It launches into the FFVII launcher but does not let me proceed past it. I have tried all the diagnostics I could think of/find online and in support. The 1 hour of playtime has been 1 hour of messing around in settings. menus, on forums and with support. Which is a damn shame because this is one of the all time best video games, guess I'll have to find an old PlayStation and copy of the game.

Amazing game, don't play it.

Final Fantasy VII is a cult classic for a reason - fantastic story, incredibly fleshed out characters and an insane scale for a PS1 game. The ATB system is still fun to this day, although it can be a little overwhelming at first.
Having said that, trying to experience it for the first time in the current year feels a little masochistic. Be ready for random encounters every 5 seconds, completely unreadable backgrounds which will test your sanity, questionable at times mini-games and having your party members forcibly swapped to a character you have never bought any gear for (although these mostly happen for story related reasons).
I would say it's about 70% "This is amazing" and 30% "Why would you design it this way, I am uninstalling the game".

If you are going to play it, I highly recommend checking out 7th Heaven. The community has made some amazing mods, which really help elevate the experience. The main one I am going to shout out is Echo-S 7. It adds voice acting for every single dialogue in the game AND the main cast is actually really good (most of the time). it's pretty absurd what the team has managed to do here. It does add some lines on its own, so if you want to make your playthrough completely pure you might want to skip it, but I honestly think it makes the game much more enjoyable.

The remakes are better in literally every single way but it's still neat to see the original story even if their are translation errors galore. It's also fun to see the changes in the story considering the remakes are more of a alternate timeline/re-imagining/what-if?