There's a difference between adding to a story, and changing it.  For example *minor spoilers* nobody seems to be complaining about the extra mission to go steal supplies with Jessie.  It fleshes out the Avalanche characters, and generally doesn't contradict anything major in the story. People expected this sort of thing. 

On the other hand, the weird fourth wall breaking shit at the end substantially changes major plot points.  That's the kind of thing people did not expect.

True true and completely agree but it's more of what people really expected simply because it was 3 games not 1, 30-40 hours to 120 hours. Sadly, I expect this kind of stuff and got moaned at when I said it was not a remake but a re-imagining. I'm bitter because I can't experience what I want from FF7 Remake. Glad some people can just also sad it's not the same game I enjoyed as a kid and new players won't experience the same game.

My main concern at this point is how FF16 will be and when it will be. Aged a lot of years without buying a new FF game. Starting to get a bit sad.

Others do not need to play the same game i played as a kid,it is good they enjoy themselves with this game.

Bolded:yeah with that you basically say:It is not a remake but a remake.(Your personal view on what's a remake might be biasedly strict)

Good thing is that the sidequests do not take much time and give some decent items and exp in return + you can just totally avoid doing them.

I do agree that the limited timeframe in within you can do these sidequest is a bugger but still understandable because of the nature this first part of the story has,might be solved for the next 2 parts that

True,but good that most of the events that can be considered filler are optional while the interesting addons to the main storyline are mostly interesting.

Although some might feel forced doing the fillercontent because of their timely existence.

Yeah.  Midgar was really linear compared to the rest of the game, which is part of the reason for some of the issues, so hopefully that can be resolved in later games.

I will say though, at least this game is a massive improvement in that regard from the last FF game I played (13) where their solution was just "fuck sidequests go run in a straight line". 

And i dare say that i think they almost nailed the gameplay with this combat that is evenly tactical as it is action packed,people that think this is a buttonmasher will be hitting a wall frequently.

If they use the same combatsystem for the next mainline FF with a mildly better camera and less interruptions then yes i will love it even more.

I wouldn't go as far to say they nailed it.  I'm hesitant to judge it completely, because I'm halfway through, and the battles are definitely starting to require more strategy, so I'll see how that progresses.  But so far I'm able to make it through mostly with the basic strategy of attack and heal when necessary.  It's a solid foundation but there's some room for improvement.  I'll see if the later bosses require more actual strategy.

Wait until you play on the hard difficulty. That is where the battle system’s depth shines.

But brace yourself. This is no pushover!

As someone who never played the original,

I spent about 40 hours beating normal despite only having about 10 game over screens in total and I am just about to start hard mode. I purchased a PS4 slim to play FF7 remake which is my first Sony console since PS2 and I don't regret it. This was a great experience and probably the best game that appeals to me in 2020. 

I think Nomura's influence held this game back from being a masterpiece. I would give the game an 8 without hesitation and maybe a 9 at best. There's 9 and 10 quality in a lot of categories, but let's discuss the importance of the director himself. For reference, I only knew select story bits because of certain iconic scenes being referenced in web articles and a few random videos I saw through the years. Most of the filler did not bother me given that I have limited knowledge of the original, but some of it is definitely not up to par with the rest.

While changes wouldn't really affect me much, I know that Nomaru has been criticized for changing things with Advent Children and the entire compilation have received mixed reviews from fans of the original game. Zach's included emphasis is also polarizing with many people thinking he takes away from Cloud. I also can see some clear changes to how certain things are portrayed which don't personally bother me, but I could understand why others have been complaining. I've seen retconning in video game franchises plenty of times and when it's games I liked it almost always felt like changes that were unnecessary and for the worse. As someone who bought a PS2 when Kingdom Hearts released and has a lot of experience with Nomaru's work so I was a bit worried of him influence heading in. Unfortunately my concerns were realized.

That being said Kingdom Hearts remains one of my favorite games of all time despite my growing dislike for the franchise as a whole. I also played KH:FM (original Japan release), Chain of Memories, and Kingdom Hearts II. While not owning the other games I have watched many videos related to them and played the normal mode of some. Kingdom Hearts II is the highest rated game in the series on meteoritic (87), but it was one of the biggest disappointments in gaming I have ever seen, and I know many people who feel the same. There is a reason KH2 sold worse than KH1 and word of mouth at the time had a bit to do with it I think. I don't want this "hot take" to detract from my overall concentration of FF7, but it needs to be said. The important reason I bring this up is the absolute mess that this games story has become. Ever since Kingdom Hearts 2 the story has become convoluted and every release after it only getting worse and in some installments much worse. That's not to say that the games do not have redeeming qualities, but the early criticisms of Disney and Japanese influence juxtaposed to each other feel like mild foreshadowings compared to the current plot line of the franchise. I'm not going to go into extreme lore detail, but very little you do in the games feel to have any meaning to the overall narrative which is bad video game design and storytelling. 

I still think this is Square's best game ever made by leaps and bounds and to be so critical might seem harsh, but there's a lot I like with the game otherwise. The battle gameplay is imo a perfect marriage of the best aspects of Kingdom Hearts and the action oriented FF games and the addition of ATB gives it a flow that works beautifully. I won't say it perfectly replaces a slow tactical style FF game if that is what people wanted, but it's certainly the best version of an action game that Square has ever made and succeeds to find some middle ground.

The music and art direction is top tier and some of the best I've seen in years. I also didn't notice a Skyrim affect where key NPCs reused the same voices...if they did I didn't notice it. I didn't even notice it with minor townsfolk, but I wasn't really looking for it either. Put it simply the atmosphere of the game really works well. I don't know if all the side characters and new characters were fleshed out as well as they could have, but they certainly made the world feel more immersive.

As for nitpicks there are some quality of life issues such as cinematic moments and camera controls sometimes feeling clunky. I would have like much more precise camera sensitivity settings like up from 5 to 20 and also a wider range to place your character to hold triangle to interact with an object. I also had a little trouble with the second bike section with the controls which didn't mess me up that much (one game over because of it), but it made the entire fight feel awkward at points and artificially made the fight longer. The dance mini-game felt a bit unintuitive because of the awkward positioning of the prompts. I felt a big spike in difficulty with the gym. I steamrolled all the squats and pull-ups on my first try until the final pullup challenge which required much more perfection than anything was leading up to. The long loading screens between failures and dialogue repetition made it more annoying than it needed to be. There's also a bunch of times where you get a message "don't walk that way". I just don't like that in video games and it seemed arbitrary because a couple times I was able to backtrack only to realize I was wasting my time. Overall though these would only minority affect the score.

Ultimately I really enjoyed FF7 remake and do not regret buying it or my new PS4 for it. I have some concerns with the future games of FF7 remake partly because of story and also because of possible filler dragging the game on when it didn't need to be. We'll probably never get a version of the game that cuts out the filler and as someone who never played the original I'll never be able to tell you if the game would have been closer to a masterpiece or better game if it wasn't released through multiple installment. This also is not to say firing Nomura is the answer to the story problems. It's possible he is responsible for a lot of really good aspects of FF7 remake. I just feel he needed better checks and balances and the inclusion of the whispers was a bad idea. This might be as simple as a business strategy to keep things fresh, but I just feel it shouldn't have happened. Overall I recommend it to anyone on the fence as a must buy.