This rewrite makes the story flow better and makes the scenario more believable. I don't know about other people but for me I like this version better.
The rewrite is good but upscaling and downscaling the two parts to a consistent resolution is a big downgrade. P1 blurriness and artifacts are very noticeable.
Sorry about the blurriness + artifacts. I'm as amateur as it comes to this stuffso I don't really know what mistakes to avoid. I'm also working off of a couple year-old laptop with no special features, so I also might not realize how much of an impact some things have because my display isn't anything special.