I'm surprised at how FFVIIR seems to be pretty low or an afterthought on most GOTY lists. I could understand one or two outlets not feeling it, but it seems like generally it's just thought of as "oh yeah, that came out this year". Pretty shocking for one of the most wanted games of the past few decades.
I liked it enough to finish it, but there's so much to complain about with FF7R.
They took a 6 hour or so segment from the original game and stretched out it to 34 hours without adding much new, meaningful story content. There was that Jessie scenario early on which was neat, but then the rest of the game was mostly just the old events stretched out with lots of filler.
The pacing is really awkward.
The weapon system feels like a lot of busywork and takes more time than it ought thanks to how its presented.
Even though I played on Normal and rarely had problems with the combat (I think I died maybe once or twice in combat all game, excluding the bike minigame), I felt like I never actually mastered the combat or got into a groove with it, because of the pacing.
After playing FF7 Remake, it feels like a playable Advent Children, but I'd rather they had just taken the original game and improved it (nicer visuals, clean up & balance the gameplay, etc.).
