It’s honestly kinda crazy how long some games spend in development. The Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy is a perfect example of something that should’ve been quick but ended up being so bloated and took forever to make.
FF7Remake was announced in 2015, got stuck in development hell for a bit, released 2020. The sequel released 2024. The third one still hasn’t been teased yet. How many people are attached to a franchise if it takes 10 years to get the full story? I loved the first remake but dropped the second one, I just didn’t care about the story as much as I did ~5 years ago.
A lot of people have the hallway complaint, and honestly I think it mostly came down to visuals and sound design. So many games people love have exactly the same level design, including FFX, but there is normally enough to look at, and you don’t have the “high heels on tile” footsteps exacerbating it. I’m also pretty sure a large part of it was a YouTube video pointing it out and people jumping on the bandwagon.