The writing in this game is extremely weak. The characters feel nothing like their original personalities - they come across as exaggerated, awkward, and often cringe. The dialogue frequently sounds unnatural, and many scenes make little sense when the characters interact with each other.

Character movement and animations can feel strange at times. Most side quests are also very low quality and feel like filler rather than meaningful content. There are also far too many mini-games, and the fact that some of them are mandatory makes the pacing even worse.

The NPCs look oddly designed and feel out of place in many areas of the game. Some parts feel more like a Disney-style festival, with dancing and singing that make beloved characters look foolish. Overall, this game feels very disconnected from the spirit of the original Final Fantasy VII.

CHADLEY is also a huge problem in this game. He talks constantly - again and again and again - to the point that it becomes unbearable. It honestly feels like his script is longer than all the other characters and NPCs combined.

Another issue is how many battles are locked behind the simulator. Even summons - which should have been fought naturally in the open world - are instead tied to scanning their stones and completing simulator battles. This design choice feels repetitive and extremely boring.

The story also suffers from changes to major character moments. Some important scenes that were originally introduced in Final Fantasy VII in a much more epic and memorable way now feel weaker and less convincing. These changes remove much of the emotional impact and highlight the same weak writing mentioned earlier.

That said, two things in this game are genuinely good: the combat system and the world design. The combat system is engaging and dynamic, and it is easily one of the strongest parts of the game. The world design is also impressive and enjoyable to explore. However, the experience is sometimes hurt by performance issues, such as textures loading late or objects popping in while moving around the world.

Steam should have a better rating system than just yes or no; I'll give this game more of an average to below average. The reason simply put is this game is an incredible time sink that does nothing but waste your time. There were multiple occasions where I put down the controller and thought "I just don't have the energy to play this anymore".

First I'll start by stating what I did like:
1. I think some of the characters and the way they were translated into this game were excellent, a notable example being Barrett.
2. The music is great the whole run time, masterclass.
3. The graphical fidelity and overall world is one of the best in the series.
4. Queen's Blood (with a caveat).
5. The enemy variety and design of them.

Here are the things I'm on the fence about:
1. The combat I go back and forth on. I like the fact that you can swap in and out with characters, making it feel more modern, but there are moments in this game that make you play in a specific way which is very frustrating. There are huge difficulty spikes that feel cheap. I despise being thrown across the screen by some cheap knock back attacks. The parry window and timing is idiotic and feels thrown in last second. I like that the materia system by and large is the same from the OG, but the way you get these is so formulaic and feels like a Ubisoft game.

Things I disliked/hated:
1. Chocobo riding and traversal is so jank and some of the worse I've ever seen in a video game. It's like they saw Death Stranding and thought "Why don't we do THAT, but riding on horseback!" Utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
2. Chadley. Chadley sucks. I hate him.
3.Ubisoft checklists. It does payoff eventually and you get rewarded but it makes for some of the most repetitive, tedious, lazy gameplay you'll ever have.
4. Some of the characters were done justice like Barrett/Cloud/Aerith/Tifa. Others were butchered like Red 13 and Cid. Red 13 is probably the one that got done dirty the most. It's Kingdom Hearts level of bad.
5. The story is anime fan fiction trash. The whole point of the game completely flew over the devs heads. It's criminal.
6. Almost all of the mini games are bad and I did not enjoy them at all. The only exception is Queen's Blood, however, they ruin that too at the very end by making you play in a certain style that THE DEVS want you to play in. It's not explained well at all how to play, but I did figure it out, and eventually you get really good with a card deck that you build and mow people down with but then BAM extreme difficulty spike!
7. What is even the point of having Zack in the game if you go 20 hour bouts until you see him again? Also his story so far makes about as much sense as a poopy flavored lollipop.

Overall , it's not a completely terrible game, but it is very sub par. If you have anything less than a supercomputer this game's pop in and stutters are unacceptable. I actually enjoyed FF7 remake, and did have a big problem with the ending. I was willing to give them another chance to see if they could tie it together and they failed miserably. Hey Square guess what? We wanted a remake, not a dumb fan fiction sequel.

The quests are boring, difficult, never ending and just BAD. i was really looking forward to this game, and the creators really didn't do it justice. I get a burnout so fast, and i really cant bring myself to finish it. i'm incredibly dissapointed! waste of money...