Welp, after researching, I think I'll go with new threat. I'm hoping to use new battle sprites while leaving the rest alone.
Good man. Go with Ninostyle's models, they are fantastic. They are basically recreations of the official artwork for the characters.
Ok so if I want the better translation, better graphics (but don't really like Satsuki's stuff), to be able to speed things up but I don't want any major gameplay changes, what would be my best option?
The Reunion has the fancy translation that most people want, but keep in mind that it comes with literal translation of some names. Reno is now Leno, Marlene is Marin, Moogle is Moguri, etc. I find it bothersome. Though I think the current version offers the option to use the canonical names.
As for better graphics, I don't know. I use Satsuki, and will do until Project Edge is complete, but that will take years. 7th Heaven also has many different character models available, though only Ninostyle is really "professional-looking", if we could call it that. I find all the others to look bad and worse than the original blocky models. You can get Ninostyle's models through 7th Heaven.
As for gameplay, there's a bunch of gameplay mods in the 7th Heaven catalogue. You might want to check there, but keep in mind that 7th Heaven is not compatible with The Reunion. You will have to make a choice. I know you said you don't want anything major, but I still recommend you try New Threat. There's no reason not to if you've already played FF7 before. It's just a fantastic mod that will make you appreciate the game almost as much as when you first played it all those years ago.
I don't know if New Threat is better in that regard, but it was one of the few things that annoyed me with Reunions translations so far, but at least there were options to fix it.
New Threat uses the canonical names for everything and everyone.
So is there a specific issue with the Steam version of the game that requires the original PC version's executable to be used, or is it just an issue where content hasn't been updated to support the Steam version's functionality?
It has to do with the driver that mods need to use. They all use
Aali's driver, which is only compatible with the 1998 executable. However, there is a new driver currently in development by JulianX,
called FFNx, that is modern and that is made to work natively with the Steam releases of both FF7 and FF8. The author of 7th Heaven has said that the long term roadmap for the mod is to eventually integrate JulianX's new driver so the mod community can finally ditch the old executable.
