I'll admit, it's probably not disingenuous to the original for it to be crammed with minigames, whether or not they changed it up with new ones. When the original was one game, leaving Midgar was very much a moment of freedom they wanted to capitalize on, so it was the perfect checkpoint to start giving the player optional activities.
That said, the "Towers" subject in particular (what I believe prompted the "Ubisoft style" comment) is something I feel like gamers need to cool down on. As much as people habitually throw shade on Ubisoft for starting them, they make sense, and can be done in an interesting way. If you have an open world environment, you want players to rely on the ugly minimap as little as possible; that often means both a focus on vertical movement that allows you chances to see the space in front of you, as well as tall buildings that encourage distant exploration. I really think towers get unfair criticism, even if a few games have done them in less fun ways (I could be biased - I think even in their initial appearances in Far Cry 3, they were actually fun to climb)