So, stayed off the forum for the last week while I finished the game.
To put it simply, I fucking loved it. Currently have about 70 hours clocked on my save.
It's not perfect, it definitely stumbles here and there. Some of the sidequests are your typical unimaginative JRPG filler. There are the well documented graphical issues, which hopefully can be fixed with a patch. Sometimes the AI is weird. I really don't like how combat with aerial enemies works.
That out of the way, it gets so much right that it's easy for me to overlook the faults. So much stuff is just, well, perfect. The world, the characters, the tone, the music. I also feel like a lot of the early issues started to work themselves out as you progress further into the game, and by the time you get into Sector 5 and Wall Market the game really evens out a lot in that regard.
I also totally get where the story is going to be divisive. Some people wanted a 1:1 beat-for-beat remake, but that was never what I wanted from this project. I wanted them to take risks, and they sure as hell are doing that. In a sense, it's both a remake and a sequel. That has me really excited. I'm super curious to see where things go from now.
My favorite parts of the game were easily chapters 4, 8-9, and 16-18, though that's not to say I didn't like the rest of it. Those just stood out as exceptional to me. The weakest part of the game for me was easily chapter 3.
I really liked the addition of Roche, and the way it sort of validates the bikerobatics in Advent Children as special SOLDIER training that only the elite of the elite could achieve. It also contextualizes SOLDIER as sort of a FOXHOUND style group of weirdos, which is exactly what I want to see from it. I'm a bit bummed out that he was the only named SOLDIER we see -- I really hope they flesh out the group a bit more in the sequels. I really want that FOXHOUND vibe to come through. Chekov's Kunsel?
The history of the ancients VR presentation with the Neo Midgar render at the end and the weird Meteor visions was easily one of the coolest moments in the game. I loved the traditional FF vibes it gave off with the white mage and summoner style outfits, and the airships floating theough the skies. The Neo Midgar design also really evokes the Tower of Babel -- the big concept render in the exhibit looks like it has at least four or five layers of city going on. Clever nod to the FFX maybe-connection in the Shinra founders photograph too.
I wasn't a huge fan of how they did President Shinra's death (I think finding him already dead was a bit more impactful), but I do like the way they used the two Sephiroth copies as Sephiroth's puppets, and they did a generally good job with the Reunion Theory, hallucinations, etc. stuff.
Also interesting that this Jenova seems to have gone through a late-in-development name change, as her name in the data mined from the demo was "Jenova PULSE," and her battle track is still "Quickening."
Oh, and when did Rufus get so rad? I never really rated him much in the original or AC. He has a decent design, but this really amped up the coolness factor and turned him into a badass. I dig that he's obviously had serious combat training and isn't just a spoiled rich kid with a gun and guard dog.
Jumping ahead to the end, I heard some people call the final boss a Kingdom Hearts / Heartless / Ansem type thing, but really, to me, it just looked like an incomplete Weapon -- like its exoskeleton hadn't fully formed and you can see its guts a bit. They could have easily named it Amethyst Weapon, IMO. The Whispers don't bother me, they feel perfectly in line with the other planetary antibodies to me. I just hope they do get overtly connected to the Weapons, maybe when we start seeing Avalanche HQ's planetology stuff.
I dig that with the edge of creation thing, we actually seem to be getting some actual motivation for what Jenova/Sephiroth are trying to achieve by using the planet as a vessel to travel the cosmos.
Obviously, the stuff with Zack at the end has me excited, though admittedly a bit confused. There's a vagueness to it all that makes it tough to interpret exactly what is going on there.
But that's part of what has me excited, honestly. It's really cool that I can go into the game not knowing exactly what will happen next in the story, and that's a feeling that a 1:1 remake can't recreate.
That said, part of me wonders, since they've already created so much of a framework, if Square Enix can't at some point just take the assets they already have developed and release a purist edition that conforms exactly to the original. Sort of like how Dissidia 012 included the entire story of the original game.
I think that's it for my scattered thoughts. I haven't 100%ed yet and think I'll be taking a bit of a break to catch up on other stuff I've neglected this week before diving back in. I want to 100% everything and then maybe at some point do a victory lap easy mode run with just the default weapons so I get the "canon" version of cutscenes. But that'll probably be a bit down the line.