I don't agree. It's your opinion to think so, but hear me out on this. Based upon what you're saying, Advent Children would have also catered to feminists, but almost 15 years ago before the identity politics of today's Western society came into fruition?
Square Enix is a Japanese company first and foremost, and Final Fantasy is their Japanese franchise. I've lived in Japan for long enough now to know that society here functions much differently than the Western world. All the identity representation [nonsense] currently thrown into Western media and entertainment...it's not here. Most Japanese people are ignorant to its existence, and those who may get a whiff of it from the internet, don't care enough to ever talk about it. Another fact is that the majority of the player base is male, and the Japanese gaming industry heavily favors male loving aesthetics. They don't tone down characters because feminist activists [whom don't exist in Japan] demanded it do so. Trust me on this one...it's not a feminist thing.
I personally don't mind the new look they've given, but still enjoy the original the best. The changes themselves at least match pretty well. Barret with sunglasses though? That one will take awhile to grow on me.
This is my take as well. And we know it's a good system seeing how the Hardcore mod and New Threat have shown us what could have been developed instead.
Hello, i never liked the Advent Children look of any character. I thought that compared to FF7 1995 they all looked less cool - or less sexy in Tifa's case. Also, they no longer had anime-aesthetics that i really liked in the original. To me the Kaldarasha models are a superb representation of how they should look - the FMV-videos.
However, i did accept that style because in the case of Advent Children it took place after FF7. As such they might have changed their style over the years. And not only that, but i get it that they'd want a movie to be more real-life like. Not really a fan that they've taken the remake in that route instead of the anime-route - but at least it's understandable to some degree. As an example, i love the new look of Cloud and the fact that he has gotten his cool pants back. I really disliked how they got too slim in all the modern games. To me Cloud has pants that stretch to the side - doesn't look cool otherwise. I still miss the more pointy hair of the original though.
About feminists, i just thought that because of their bad influende on other games, movies and TV-shows that they caused this change as well. But i also do know that Japan is different - so i am not at all certain as to why they gave Tifa stocking socks/leggins when they could just have kept her the way she is in the original. Wanting a remake doesn't mean "we want you to remake everything in the game" - it could just mean "we want modern graphics but the same game otherwise".
If comparing Advent Children to the Remake, the main difference is that the Remake claims to be Final Fantasy VII - but by changing the style of Tifa it's not looking like FF7. It looks like a "new FF7" and i wanted the old with better graphics. Now, i am not against more story, multiplayer or whatever - i like any "expanded content". But changing the looks of characters is so stupid - why change what isn't broken? The old style of Tifa is Tifa since 22 years ago. I don't like changes that change how characters look.
For example, in the 90's you had Vegeta from DBz as 16bit pixels in snes games, and today you have Vegeta in PS4 games with anime-style graphics - the character still looks the same! They didn't change his hairstyle or his clothes - only the graphics. Why couldn't FF7 Remake do the same?
Advent Children is a continuation, Crisis Core is a prologue, Kingdom Hearts is a mix of Disney/FF - but the Remake is Final Fantasy VII and should have re-used all the original designs unchanged.