The insane amount to content in Rebirth though was just massive amounts of the same old padding repeated in every region.
The padding added was to stretch the game out enough so they’d have enough story left to do a third game. It’s sometimes painfully obvious once you get half way in and you are constantly doing the same things over and over. We don’t really get many memorable side quests that really stand out.
Then like you said you have the story which, while the rest of the game was great, was not the best especially when comparing it to the original. All those silly new additions just dumb down the greatest of the original and it comes off like bad fan fiction.
VII Rebirth was a good high quality game but it was just another open world game in a sea of many. Least in comparison to Astro Bot there was less flaws or nitpicks to scratch away at and being a 3D platformer it wasn’t released in an oversaturated market.
The only bad thing I could say about Astro Bot was I felt it was a little short, like it could have done with an extra Galaxy to go through.