Rebirth is a huge step forward over remake but has some annoyances.
1. The good Materia requires you to be a completionist. The rewards are too good and it incentivizes you to do all the content, but there are too many minigames so it burns you out.
2. Cait Sith's VA is a huge dissapointment
3. Certain section of the game was changed/removed which imho was one of the big setpieces of the OG game
4. Story sections still contain tons of filler to the point where it feels like two separate games, one where a team worked on the story section and another on the open world. Problem is nobody in the story section got the memo that the game will be fleshed out by the open world so the story sections don't need so much filler. Story sections are packed with filler in addition to a huge open world
5. Gongaga region of the open world leaves something to be desired when it comes to transversal
I could list dozens of reasons why it is great, but that is why it isn't perfect. I had no problem with the story except to say that the original story heavily uses the banality of evil while every big event in the new game are like the greatest showman songs, big bold and un-nuanced. The game has little finesse, but still it is not a bad game at all. 9/10.
Think of it like a dish that tastes great, looks great, but is plated very poorly. It is not at all ruined but it could have been a legend if it had been plated perfectly. For the first 100 hours the card game was one of the best eva, but it started to show flaws at a certain point when your deck outpaces the ai. Some of the "minigames" are beyond incredible and could almost be their own game. The graphics, music, combat, all 10/10. The game has a fun "feel" and feels like a celebration. Really good 9/10 game and I can see it as goty but there are other strong contenders. The overall sound package here is maybe the absolute best ever in a game(making Cait Sith's VA being terrible even worse). An easy recommend for the price, even to non-fans, the game is pretty addictive, just don't be surprised if you play it for 120 hours and quit before the end. You cannot "rush to the ending" when it gets boring because of all the filler in the story sections.