Years ago I read an interview with a movie director (don’t remember which movie, nor which director) about a movie based on a video game he directed, and that people complained about the many changes he made to the game plot, making the movie feel like a different story.
His answer was in the lines of “as a director I didn’t want to just reproduce what people saw in the game, I wanted to make this movie my own”.
Probably FFVII “Remake” directors felt the same. Instead of making the game fans wanted, they decided to change it to “make their own”.
Unfortunately, just like it never works in movies, it didn’t work in this game, either. Especially since control was given to Nomura.
Completely unrelated to FFVII, but I feel the same with the new Evangelion movies. They promised a series of movies following the events of the manga more closely, with better animation and with a less confusing plot than the anime. And then midway they decided to change so much stuff including silly things like “children who pilot Evas don’t age” that it feels like a fan fiction to me.