I'm guessing you're doing the 3" person team vs top secrets"?

I've put in just about the same amount of hours as you have (just need to finish the game on hard to platinum it) and as a game itself has more than enough values to justify the full price and im happy with that.

That is what she said...

Yes I would do with no sidequests if possible, didn`t like them (at most accepted the intel ones) but platinum required it.

On char development I will agree that Cloud is pretty stoic (I think they will reserve the development for the second title since we only got hints of his past, won`t say more for spoiler reasons). I felt the game was complete considering there will be continuation but the main plot for it was resolved, you had to stand against shinra and did, only to discover there are higher dangers for you to go on the next game.

I also didn`t felt the game had a lot of padding. Sure I would like I could walk faster in some parts and didn`t need to do some fetch and point a to b and back, but all the content for me felt meaningfull and tied down giving a full narrative.

Yes you are right. I didn`t the Aerith challenges on chapter 9 so when I reached 17 on hard this battle wasn`t available so I`m doing it after finishing on Hard. Any tips for 4 round? And you done the better way because the last chapter becomes much easier with the item you get from the top secret battle.

There's nothing wrong with Cloud being stoic... but a character arc implies that a character grows as a result of what they have learned through a conflict.  It would be a stretch to say that happened in FF7 Remake.

As for padding, it depends on what you'd call "a lot".  For instance I'd say that the part where you *minor spoilers maybe* sabotage a boss was pretty unnecessary.  As was the whole train graveyard sequence (I know this was in the original game but it was much shorter).  The sequence where you control Barrett also added little to the game.  It's not absurdly excessive, but it's definitely there.  

Again, the main point is that a single 40 hour game could be as enjoyable as several 40 hour games.  We'll see when all is said and done if that's the case here.

As a fan of Persona and Final Fantasy, i disagree. Both type of games are great. Persona 5 is one of the best games of all-time and Royal sealed the deal for the title. FF7R is a great, innovative game, but not top-gen rpg or something.

It's not the length. It's what they filled it with. Padding. A bunch of padding of crappy sidequests and a new stupid KH like plot.

I don't hate the idea of breaking the game up but not overly fond of it either. Then Xenoblade DE spoils me. A remake with the entire game with QOL fixes and an additional 20-hour post-game story. Where FF7R is sidequests the game and they are so damn dumb. Nomura has a way of just making everything worse to me.

Ive seen some people use Tifa or Aerith as their main but I stuck with Cloud, so use the character you enjoy/know the best.  I would suggest giving Magnify+Regen for Aerith and make sure she keeps casting it to your party every chance you get/when the spell is done, and cast Manwall for every character before Bahamut's Mega Flare.  When Ifrit pops out keep attacking Bahamut and save Ifrit last.  Dodge and heal (if regen isn't enough) when you can and just keep hacking away at him with Cloud.  Once you get the hang of it it'll be a piece of cake.  Good luck! :)

I actually agree, for me 40h for platinum is a very good time.

But persona I also liked so it isn't really about the duration for me as well.

Yes I do agree that there was little development for him on FF7R, for Barret there is some as well of him comprehending and accepting Cloud a little. For me Cloud is quite subtly the suggestions, he keeps distance and silence, but you can see he care.

About the 3 points on padding I do agree they could be without (but for me the worse was getting out of the room without noise, and that was in the original as well), but it makes sense to sabotage a boss to make it easier.

At least he said "like", and yes there is a lot of grind and repetition on the game even if we like it like that. On FFVIIR I was able to max level and materias without grinding, I just done all the battles while exploring and advancing.

Have you played it? And you first paragraph contradicts the second. You say lenght isn`t a problem but then makes sure to touch that for you it is important.

Finally plat with 82h of gameplay. If I were better player probably could reduce to 75 and if I skipped all the cutscenes on the second playthrough would get to 70 (the estimative for plat was 60-70 on the page), but since I enjoyed most of the 82h I don`t mind taking longer to plat (P5 I probably got 120h, royal will be 150 then).

https://www.reddit.com/r/FFVIIRemake/comments/g4olv1/how_to_beat_threeperson_team_vs_top_secrets_pride/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

This solved for me, only change was instead of lightining (to damage better the last boss and leviathan) I used ice on armor on barret. So Barret killed Shiva alone, Chocobo is irrelevant, Leviathan I blasted with Barret as well (didn`t even need manawall and haste for the 3 first fights). Cloud with the fire armor was easy to kill Ifrit and do a lot of damage on last Pride. The only issue really was killing bahamut, but yes staying close to it and holding defense for the auto counter made it a lot easier. And worse yet I thought that when he reached 50% the megaexplosion would be negated (since he called Ifrit), but lucked that I had my autorecovery from the weapon available), got in trouble for like 1 min but was able to use cloud to recover Aerith, Aerith to revive cloud and then revive barret, after that the battle was actually quite easy as I had recovered 2 LBs.

FF7R makes it feel like the story is a distraction from the sidequests.