This game is one of the more divisive in the franchise, having more than a few fans unhappy with the outcome of the reimagined story due to some new developments, and while I personally consider some of these moments flawed I didn't actually have much of an issue with the way the events play out and even praise some of the finer details the writers made sure to include that were not present, or at least not well explained in the original game.
That being said, my lower rating of the game is in fact heavily rooted in the gameplay itself.
The battle system itself is a unique and well-thought-out blend of both a more traditional turn-based RPG and action mechanics, though the game seems to strongly lean to the former, having most abilities from both enemy and player characters rely on the ATB gauge; a Final Fantasy staple that is used here as a way to reward your careful play with the action-based mechanics like attacking and blocking, boosting your ATB and giving you access to the rest of your latent abilities granted by materia, weapons, etc.
Characters themselves have entirely different ways of fighting and while some characters may be more enjoyable than others, they all add their own unique charm and each of them all come with moments where they are the best pick for the job, which can't be said about a lot of other action games with multiple playable characters.
Now, this all works fine on paper. But what I've come to realize is this system is extremely focused on rewarding good play whilst heavily punishing any small mistakes. In boss fights or fights with low enemy counts this is not a problem because even if you make a mistake it's not too difficult to recuperate, but the real crux of this battle system is when you are pitted against 5+ enemies at once and this happens quite often. You'll be bombarded with attack after attack with no time to react, often being trapped in block-stun before being tripped up by an unblockable attack that you simply have no time to dodge due to other targets hitting you alongside them and quite often the solution to this issue is waiting for the ATB gauge to fill; a feat that quickly becomes a monumental task when put in situations where both blocking and attacking aren't ideal or even helpful.
Furthermore, the dodge action you can take to try and avoid situations like these simply is not helpful enough due to the lack of any invincibility frames, something any player who is used to a more traditional action game would find jarring. In a decision by the developers I can only rationalize as being put in place to make enemy abilities more impactful as in a traditional RPG you can't just simply dodge an attack, you have to prepare for it accordingly which isn't necessarily a bad thing, however in many instances in this game it just seems unfair when the odds are so heavily against you in larger scale fights where your only ways out not involving waiting desperately for your slowly building ATB gauge to reach one bar so you can heal being specific materia setups with passive abilities that I found myself not having fun with more often than not, or activating your summon which I quickly found is just a way to make these fights cheap in my favour instead of the enemy's favour, which I enjoyed even less.
Also I didn't really know where else to put this but there are a lot of flying enemies in the game and aerial combat is far too clumsy and really showcases the lowest points of the combat, but it's far from what I would consider unplayable.
All in all though I'd say when I wasn't struggling with the system itself in those larger fights I was actually enjoying myself quite a bit. The music is incredible and there is a lot of it. (Most bosses seem to have their own variation on the original's standard and boss themes not even mentioning the new themes made for others) Most bosses themselves are quite unique and varied mechanically, almost without fail offering a new and different challenge every time you encounter one with maybe with the exception of one fight toward latter half of the game. Weapon abilities are all very different from one another and most are useful, switching up the game every time you grab a new one as mastering the ability would allow you to use them with other weapons as well giving you more variety in how you spend your ATB, combining new abilities with old and even forming some semblance of combos in some cases which was extremely fun. It all came together as one in a lot of moments and I found myself really going crazy with the sheer variety in what I was able to do.
As a final point I did have a friend who watched my entire playthrough of this game who had no experience with FF7 whatsoever, and where I seemed to understand the story having played the original, they were confused and full of questions, a lot of which I couldn't rightly answer due to wondering if the answers to those questions would be answered in this game due to the newer developments or not.
Sadly a lot of them would go unanswered entirely which isn't unexpected but it did raise a point for me; the developers as well as a lot of players seem convinced that this is a standalone game that can act as an onboarding to the rest of the compilation of FF7, I really have to disagree due to the fact that there is so much that directly nods to the original and some of its spinoff games that just doesn't seem like it expects the player to know or need an explanation for and just can't recommend it in that regard, strongly encouraging anyone reading this to play at least the original first before diving into this as it holds most of the context needed for this game with a few exceptional voids that you would need maybe Crisis Core (the prequel to the original FF7) or Dirge of Cerberus (one of the sequels to the original FF7) to fulfill, but I digress.
Even though it's a lower score for me than is typical and with all my personal gripes cast aside, if you've played the original and are curious about this one, I actually think this is a better, more well-put-together game that is extremely engaging all the way through and definitely recommend it to someone reading this who may still be on the fence.
That being said, my lower rating of the game is in fact heavily rooted in the gameplay itself.
The battle system itself is a unique and well-thought-out blend of both a more traditional turn-based RPG and action mechanics, though the game seems to strongly lean to the former, having most abilities from both enemy and player characters rely on the ATB gauge; a Final Fantasy staple that is used here as a way to reward your careful play with the action-based mechanics like attacking and blocking, boosting your ATB and giving you access to the rest of your latent abilities granted by materia, weapons, etc.
Characters themselves have entirely different ways of fighting and while some characters may be more enjoyable than others, they all add their own unique charm and each of them all come with moments where they are the best pick for the job, which can't be said about a lot of other action games with multiple playable characters.
Now, this all works fine on paper. But what I've come to realize is this system is extremely focused on rewarding good play whilst heavily punishing any small mistakes. In boss fights or fights with low enemy counts this is not a problem because even if you make a mistake it's not too difficult to recuperate, but the real crux of this battle system is when you are pitted against 5+ enemies at once and this happens quite often. You'll be bombarded with attack after attack with no time to react, often being trapped in block-stun before being tripped up by an unblockable attack that you simply have no time to dodge due to other targets hitting you alongside them and quite often the solution to this issue is waiting for the ATB gauge to fill; a feat that quickly becomes a monumental task when put in situations where both blocking and attacking aren't ideal or even helpful.
Furthermore, the dodge action you can take to try and avoid situations like these simply is not helpful enough due to the lack of any invincibility frames, something any player who is used to a more traditional action game would find jarring. In a decision by the developers I can only rationalize as being put in place to make enemy abilities more impactful as in a traditional RPG you can't just simply dodge an attack, you have to prepare for it accordingly which isn't necessarily a bad thing, however in many instances in this game it just seems unfair when the odds are so heavily against you in larger scale fights where your only ways out not involving waiting desperately for your slowly building ATB gauge to reach one bar so you can heal being specific materia setups with passive abilities that I found myself not having fun with more often than not, or activating your summon which I quickly found is just a way to make these fights cheap in my favour instead of the enemy's favour, which I enjoyed even less.
Also I didn't really know where else to put this but there are a lot of flying enemies in the game and aerial combat is far too clumsy and really showcases the lowest points of the combat, but it's far from what I would consider unplayable.
All in all though I'd say when I wasn't struggling with the system itself in those larger fights I was actually enjoying myself quite a bit. The music is incredible and there is a lot of it. (Most bosses seem to have their own variation on the original's standard and boss themes not even mentioning the new themes made for others) Most bosses themselves are quite unique and varied mechanically, almost without fail offering a new and different challenge every time you encounter one with maybe with the exception of one fight toward latter half of the game. Weapon abilities are all very different from one another and most are useful, switching up the game every time you grab a new one as mastering the ability would allow you to use them with other weapons as well giving you more variety in how you spend your ATB, combining new abilities with old and even forming some semblance of combos in some cases which was extremely fun. It all came together as one in a lot of moments and I found myself really going crazy with the sheer variety in what I was able to do.
As a final point I did have a friend who watched my entire playthrough of this game who had no experience with FF7 whatsoever, and where I seemed to understand the story having played the original, they were confused and full of questions, a lot of which I couldn't rightly answer due to wondering if the answers to those questions would be answered in this game due to the newer developments or not.
Sadly a lot of them would go unanswered entirely which isn't unexpected but it did raise a point for me; the developers as well as a lot of players seem convinced that this is a standalone game that can act as an onboarding to the rest of the compilation of FF7, I really have to disagree due to the fact that there is so much that directly nods to the original and some of its spinoff games that just doesn't seem like it expects the player to know or need an explanation for and just can't recommend it in that regard, strongly encouraging anyone reading this to play at least the original first before diving into this as it holds most of the context needed for this game with a few exceptional voids that you would need maybe Crisis Core (the prequel to the original FF7) or Dirge of Cerberus (one of the sequels to the original FF7) to fulfill, but I digress.
Even though it's a lower score for me than is typical and with all my personal gripes cast aside, if you've played the original and are curious about this one, I actually think this is a better, more well-put-together game that is extremely engaging all the way through and definitely recommend it to someone reading this who may still be on the fence.