of my discomfort is, as represented by the Whispers, seeing things happen differently to what they're "supposed" to. Oh and then Biggs is alive - well, I suppose you didn't technically check his pulse and announce that he's dead, and you did just say he was "in really bad shape, I'm sorry", but.. well, seems Barrett is destined to leave his old buddies for dead when he could have saved them
So yeah the way they're taking this. Who knows? The Whispers / Arbiters clearly IMO represent players of the original who want things to go as they were "supposed to" but to what extent (and I wonder if Jessie is alive). Perhaps they leave the story alone but if someone was supposed to live or die they intervene. In which case it's saying that Biggs and Wedge survived in the original. Which is plausible, you just never saw them.
Other things then.....
Just being able to see the plates above you (or the lack of one when it falls) makes a huge difference to the atmosphere, for the better. You just kind of have to take everyone's word for it in the original. Heck let's just say, the graphics are amazing and I can't wait to see what the wider world looks like.
Materia system - love it, very similar to the original. It's just a shame it's not a single game so that you can nurture a set of materia right through to the end, as there's nothing more satisfying than getting a full set of Master Materia. I imagine they'll start you off with some basics for part 2 rather than have you wade in super powerful from your part 1 save.
Battle system - I actually like that too. Personal taste, I know some wanted the original turn based thing. It's taken a few games for them to get this right - I didn't like XII with the 'gambits' thing, I didn't like XIII which was a hack-and-slash but with those weird "modes" you could set your characters to, and what I played of XV was a bit hack-and-slash too. This finally strikes a nice balance between action and strategy, pausing to let you choose magic/actions. Good stuff.
Some of the added depth was great. Controlling Aerith and saving Marlene - that was lovely, touching, made me tear up at one point. New characters like Marle are a nice addition. Seeing the upper plate of sector 7 was cool. The first part of the Shinra HQ was EXCELLENT, thanks to the inspired idea of making Mayor Domino an Avalanche plant and explaining that it's him who's enabled you to bumble around so far. The whole Shinra section made a LOT more sense than thinking "why's this maze here? Why's this puzzle game here? Why am I being attacked by a robot fish centipede thing in the middle of a freaking corridor?" as before.
Some of the padding was shit. Anything that has you running back and forward across platforms for hours, so particularly reactor 5 and Hojo's secret lab. Tedious, both of them.
What they did with the train graveyard was pretty good, if a little lengthy (again). The ghost, neato. I wondered if we'd see that guy on the chariot who you can steal a weapon from and sure enough he didn't disappoint. I really like a little later on how they meet the ghost again and Aerith sort of calms his soul and sends him on his way back to the planet. Made me think of Yuna, which is an interesting point as Nomura commented at one time that FFX-2 and FFVII are connected (it's heavily implied in X-2 that the kid is the same Shinra, or perhaps an ancestor).
Johnny! Yeah a very minor character in the original but who I hoped to see fleshed out. I don't know how much I regret it though
As predicted, the battle banter gets old. Well, apart from hearing Barrett suddenly bellowing out the victory fanfare, which is hilarious every time. But things like "get behind me" "yep! Then I've got your back~" get a bit repetitive the 500th time you hear them.
It's a bit quick when Shinra is killed. It was a big moment in the original but in this one someone new to the game could blink and not realise and then wonder who the hell Rufus is. That is, assuming Shinra IS dead - at this point who knows, anyone could turn out to be alive.
Much like the original, it's quite thought provoking with its allegory to human induced climate change (and its ironic references to corporate greed, considering how many £50 instalments it's likely to be in). Barrett makes some comments about the complicity of standing by being a part of it all that sort of hit home ("I feel personally attacked!" as they say on Reddit), even though in reality probably none of us will go around blowing things up to save the planet and we'll probably just carry on listening to motivating comments on video games while the world burns around us.
