Barret has undoubtedly the best lines in the entire game, and I admire his radical, revolutionary drive.
I also think the direction they took for his performance doubles down on the racist caricature that he was in the original. You are either being willfully blind or just straight-up ignorant if you don't see the glaringly obvious angry black man trope the game deploys for his character, from his over-the-top voice acting to his wild gesticulations. It's quite embarrassing how much of a blaxploitation character they make him out to be, and it stands out all the more because he's the only black character of note in the entire game.
Any other new AAA game that comes out with a character like this would be rightfully blasted for being racist.
Folks, I actually like the game a lot, and I appreciate some of the work the writers did to flesh out Barret more within the timeframe the game takes place in compared to the original, but I can also criticize those same writers for choosing to go balls out changing some of the major plot points from the original but sticking with the fundamentally racist portrayal of Barret, and in fact heightening it with voice acting and modern animation.
Again, the devs at Square Enix CHOSE to go with this direction for the character, much like how they chose to go with the direction for the story. If you can have an emotional response, whether it's anger or excitement, over what SE did for the main plot in this remake, you damn well better accept the fact that people can be upset about SE sticking to their guns with Barret.
Hell, so many people are applauding the changes they made to Wall Market and the whole Honeybee Inn sequence for not being wildly problematic like the original, and the new direction they took for that part isn't even all that radically progressive! Why the hell couldn't they have done the same thing for Barret??? Black people can be portrayed like revolutionaries filled with righteous anger without acting like a Mr. T ripoff!