Final Fantasy 7: An Oral History (2017)

This can't explain it all. I never played the remake, but I am playing original FF7 with modern mods (chiefly New Threat 2.0 [0], on top of 7th Heaven [1] and FFNx [2]; but also graphical mods like SYW which enhances textures with AI, a GUI mod called ESUI, among other things) and it's an awesome experience. Note that those mods are entirely free and made by passionate fans.

I fully believe that a FF7 remake made by fans and for fans would be 10/10 even with a fraction of AAA production values.

(Now, what you can say is that 90s JRPGs are an acquired taste and modern audiences aren't accustomed with stuff like tons of random encounters. Indeed I feel that many classic JRPGs are nigh unplayable due to this issue alone, even though I grew with them. However this is addressed by mods like New Threat so I'm sure that a proper, fan-made remake could also address this and other QoL issues)

[0] https://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=14938 (in general FF7 modding is mostly discussed in this forum; there's a "Documentation" link that discusses all changes but it's a full rebalance that changes item placement, the script of bosses, etc. It also contains QoL improvements)

[1] https://github.com/tsunamods-codes/7th-Heaven (it's like a package manager for mods, there's another called reunion and many but not all mods are available on both)

[2] https://github.com/julianxhokaxhiu/FFNx (it's a modding framework for FF7 and FF8, some but not all mods depend on it)

First, the story is a hot mess that I'm surprised a professional writing team put out. I don't know if I should really say spoilers, but the central premise of the plot is really, really stupid. I've seen it called worthy of KH, which is very much not a compliment lol. And the pacing is awful - the game is jam packed with filler because they are trying to stretch 4-5h of the original into a full length game. There are hour long chapters where only 5-10 minutes of interesting content happens, and you can tell the developers were just running out the clock (so to speak). Finally, the battle system is really poorly tuned - normal encounters are over in seconds, while bosses are bullet/sword/magic sponges even if you are hitting their weakness, staggering them, and trying to dump damage on them while staggered. It took me something like 10 minutes to kill Air Buster, for example, and by the end I was just bored of the fight.

It's frustrating to me because this was the easiest layup in the history of video game development. They had one of the most beloved video games of all time - all they needed to do was take that foundation, polish it up with some modern QoL (and graphics of course), and they would've had an all time classic on their hands. Look at P3R for how much people would've loved that approach. And I guess I get why they wanted to go in a brand new direction, but unfortunately the game just plain sucks even if you don't compare it to the original.