Sadly, I think they were a little too faithful to the originals. Don’t get me wrong I love it and some of the improvements made are great. However I also totally agree about the customization and the town kind of feels dead. Unless you want some kind of reward out of a character it feels pointless to interact with any of them… like the lines are the exact same over multiple years lol.
I played the demo and I was so sad when it ended. Really sucked me in good!