Going back to his comments on it, I’m trying to figure out how to interpret it. The “affinity system” is separate and just fun. So is that also separating the dialogue/side quests as part of the affinity system that ultimately leads to the reward of the GS date?
The side quests and dialogue do count towards and are part of the affinity system in Rebirth, but we don't necessarily need an affinity system to have dialogue options and or character specific side quests.
Final Fantasy 7 isn't like, say, the walking dead by Telltale, where your actions and dialogue options genuinely change the story a decent bit. Doing away with the affection system in part 3 would only serve to benefit us, since Final Fantasy 7 isn't a "choose your own story" game, as said by Nomura that there are no "branching paths". The affinity system in part 3 wouldn't even serve as fanservice, it would serve to complicate things unnecessarily, since they would have to add things to warrant it in the first place, because as far as I know, there are literally no selectable dialogue options past Aeriths death.
Having the HA highwind scene be "non-optional" would actually be the absolutely undenial final nail in the coffin to even the MOST unaccepting people of the story that ff7 depicts. I'm trying to not get my hopes up......but I really hope an end is put to this whole 27 (atleast 30 by the time part 3 comes out) year fiasco, I've only been involved in this topic properly for about 2 or 3 months and I'm already exhausted with what it does to people's interpretations of these characters and this story. Having an unnecessary affinity system mess things up by adding new dialogue/new scenes would be so dissappointing.
sorry for the rant btw