Excuse another insane lengthy word salad, but a couple of things are really making me flip-flop hard on how I feel about Rebirth. I'm close to 180'ing on my skepticism, it just depends on if the third game actually ends up bearing this out.
First thing to get out of the way is that playing through the game myself instead of watching playthroughs of it (dragged down by optional stuff that doesn't respect your time) and realizing that the difficulty is actually still perfectly balanced (if not even more enjoyable) if you B-line the main story has made me feel much more positive about the gameplay/story pacing. I've heard that the game indirectly forces you to do the tedious side stuff because you'd be too under-leveled otherwise, but that just isn't true, in my experience. It's harder than Remake doing it this way, but still only modestly challenging compared to actual hard games (it's hit the perfect challenge sweet spot for me, personally).
My #1 biggest reason for possible reconsideration, though: The thing I care most about and that pissed me off about Remake was not preserving the spirit of the original's themes. If the trilogy is about fighting fate in some way, I think that's trash writing and butchers the original theme-- It's just a dumb and childish sentiment to express in general that Nomura/Nojima seem way too obsessed with. The story's theme is that you CAN'T reject fate/consequences/bad outcomes, you can only accept how the consequences of them shape you and take your best step forward regardless of the outcome (which ties into environmental messages where we may have already done too much irreversible damage, as well as dealing with mortality/loss). That's a much more real, mature, and human takeaway, and something I like a lot about the original game.
Remake and its fate ghosts felt like it moved in the opposite direction and completely spit in the face of that theme. However, what initially reassured me about that in Rebirth was that
Aerith EXPLICITLY states the original theme described above almost word for word at the climax of the game, which reassures me that the Devs know this and it might still be heading in the right direction. The only wrinkle against that for me was that that the Zack stuff still felt like it's moving in that same dumb/butchered direction.
But then I came across this possible tin-foil hat in-game hint/theory about what might be going on, and I actually really like how well it could conceivably work for where this trilogy might be going.
From hearing that, I feel like there's a possibility that
it isn't a multiverse (because time/space is too logically inconsistent for that to make sense), and is actually just the lifestream manifesting hopes and dreams as pockets of reality as a reaction to desperate attempts to resist fate. I actually really like that and think that would express the original theme perfectly, resulting in game 1, 2, and 3 being about rejection, denial/delusion, and then acceptance, respectively. If the third game ends up being about how, regardless of the what ifs that we desperately wish for and whatever hypothetical universes might be out there, nothing can actually change the specific reality you're in now (which the ending of Rebirth seems to support), then all this nonsense suddenly works really well, IMO.
But then again, maybe that's just delusional wishful thinking on my part as well.