On the whole, I'm really enjoying it.

The combat system works well most of the time, though the AI of your party members is a bit lacking with them not really using their abilities to build their ATB gauge which results in quite a bit of micro managing to get the most out of them. I think the game could benefit from a version of the Gambit system from FF12, where you can set up some conditions for them to use their abilities without needing to switch to them constantly. The Assess materia is very important to identify the weaknesses and strategies of enemies in order to get them staggered so you can wail on them. Limit Breaks look great but be careful when using them as you can miss if fighting an enemy which can fly or dodge, for example. The summons look suitably epic for their ultimate attacks.

The main boss fights are all very epic, often involving multiple stages and varied strategies to beat them. So far I haven't dies against the bosses but some of them have been quite tricky. On the other hand, some of the monsters you end up fighting for side missions have wiped me multiple times. The first was a rabid shinra dog you're sent to kill. You only have Cloud and Tifa to fight it with, who are two fighters who need a bit of micromanaging to use well (Cloud to make use of his Punisher mode and Tifa to build her Chi levels to access more of her attacks), and the dog hits quite hard and can grab a character to deal periodic damage whilst said character is unable to act.

The materia system is the materia system. Materia levels quicker than it did in the original so you're going to be using the -ga spells by the end of the game. Not sure how they're going to provide a sense of progress on this front in the next episode considering your characters will be rocking max level materia from the beginning. The All materia is now called Magnify and is much rarer than in the original (only found one so far). Also, mastering materia does not give you a fresh version of that materia. Also, the value of materia is no longer tied to its level/AP so no more farming money by maxing out materia to sell.

The weapon upgrade system is pretty cool, allowing you to extend the use of weapons through more materia slots and attack power bonuses and build them in particular ways to help your particular playstyle. Each weapon has its own strengths and weaknesses (some are more geared to physical damage boosts, others magic damage boosts, some are balanced, some offer more defence etc.) which can be further built upon by what upgrades you get for it and resetting your weapons to spend the upgrade points a different way is easy and cheap (only costs 100gil no matter what).

Story-wise there are some good additions to flesh out some of the more undeveloped characters from the original. You learn quite a bit about Jessie's backstory and also some more about Biggs. Wedge still doesn't get that much development. The ShinRa bigwigs such as Heidegger get more screentime also. Not a big fan of the new SOLDIER character added, find him quite annoying. The Wall Market cross dressing plotline is majorly changed, introducing three new characters, an underground Colosseum and a rhythm based dance minigame. All suitably over the top and funny (also you can influence Tifa's outfit during this bit in a conversation in a previous chapter so multiple playthroughs to see all of them are required).

The voice acting performances are good. Barret's reaction following the destruction of Sector 7 stands out for me, particularly his absolute despair over the possible loss of Marlene. Don Corneo is an absolute slimeball, so he is perfect. Heidegger is great, Jessie and Biggs are great, Wedge is a bit annoying though.

Now some things I'm less happy with.

Music-wise most of the new versions of the tracks are great, though I have some exceptions. The new Turks theme I'm not too fond of. I prefer the cleaner guitar from the original. The choice of music for the section where you're fighting your way to the top of the plate is much more sombre, which changes the feel of the segment from an epic assault through the ShinRa forces into more of a desperate one. They also make worse one aspect of the plate falling that I think worked perfectly in the original. In the original, there's no music during the cinematic of the plate falling, until it goes to a shot of President ShinRa watching, in which you can hear the opera music he is listening to in the background. It just served to demonstrate the ruthlessness and evil of the President so well, in my opinion. In the new cutscene you have the same music throughout, an electric rocky thing. President Shinra casually watching thousands of people die whilst listening to some opera is gone, to the detriment of the scene.

Another issue is Sephiroth. I think there is too much of him in the Remake. I think he worked as a villain in the original by his limited screentime. It made every appearance feel important Also, his appearances serve to fill in blanks for the player that the original was intentionally leaving for this period of the game (such as the sick, number tattooed people). In the remake we have Sephiroth appearing when Cloud is interacting with these characters, revealing right away that they are connected to him. Another gripe I have with his appearances ties back to the music gripes from earlier and is that they use Those Chosen By The Planet, his main theme (not boss fight theme) from the original, in its whole orchestration. This will weaken one of the best uses of music in the original, in my opinion. In the original we first hear his theme in its entirety in the Nibelheim flashback as Cloud is telling the party about Sephiroth's destruction of the town and discovery of JENOVA. This is a great use of music as the player takes control of Cloud in the ShinRa mansion before descending into the basement. All through this, the only music is a tolling bell and something which sounds like the beating of a heart. Cloud finds Sephiroth in the basement and they have a discussion where Sephiroth reveals he is the descendant of an Ancient and the rightful owner of the Planet. He goes to leave and tells Cloud he is going to see his mother and at that line the choir kicks in and we hear the complete version of his theme for the first time. It's such a great use of music to build the tension of the scene that I am disappointed that we're not going to get the same effect this time round as we have already heard it before in the game.

Another thing I am a bit disappointed with is there not being some dialogue choices which were present in the original. There's no mistaking Aerith for the slum drunk when meeting her again in the church, no responding to Jessie as she is dying with "Is that so?" which got her to laugh in the original, no option to give the flower to Marlene or Tifa (there had better be the possibility of Barret Gold Saucer date when they get to that bit!), no option to tell Aerith that Tifa is your girlfriend. Not major plot point stuff but they were little choices that I enjoyed for their character-defining (such as acting cold with Jessie even as she was dying) or comedic possibilities.

Any way that's my thoughts so far. A bit rambly. I can overlook the flaws as they are quite minor and probably only stick out to die hard fans of the original (and a subset of them when it comes to stuff like "too much Sephiroth") so other people probably won't feel the same way.

So, they removed the option to just charge in the front door of Shinra HQ, not a huge deal but yet another choice from the first game removed. You can still do the long stair climb, though. It just happens after you get inside.

Exploring Shinra HQ is less interesting. You see some main points (meeting mayor Domino, spying on the meeting etc.) but other than that there is a lot less opportunity to explore around and talk to people etc. No finding Cait Sith's megaphone in the locker room (you don't even visit the locker room) and so on. Just those nice little things are all gone.

Then you follow Hojo into his lab and here it diverges massively Red XIII joins you but is not controllable. You end up going through a massive lab with JENOVA in it, fighting a load of monsters. Sephiroth shows up, takes JENOVA. The party is never captured so you don't get to do the scene where you're talking to your party members through the cell walls, you don't get to follow the trail of bodies left by Sephiroth, just a trail of JENOVA blood. President Shinra is alive when you find him to get stabbed by Sephiroth later, Sephiroth stabs Barret only for Barret to get better thanks to a spooky ghost. JENOVA bossfight added in, Rufus zips around like crazy and can block your attacks with his shotgun unless you stun him with magic first or catch him in a very limited window while he reloads, which makes his bossfight a bit of a chore. Bossfight with Arsenal is pretty good, would've been nice if Red XIII was actually controllable though. Bike escape sequence is pretty good, miss the more techno synthy music from the original though and they removed the shot of the wheel of Cloud's motorcycle as it comes down the stairs which is a very odd choice when they were so reverential for the opening sequence.

Then it goes really off the rails. Sephiroth appears, opens a portal into another dimension/timeline where you kill a big heartless-from-KH looking thing which severs the bonds of destiny (meaning that the following games will not be following the original story), then you fight Sephiroth (and he has the stupid black wing from the other media where they took One Winged Angel way too seriously) and after that you get shown a load of bs like Zack surviving his last stand against the Shinra soldiers, Biggs being alive despite being left on the Sector 7 support tower as the plate crashed onto him, etc. They even hint at Aerith surviving.

Basically the game goes into bad fanfiction territory to remove the emotional beats of the original story, mess with the build up to fight Sephiroth by having him around way too much and having you literally fight him.

So, that all left quite a sour taste in my mouth as it is not Final Fantasy VII. The story of VII is simple but works. In one part of this episodic remake they have completely garbled it all up and made it a convoluted mess.