Chadley's fine. I really liked his final world intel scene about building an archive. Agreed that he speaks a little too much and too many of the same lines.
Moogles and Palmer are fine. Tseng is the same age when Aerith is a child, so he probably is 40+ and just has a really good skincare routine. I think Tseng is too unflappable. I never feel like he breaks out of his very set characterization.
I really enjoy battles; though, the toughest challenges are the worst optional content in the game. It's not even postgame content, because the Mindflayer challenge and some of the two-people challenges are rough. But yeah, I like the skeleton of the combat system a ton. I always loved action RPGs and pressure is a really neat way to make fights interesting.
I learned recently that Test 0 is actually a reference to a glitch in the original game, which is really neat.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/b/b409b0c7.jpg
I can't live forever
With my head and my heart in the clouds