i never wanted this game so my expectations were low. typical final fantasy gripes, hate voice acting, want turn based battles back, etc. i was surprisingly unbothered by the VA and really enjoyed the music, the redux of "underneath the rotting pizza" was truly phenomenal, and it felt like they had 50 different remixes of all the battle themes that were keeping me on my toes. great job there.
i am an ardent disapprover of RPG series straying from their turn based roots into more hollywood-adjacent action style battles, and i was fully anticipating to be annoyed at the combat. i will say i was nonplussed. they still do that stupid stagger shit that seemingly every action RPG since 2008 has implemented which i don't get. the AI was lazy and could have greatly benefitted from a gambit system like they had in XII (don't understand why no other games afterwards have used this, one of the best battle mechanics ever). however, there did seem to be an almost zelda-like aspect to a lot of the big fights, where you had to rely on timing when you're dodging/blocking etc, which i liked. being interrupted when performing an ability is the most fucking annoying thing ever though.
barret was the best character in battle btw. always charging up 2 ATBs from a distance and then unleashing Maximum Fury or whatever its called to annihilate the enemies. aeris was also good, cloud's abilities got kinda useless towards the end. the long range characters were stronger basically.
i hadn't played any entries in FF since XIII in 2010, which left a really bad taste in my mouth. at this point that game seems like a growing pain for the series, and i kept thinking "wow they really learned a lot" whenever there was a mini game/sidequest/game mechanic that was anything beyond running in a straight line and battling. which isn't saying much, but i liked being able to go back and explore midgar, go down different paths, play little mini games, and stuff like that. the bike chase(s) ruled.
which brings me to midgar. the "charm" i feel like of the midgar in FF7 was how weird it was, with random ass robotic hands in the middle of shit, being kinda confused about how everything fits together... and they still had that stuff, but they worked really hard to make this game more coherent. which i think is good. midgar felt "real," but it didn't feel alive. idk. I'm not sure if it's just ps1-colored glasses that romanticize that era for me, but it just wasn't special. not that i really needed it to be though. i liked getting more of a story into some of the characters (was jessie's last name always "rasberry"??? wtf) and some of the small plot twists/ways they subverted the original game. it was nice, nothing more nothing less
i also obviously view the world more politically now than i did when i was 7, but even having replayed the game multiple times it felt like there was a more ubiquitous message surrounding class politics, even going as far as to have derogatory terms for the upper class (platies) and those who grew up in the slums. also interesting to note that the game's about environmental activists turned eco terrorists who are trying to take down a large corporation - square was not a big company when they made ff7, but now they are a $1bn+ corporation, largely thanks to ff7's success.
the first half of the game was kinda slow, a lot of dumb sidequests, wall market/shinra building were awesome. lots of times spent in sewers and facilities it felt like.
it seemed like they felt they had to make a big flashy ending to justify the end of a full price game/huge entry in FF, so that's what happened with that whole singularity/sephiroth battle/zack and cloud walking towards midgar together in some sort of flashback shit. didn't care much for it, just kinda felt fluffed up with typical FF stuff that i don't really understand. and that's all i have to say about that