FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH

I've got 60 hours into this game, I'm 95% done with the Corel region in Chapter 9, and I'm uninstalling it... I just don't know what they wanted to do with this game. It has so much bloat and filler and just nonsense that doesn't serve the gameplay or the story and really doesn't fit with this whole "save the world" story. I'm no FF7 purist, I'm not mad at things they changed to tell a "new story", but.... Everything is a minigame, everything is a QTE, everything is a "this could have been a 30sec cutscene, not 2 minutes of me holding Y". Like, the goofy, anime trope stuff didn't bother me, but it was silly. it was stuff like multiple indicators for every objective, the neon squares and yellow paint with the Interact icon just incase you missed it. It was the filler "world info" objectives that hide key items that have a multiple indicators and that (*(*$#@& Chadley running his mouth when ever you get close. And EVERYTHING runs through Chadley! Chadley starts the subquest with 1 min dialog, he chimes in when you are close, the environmental indicators kick in (birds, glowing rocks, big compass roses...), then Chadley again, then you do the thing with either a cutscene or QTE, wait for the animation to finish, THEN CHADLEY EXPLAINS IT ALL AGAIN! I lost all interest before I left the first region.... Combat can be fun, but lacks any weight. Enemies just agro whichever character you control (yes, there is a provoke materia, but no...). Taking and dealing damage feels hollow until you get stun locked. And too many basic enemies are just damage spounges. The minigames... the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ minigames.... This is Wario Inc. in FF clothes. The difficulty is arbitrary, the controls are purposely unintuitive, sometimes the patterns and mechanics just change between attempts, and they take way.... too...... long...... but so much content is locked behind them, including main story points. Want all the weapon tomes so your characters actually get stronger? Get ready to grind minigames in the Golden Saucer! And if its not the minigames, its the QTEs or button press/hold events. The opening flashback chapter, Cloud has to turn a crank. Cool. To do so, hold L2 and R2, for 5 secs... ok... Now do it again after Cloud resets.... and then another 3 or 4 times..... Every chocobo stop in the overworld is a long hold to activate, every lever, every elevator switch..... And there are moments that have none of these, yet still feel like total waists of time and bloat! Cloud forced to LIMP or crawl through Nibelheim for no real reason but to pad time and artificially inflate tension when it is already there. There is a sequence with Zach that starts off with a cutscene, then without any indication or shift in POV, you are in control of him. When you realize this after he stares at you for a few awkward seconds, your goal is to leave this room and go to another for the next cutscene. 10 seconds of thrilling walking gameplay between minutes of cutscenes.... for filler and player experience..... I did like the world though, it is beautiful, as long as you are not going from dark to light areas and getting blinded or staring at a black screne, or waiting for the textures to pop in.... It absolutely lacks the charm and unique atmosphere of the old games, as everything looks "our world" real, but it is very pretty. I also liked the character interactions. I loved how Tifa and Aerith interacted, I liked Yuffie as the over-enthusiastic anime girl. Barret and Red were ok, but their more dramatic story points were totally overshadowed by the goofy stuff happening around them. and so many of the reveals and twists are telegraphed way too early. So yeah.... massively disappointed in this utterly bloated game with a serious lack of real direction or character. I don't think this does anything good for FF7 as a brand or the FF series as a whole franchise. If this was my first experience with JRPGs, I would be turned off of them.