i first played final fantasy vii in 2002. this was five years after launch, and by then it was an old game. a really old game. i'd played terranigma, final fantasy x, skies of arcadia, grandia ii, and other story-driven rpgs at that point. it never had the impact as a next-gen game (that would be mario 64 and ocarina of time), or a game with a great story or cinematics. outside of the people who first played it and loved it 22 years ago, i don't know who it appeals to. at least super mario 64's level design holds up and ocarina of time's pacing is as solid as ever. and to be fair, i think most games from that era, especially 3d games that were trying to be cutting-edge, have aged poorly. banjo-kazooie for instance, a game i loved, was disappointing to play again on xbox 360 to find it was nothing more than a glorified minigame compilation.
final fantasy vii is more important in what it represented. it was the first big-budget game to really establish what playstation would be. the full-motion video, orchestrated music, and several discs worth of game made it feel like an enormous production that would be impossible anywhere else. you won't get that out of a remake. a remake is just going to be a retelling of a (to put it politely) long story, with a new battle system, and now spanning several releases.