Actually jokes aside I've got something that's kind of irked me about Chapter 10/11.

(SPOILER)So, you're in the sewers right after the Don reveals Shinra's big plan to collapse the pillar in Sector 7. Holy smurfing trout! How many people will die! We gotta get there. Now. And Tifa's very worried about this throughout the sewer, wondering if they can believe the Don. The sewer drags on a little but okay we're Ahead On Our Way.

Oh wait we're in the Train Graveyard... and the tone just suddenly shifts. Ah no, it's spoooooky! MY bodyguard will protect us! Ahh child ghosts! Like, don't get me wrong, in and of itself the Train Graveyard is a nice improvement on the original and has an interesting little substory but it's at the wrong time in the wrong place.

It frustrates me as I play because I'm desperate to make it to the pillar but there's no end in sight. As a result I'm not really as into this ghost story as I would be ordinarily. And then when the ghost story comes to an end they re-introduce Shinra and the pillar but the urgency that I feel still isn't there with the characters because you're now smurfing around with trains and turntables.

There's a couple of other examples of this too. "We gotta go help Biggs in the reactor!" which was first said about three hours before you actually finally get to him, and then Chapter 13 (SPOILER)I just found Wedge in the wreckage, oh good, I'll help him OH NO HERE'S A RESEARCH LAB! it happens again.

This is the biggest consequence to the fleshing out of various sections from the original - the pacing of the game is just completely thrown off balance. I get what they were going for, and I've used the term fleshed out instead of padded out because much of it is fun and interesting, but I'm not sure it's really gelled with the story as it was.