I recommend trying the demo for Rebirth. I enjoyed it much more than Remake. Combat is expanded/improved. One of Remake's issues was a lot of the optional content/side quests weren't very fun. Rebirth has a lot of optional content, and IMO most of it is fun.

It is because they started a naming convention («Remake: Episode 1») and then screwed it up along the line. Also the original project forecasted more than 3 chapters.

Yes, it's not turn based like in the original. But you characters still have ATB bars that fill, at which point you can perform abilities, cast spells, call forth summons, or use items by spending ATB. This can be done instantly with shortcuts, or you can slow down time in a tactical mode, while you choose your next action.

Technically, Rebirth (part 2) ends at the same place in the story as disc 1 of the original. Disc 3 of the original was mostly the same as disc 2, since you could do a lot of side content early or late. They just needed another disc to fit all the FMV scenes.

So the general flow of the remake trilogy is:

Remake: Midgar. In the original, this was the first 5-8 hours for a typical player, and included roughly 1/3 of the whole game's dialogue, so it's not as crazy as it sounds at first, even though you can speed through Midgar in like two hours if you rush.

Rebirth: Open world up to the "big event" that ended disc 1.

Revelation: Everything after the "big event", so discs 2 and 3. (Possibly also adapting some aspects of Advent Children and/or Dirge of Cerberus, but we'll just have to wait and see.)

There are a couple things that were moved around. For example, we didn't go to Rocket Town in Rebirth, while that was much earlier in the original. Cid appeared in Rebirth but was not a playable party member, so they've reorganized it a bit to focus on Cid's whole story in Revelation.