I honestly expect a lot of people to be disappointed because of their expectations.
The way I see it, FFVII will be a fraction of the original game in terms of story. After beating it you know the original game just warmed up. I can't get past that idea. How do you expand this into a full game? If I go by the previews they add in side missions and stuff like rat problem and killing enemy X sound a lot like Marks from previous FF games. Fine, but nothing that sets the world on fire.
But Midgar has to be exceptionally huge and varied, because this is treated, sold and hyped up as a full package. Or there is the slim chance Square actually didn't show a fuck ton of stuff beyond Midgar but I seriously doubt that since its Square.
They've already said they've made changes/additions to make this Part 1 work better/feel more satisfying as a standalone experience. Like, yes, the grander adventure will be left for the future but they want the Midgar portion to feel fleshed out and epic on its own terms. Purists will probably hate everything that goes off too much from the OG path but I'd expect new players to feel perfectly satisfied with the insane shadow tornado and whatever resolving that requires as a finale.
That's why I feel there's some stuff that was originally later on. Yeah, the original game didn't reveal some of this stuff until, like, hour 23, but we'll probably be spending a minimum of 20-25 hours in Midgar in this Part 1 so from a story pacing POV, it makes sense that they won't drag out some of the twists/reveals from the original game because technically we'll probably learn some of the stuff after about as much playing as in the original game, even if it comes while still being in Midgar.
I feel some lore stuff/world-building/character introductions can easily be switched around to happen earlier. It's not like the scene with Sephiroth from the new trailer happens after only a couple of hours, at that point we'll probably be on the tail end of the game so finally showing/interacting with the villain of this particular story makes some sense.
The original story might've just "warmed up" at that point but the remake seems to want to offer a fairly epic finale (& overall journey) of its own that strays beyond what the original game did at the end of MIdgar. And they've made stuff like Honey Bee Inn a lot more showy, so that kind of feels like less of a goofy minor quest and more of a spectacle that offers enjoyment beyond the original game's fairly low-key questing of running around talking to a few NPCs to get a wig & a dress.
Wait till we get to Part 2 and people go all "Yo what if Aerith doesn't die in this remake"
They are already speculating that...
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