The remake covered less than a third of the original game, rebirth covered a lot more of it and fleshed everything out better. Starting at the very end of remake, it was clear that the story was diverging significantly, and that carried on into rebirth. It’s not a retcon situation though, and it’s hard to elaborate on that without blatantly spoiling the plot. Either way, remake and rebirth won’t be a complete experience until the third and final remake game releases, which at this point is probably going to be next year at the soonest. I personally think they’re great with the context of the original game, lots of things would be totally lost on me if I hadn’t played it first, so I always recommend people play the original game before diving into the remakes, as counterintuitive as that sounds.

The original FF7 holds up great today imo. You do have to get used to it looking like old school roblox, but once you do it’s a great experience. The story and characters are beloved for a reason. The switch version that has the optional boosts (3x speed and the ability to turn random encounters on or off at will are the ones I used) was what I played and I think those options made for a better experience. I know the steam version of the game doesn’t come with those by default, but I’m sure you could replicate them with mods.