In principle I don't have a problem with this. Unfortunately the way they went about it was so hamfisted and gratuitously metanarrative as to damaging to any future direction they want to take the plot In.

Also, while in principle I don't have a problem with making some plot changes, I do find the notion that major or surprises are of critical importance to be nonsense. The best parts of the FF7 Remake don't come from twists to the plot of the first one, but to fleshing out and reimagining the same sequences that were in the original. It's funny that on the one hand gamers will often want games accepted as art and yet in their demand of gaming they call to the lowest common denominator of plot demands, where unpredictability and twist is given primacy above all else. If the idea that plots without surprise are bad held such away in the rest of the artistic world we wouldn't still be seeing performances of Shakespeare today. No I'm not saying FF7 is at the level of Shakespeare, that's not the point. The point is that you don't have to be in constant mystery about where a story is going in order to enjoy it.

Personally I would prefer knowing that spoiler is still gonna spoilers and just watch how they get there in the retelling, but SE would prefer me to wonder whether spoilers will happen at all.