There was some incredible genius (I think here, actually) that suggested having Sephiroth miss when he falls from the sky to kill Aerith, tricking us all out, but then killing her anyways. I thought that not only was hilarious (I mean not the Aerith dying part, still sad) but also a good way to give us something unexpected. Suzaku's thoughts of Cloud killing her would also be pretty unexpected, but yet not out of the realm of possibility due to Sephiroth seemingly being able to control him in the OG.
Either way, her death needs to happen. It's the single biggest plot point in the game, in my opinion. That being said, I've learned through the last few days that this game isn't going to replace the original. That's what I wanted from it. I wanted it to be better, and to make me feel the same things the original did. Nostalgically, they hit the nail on the head at times. They'd change things up and have you in an entirely new area, but then you'd see a recreation of an OG scene and you were hooked again. That's how I felt.
However, they changed enough that this won't be able to replace the original. Not for me. I love this game, but I have to sort of look at it as a whole new game. Something standalone. An extreme example is the Dragonball Evolution movie. If you look at it as a Dragonball Z movie and with those goggles, you'll absolutely hate it. If you pretend it's not a Dragonball Z movie and just a standalone movie, you'll.... probably still hate it because it's pretty terrible lol, but you get my point I think. There's a better chance you'll like it and the few people I knew who enjoyed it weren't fans of the anime so they didn't have any expectations.
Now, plenty of us OG FF7 fans will still love this game, but there will be some who can't get over the changes and/or think Square ruined the series and crushed their dreams. I can understand that sentiment, but to those all I can really say is to try to look at it as a standalone title. It's an incredible game with a great story, maybe minus some of the end bits. The combat is frustratingly brilliant as well. it's a great game, but if you wanted OG FF7 you will have varying degrees of disappointment.
I'm disappointed about certain aspects, and this game actually made me want to go back and play the original for the millionth time lol. I still loved it, though. It's true that there are different ways to tell a story. They hit home runs in certain aspects, especially with the main cast holy cow. They were just as I imagined them all those years ago. They were perfect representations. Also with certain scenes. But in terms of story-telling they could have absolutely done better and not changed as much as they did. I think we could have together all easily wrote a script that would have stayed true to the original but still had surprises so that you kept OG fans on their toes.
For example, as I pointed out earlier in the thread, I think the scene with Biggs at the end would have been more impactful if we still assumed the trio was dead. Instead, since we knew Wedge survived (at least initially) it wasn't as shocking as it could have been. What exactly was the purpose of Wedge in the game? I love the dude, but it didn't seem like his presence after the plate collapse was particularly necessary. But if you go through the game with an otherwise mostly the same story, then add a scene at the end showing one of the trio alive it would be a cool moment of "hey, this is still Final Fantasy VII but we can still surprise you", without changing too much.
Anyways, sorry for rambling but some of my thoughts for now. It just saddens me that we will most likely not see certain parts. Red XIII dressed and passing as a sailor? Getting the Highwind and flying around the world now completely open to you with that absolutely phenomenal music? The dolphin?! Will someone think of the dolphin?! I just have a hard time believing some of those things will be in there, when before I had a lot of hope for it. Then again, we were all concerned for a while that cross-dressing Cloud wouldn't make an appearance so it's not out of the realm of possibility. Unfortunately there just are certain things I wanted to see remade in all their modern glory graphics that I probably will never see and will have to stick with the original for.
