The remake has some fantastic characterisation. I think in particular Barret was elevated to a completely amazing character. "Whatever came before, it was Shinra that pulled the trigger today" + "A good man who serves a great evil is not without sin" were some fantastic character moments. He really comes across as someone who is politically intelligent while also too eager to make dangerous choices for the greater good.
It's a real, real big shame how this is undermined with the decision to make Shinra be responsible for Mako reactor 1 exploding. The pacing is also a disaster. This part of the story wasn't meant to take this long, at all. The padding is rarely done well, and usually the game is most successful when it's mirroring the plotting and pacing of the original. It's interesting because the character work was what I was scared they'd mess up, but it's instead the highlight while most everything else suffers.
This is a very strange criticism and the way you're deeming these as objective failures and mistakes is weird to read. Some fans trying to revive Aerith just shows an extreme attachment to the character, because her death was completely shocking after the way she was built up to have so much importance. The silence of her absence is pretty deafening. People misinterpret the meaning of great works of art all the time - that is no slight on their quality, and the OG greats a wonderful sense of permanent loss when Aerith is killed. This resonated with many people, and is one of the most iconic successes in all final fantasy. It's not a mistake that the lifestream sequence isn't as well known because you've ranked it higher in importance to the plot.
It's a real, real big shame how this is undermined with the decision to make Shinra be responsible for Mako reactor 1 exploding. The pacing is also a disaster. This part of the story wasn't meant to take this long, at all. The padding is rarely done well, and usually the game is most successful when it's mirroring the plotting and pacing of the original. It's interesting because the character work was what I was scared they'd mess up, but it's instead the highlight while most everything else suffers.
This is a very strange criticism and the way you're deeming these as objective failures and mistakes is weird to read. Some fans trying to revive Aerith just shows an extreme attachment to the character, because her death was completely shocking after the way she was built up to have so much importance. The silence of her absence is pretty deafening. People misinterpret the meaning of great works of art all the time - that is no slight on their quality, and the OG greats a wonderful sense of permanent loss when Aerith is killed. This resonated with many people, and is one of the most iconic successes in all final fantasy. It's not a mistake that the lifestream sequence isn't as well known because you've ranked it higher in importance to the plot.
