Love the trailer. They're getting a lot of things right. The music is about the most perfect arrangements of the songs I could hope for. They've toned down the melodies enough so that they're not as in your face as the old ones, but still wholly recognizable as the tracks from the original. Brilliant.
The new voice cast so far seems a huge improvement over the old ones. I'd be nervous if I'd known they were going for celebrity actors if I hadn't heard them before finding out. I guess it helps that I don't watch any of the shows the cast has played in. Cloud and especially Tifa sound much better than before.
It sucks that some characters won't be in this release since it's only taking place in Midgar. It wouldn't be hard to fit Yuffie in, especially if they intend on fleshing out her introduction and giving her a bigger role since we first meet her in a random encounter anyway. They could easily give her an excuse for showing up in Midgar at an earlier point instead of just wandering the forests around the continent. Cid and Vincent are so tied to their respective locales that it wouldn't make sense shoehorning them into the first episode though.
I have to say though, if they intend on the first game only taking place in Midgar, it better be open world. I wanna pop wheelies off an overpass on the Hardy Daytona GTA style, goddammit. I know it's too early to tell how much they're expanding the story, but I can't see them getting more than twenty hours or so out what's presented in the Midgar section of the original. Hopefully there's enough gameplay to dive into to make this the full game they claim it is. Being open world with lots of side quests and shit to fool around with would make it possible I'd say.
And with everyone complaining about the title not signifying that this is a multiple game series: Didn't they say once before that "Remake" was just a temporary title and that it will eventually be called Final Fantasy VII: [Insert subtitle here]?