They preserved the intellectual property. That’s what art is.
Zoomers are never going to go back and play the old one, and they're not going to re-play this one, either. It exists in limbo.
I played the remake and rebirth, but I never finished rebirth when I had to go all the way back to the fucking desert after the shitty boss battle with the biker dude. I was so over it. Later that year, I played the original game with the Beacause retranslation project on my phone thanks to duck station when I was 19. Might replay it with the shinra archaeology cut. I got most of the side content, even obscure shit like the refight with the turks in the deep sea. All except for the beach fight. Bummer.
The original FF7 as a video game, fucking demolishes the remakes that basically put you on rails. I don't know how to describe it, other than the God of war 2018 leash modern game design but worse because there's no variety, it's all Midgar.
If you like FFXV, you'll love FF7 remake. Some of the combat can be satisfying but most of the time it's just not as impacting as the original was to me, yes I played with emulation speedups sometimes before you ask but I still utilized the menus as it was intended.
My dad was a Final Fantasy sperg so I always had a secondhand interest in it as a kid. I think my first exposure was his Crisis Core game on my PSP, and him watching speedruns of FF6. I enjoyed the original ff7 more than the glorified sequels. Unlike my dad I will never watch Advent Children nor engage further with FF7 beyond the original game and maybe a few extra lore novels or insights that the sequel projects built from.
This reminds me a lot of how the creator of Evangelion went back and shat on his own work with the shitty rebuilds. Old dipshits chasing what already made them renowned. You don't just take another crack at it. I think the endless milking of FF7 was also a mistake but it's not surprising given the feelings it gives to the people who loved it and the odd way it just ended. The final scene with the intention of smoke in the cutscene the devs forgot about hammers home that this project was final. I don't need to see what happens to the crew after they eliminated the ultimate evil and saved the world, at least with the Midgar smoke intention in mind. Sadly most people probably assumed humanity perished afterwards. I'm not interested in what canonically happens either, given the attempt at expanding FF7 results in a Crisis Core scenario or Advent Children bullshit. I fucking hate it. Zack Fair's story was already shown in FF7, and his importance while hidden is still there.
I can sum it all up in one picture:
One of the first frames of the rebuild film. Antithetical to his own weird choices with the original work. Almost out of character, why would she do this? It's just fan service which is whatever but this is one of the more complex characters within the original show. This is your first shot of her in this new world. It's fucking retarded and feels like a betrayal of what the original did.
Here is just one of many similar shots from the show:
Sound familiar? Sepiroth. He used to be a very interesting villain. Now he's just everywhere and you know his plans. Now he does gay fucking monologues with Cloud because of Advent Children. Any complexity and evil there may have once been, is reduced to rubbish. Now he's almost a cartoon character rather than an unnerving tragedy. Sepiroth almost seems HAPPY to be so EVIL. I'm not sure if this was always intended but in the original he's very cold, he was a laid back man and a standard elite soldier who turned into an alien almost, or rather discovered his humanity was a lie. Like a reverse superman or something. It sounds retarded but Sepiroth was more than just a delightfully evil gay Twink. In terms of JRPG villains, he's as great and intimidating as Giygas although I think Giygas is probably the best given his visible influence on the world of Earthbound. Sepiroth rejected his humanity and has mother issues to say the least, and it gives him a creepy character progression to say the least. You don't see unredeemable humanoid monsters like this in JRPGs that can be taken as lighthearted.
He was, or still IS one of my favorite final bosses in this series just because of the visual presentation and the buildup to it. Imagine how badly they're going to fuck that up, given they've already blown their load and couldn't keep it in their pants for Remake.
Now Sepiroth is iconic Gay Twink man who smirks and giggles at Cloud. Who will never be a memory or some lame shit rather than a man who discovered a tragedy and ascended to near godhood before being slain. He literally stops talking. Almost mocking you, no final villain speech or quips like some bosses in the game provide.
Barret's best friend Dyne was done horribly too imo. That's probably the worst offender in Rebirth along with Cid.
TLDR is like Anno they played into fetishizing/flanderizing their own characters and ended up missing what made them so iconic.
