I somewhat recently replayed this (two and half years ago, now that I think about it, I guess it isn't so recent) and one of the things I initially forgot about were how many minigames were hidden throughout the game. I'm not just talking about the motorcycle, the snowboard, or submarine games and the like at Gold Saucer, but the ones needed to progress the game like staying warm while climbing a mountain, performing CPR, marching in formation, etc. These were all pretty well done at breaking up the pacing of the game and many of these minigames were just plain fun. Part of my fear is that these kind of minigames will be lost in translation, so to speak, taking away some of the charm of the original.
Another concern I have is Nomura wanting to delve more deeply into the contents of Crisis Core and making them more canon with Angeal and stuff, or Yuffie and Vincent's storylines getting messed with too much.
On the other hand, I'm really excited to see the updated version of the game that would give more explanation into how everyone in the team has a real role for the team with a realistic explanation of their ability to fight alongside Cloud against gigantic fiends. I.e. Tifa can fight fucking dragons with Cloud because she's a master martial artist, Barrett has a gun on his arm, Yuffie is a frickin' ninja, etc. Maybe some role diversification in battle would be cool too. As much as I loved the Materia system, it was a little too easy to abuse. Maybe let there be some real tradeoffs for using green materia on a physical damage dealer and vice versa.
My biggest hope is that the team behind the remake of Final Fantasy VII is for them to recapture the original "feel," that amazing ambiance that I felt the first time I was playing Final Fantasy VII. The feelings Midgar evoked inside me when I was a kid playing this game were nothing like I'd experienced from playing a video game at the time. The
music gave me goosebumps. It felt so real to me. I felt so connected. The game was also monstrous for its time. It took three whole discs to play through it! Everything about it felt so epic: The graphics, the music, the story, the hype...it was all more than I could have imagined it would be... perhaps the original being on a limited system caused me to fill in a lot of the gaps with my imagination, making it more personal to me and I guess part of me knows that I won't feel as connected to the remake. Even though Final Fantasy VII is my favorite game of all time, I'm afraid that now my expectations are too high and that whatever they release, no matter how amazing it may be, just won't be able to hit the same bar of excellence. It's like I'm a heroine addict--I've gotten high before, and nothing is going to compare to that very first high.
It's going to be interesting to see how they handle the story this time around. I know there's going to be a lot of pressure on the localizers to get things right, and it makes me wonder just how much they're going to foreshadow, or how much dialogue/the script is going to be altered from the original game. I'm still very excited for those who have never played Final Fantasy VII getting a chance to play it; I just hope their first experiences will feel as magical as mine did.