Going in, I had decently high expectations for Final Fantasy VII Remake and I'm happy to report that it it surpassed them in ways more than one.
STORY: 
The story of Final Fantasy is pretty straightforward but I really loved the plot progression and the world building, Midgar really seems like a broken down mess of a city that's corruptly ruled by the Shinra and the bits and pieces in which the story is delivered felt great. The writing in particular is really clever, it can make you laugh when it wants to while also delivering some incredibly amazing, hype as hell moments that will have your jaw on the floor. As the story starts ramping up after what is basically the interval, you get hooked to the story, you start looking forward to the cut scenes, waiting for the moment when the pieces that have been laid out in front of you will make sense and honestly it never disappoints. If this is the set-up for a trilogy, then holy shit is this going to be fucking AMAZING. Suffice to say, the entire climax had my jaw on the fucking floor.
Cinematics:
For any other game, I wouldn't really consider this a section that should be discussed but Final Fantasy VII Remake feels like a freaking movie. The cinematics and cutscenes are absolutely AMAZING to the point where you're actually shocked. To people that have been regularly playing games, this might not be much but hey this is the second game I've ever finished so I think I can get away with gushing on the cutscenes.
Visuals:
Like I said before, the visuals of this game are no joke. Almost every area you're in looks beautiful and I often found myself taking as many screenshots as I could. The voice acting felt spot on with all of the main cast delivering phenomenal performances and there's really nothing I can point to as a negative.
Side quests:
People give Final Fantasy VII Remake a lot of flack for having bad/tedious side quests and honestly, I agree (a little), yes they're very tedious and seldom rewarding,other than one that gave me a new move so personally, I just ignored almost 70% of them which is probably why I was nowhere near max health when the game ended but trust me, you won't be missing out on anything by not doing the side quests, although I've heard that they're much better in Rebirth.
Characters:
Calling the entire main cast of final fantasy VII great is a sever understatement, all of the main cast have great chemistry and ACTUALLY interesting personalities that make you want to know more about them. If I have to pick one, I'd just straight up admit....I fricking love Aerith bro, her voice actress delivered a phenomenal performance and a pretty significant amount of time is spent focusing on her which is why I just love her so GODDAMN MUCH
Gameplay:
In a JRPG, gameplay is probably not a huge concern but I'm happy to report that Final Fantasy VII Remake has great gameplay that feels really satisfying and well thought out. The materia system is really great, although I do wish there was a bit more variety and I love how the game compels you to change your weapon to receive it's specific ability and gets it's proficiency to 100%. Overall, I was very, very satisfied with the gameplay side of things and loved the different, supposedly new elements that were apparently not in the original game like ATB and maintaining a good balance of switching between different party members to get the most out of their abilities. Also Tifa is FREAKING wild, probably the most OP character and the one I used the most aside from Cloud.
Overall Thoughts:
There's a LOT of stuff I want to talk about because there's so much to enjoy in this game but that might be really boring since I don't think most people have even read to the end of THIS Post
4.5/5
Final Fantasy VII Remake is an ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL game that did everything it wanted to REALLY, REALLY WELL and introduced me to an amazing cast of characters whose next adventures I cannot wait for...

I rolled my eyes when I first heard about this project but both times I’ve played it, it really has made me feel like a kid again. Tetsuya Nomura’s operatic high drama style and gonzo storytelling help shake up an old story enough to feel compellingly new yet the guardrails of that original story keep him grounded in endearing characters with discernible concerns more so than in most anything else I’ve played that he’s directed. The production values and confident style are off the charts, the real-time battle version of an old school system is the best Square-Enix has ever accomplished. It’s a hack phrase, but… a triumph!

Recently replayed via the Intergrade version (review here), but my thoughts below discuss vanilla FF7R so I will put them here as well for my own record-keeping purposes:

It does so many things well, yet as a whole it fell flat for me, and I had a hard time connecting with it. I respect the team's desire to deliver a new experience instead of a shinier version of FF7. It's commendable, especially in this era of lazy remakes.

They took big swings with the story, but most of them didn't do it for me. The new characters are uninteresting and don't fit in well in the plot, especially Leslie who gets a whole chapter devoted to him for some reason. Tense, emotional moments are ruined by excessive use of slow-walking cutscenes in typical Sony fashion. Sephiroth's presence makes him less interesting and imposing. The Whispers for now seem like a really noncommital way to change the story. Part 3 may change this, but as it is now, I feel like they should have just made changes instead of trying to force speculations. Not all of the changes and additions are for the worse, though. I think the increased characterization of existing characters like the Avalanche crew and Don add a lot and are worth the extra screentime. I am not particularly upset by these changes - if anything, I wish they pushed it further.

Of course, if the rest of the game is good, then I don't care much about the story anyway. You don't need a well-written narrative to make a fun JRPG. FF7R is fun... sometimes.

The combat system is awesome, it's essentially classic ATB but you can move and do basic attacks between bars instead of just waiting. Blocks and dodges are a bit superfluous and don't feel great, but you rarely need to use them. The bosses are highlights, I loved the new phases and accompanying multi-phase music.

But combat takes up a comparatively little part of the game. Most of the time, you will be moving around and exploring, and it's pretty bad. The dungeon/field areas are repetitive and boring. Despite the excessive detail and polish, they're often less memorable than the more deliberately-framed prerendered scenes they're modeled after. Towns are littered with lifeless copy/pasted NPCs that don't fit in stylistically at all. In a Famitsu interview, the developers mention that they wanted the game to feel more like a "modern" game. I guess what that meant was, they decided to copy some of the worst western game design trends. Party members will yell at you if you try to explore off the required path. The dungeon "puzzles" are mindless timewasters that take 2 seconds to solve but 20 minutes to execute. The long unskippable/cancelable animations are painfully slow. The forced walking cutscenes especially suck and take me out of the moment rather than immerse me in it. These things all last for seconds at a time, but those seconds add up and it's really quite irritating. This is the game. I invite anyone who forgot how much of this stuff was here to replay it and see for themselves.

I think the problem lies in the decision to make the FF7 Remake project a three-part affair. Beyond some no-brainer additions like more scenes with Avalanche, it feels like they didn't know what to do with Midgar. They keep all the original story beats and locations, stretch them out, and shove in some new stuff here and there which doesn't fit particularly well, even if they are entertaining in the moment. That's how a lot of the game feels, kind of cool sometimes, yet unsatisfying as a whole.

It's conflicting to think about, because it fundamentally has the similar core issues to my favorite FF game and an all-time favorite, FF14. 14's story is often both drawn-out and contrived. The quest structure is repetitive and monotonous. Endwalker even adds what are essentially forced walking cutscenes. The game is filled with tasteless fanservice too like Veteran Reward/Shop glamours and characters/bosses from other FF games that add nothing to the story. So why, then, didn't I gel with 7R? I don't know. Just not for me, I think. I respect it for trying something new at least, and I look forward to seeing what Rebirth and Part 3 bring to the table.

What an introduction, the opening of Final Fantasy VII Remake takes you back to ‘97 with that opening. A bombastic zoom out shot of midgar that highlights the scale and fidelity of this game with unreal music to accompany it, it’s a one to one remake of the original’s opening and it’s just as powerful now as it was over 25 years ago. I unfortunately don’t believe the rest of this remake lives up to what that intro made me feel, but it certainly gives it its best shot.

One of the biggest concerns coming into FF7R was the combat for many, going from turn based to real time action had many concerned. But I believe Square nailed it, Square compromised by having the moment to moment combat be real time but to cast spells or issue commands you swap to a menu where the game nearly freezes around you while you choose what to do. It’s a brilliant compromise that combines flashy sword swings with tactical decision making for spells. It’s not perfect though, I think it lacks depth and can be super underbaked depending on the character you’re playing, and when there’s only four playable party members that becomes a big problem. But overall I believe this was a great combat system that still is fun now even with lacking depth.

The story was also a hot point of concern before the game’s launch, as for my opinion? I… like the direction they took. It has to be noted that a lot of what is in Remake’s story is padding, as the Midgar section of the original is just a few hours long and Remake’s upwards of 40 hours, but I think what they added, although unnecessary at times was fun and enjoyable, and yes I like the ending, I like the direction they’re taking the remake trilogy, serving as more of a pseudo sequel/reimagining, it’s not a true remake, and I agree the title is misleading, but the story itself is fine.

I will say this though, there are some low points in the middle that drag the game down, most of these chapters are relatively the same length as any other chapter though, so it’s not like they take up an absurd amount of time. It’s just a shame that Square couldn’t handle the momentum the first couple chapters granted them and take it all the way through the rest of the game.

But back on a positive note let me talk about the music and visuals, they’re mind blowing! One of the best soundtracks ever put into a video game, I’d expect nothing less of Uematsu and Square, I still listen to many of these tracks causally 4 years later.

And the visuals? For a PS4 game? Unreal, I still think Remake looks better than most games released in the 9th generation, including Rebirth. Yeah there’s some muddy textures and some weird backgrounds and moments but overall Remake’s one of the most consistently gorgeous games I’ve EVER played.

Not everything about this game is perfect though, the level design is severely lacking as an example, it harkens back to FF13 with absurdly limited and linear design. I wish Remake branched out more and showed me more of what the world of FF7 has to offer, hell even Midgar you hardly get to explore despite the overwhelming scale of the city. I don’t need the game to be an open world, but I would enjoy seeing more than the few sections Square let’s us explore, some optional areas would be nice.

Speaking of optional content, the side content in Remake is laughable, there’s very little there and what is there is, to put it simply, shit. For a Final Fantasy game it’s severely underwhelming.

The voice acting also leaves much to be desired, I don’t even think most of the VAs were bad, I just think they were given awful material and direction. So many anime grunts and gasps in every scene with cheesy lines and often flat delivery. There are standout moments in more impactful scenes, but overall I find Remake to have some of the weakest voice acting out of any Final Fantasy game since X.

Overall, Remake isn’t perfect, but I do considering it a damn fine title and a worthy game to have the Final Fantasy 7 title. With some of my issues corrected we could have an amazing game on our hands, luckily we have 2 more games to look forward to in this saga.

7.5/10 but closer to a 7 than an 8

First ever Final Fantasy game and I loved this. Took me around 30-32 hours to finish, and I wouldn't have minded if it kept going. The combat was a blast (even if I probably misused my materia constantly) but the characters are what made this shine for me. I love our group of heroes and their relationships together. This game is delightfully weird, and I can't wait for what comes next. I had to watch a spoilercast video to help me understand the end, but I'm super excited to see where this story goes and hear how different it is from the source material.