I think the instruments are weaker in this one as much as I adore piano pieces, it doesn't feel like an actual orchestra like the original. I don't mind Shoko Nakagawa's vocals here, but Sachiko Kobayashi clearly has gotten older since 1998, so her voice is scratchier than before despite her still hitting notes. Can't help her voice changing, although a change in octave would've had to make up for it. Although the singers are putting their best into it, the music doesn't seem to be trying to carry it.
But it is a calmer version, and maybe that's what they were going for. Whenever I listen to "Kaze to Issho ni", I imagine it being sung to Mewtwo while he goes out to explore the world, and when it crescendos, that's the world's inhabitants greeting him. Applying that same vision to this version, I think it's more-or-less to calm his heart, but it's not accompanying him around the world like the original.
While I'm not going to go out of my way to listen to this version more than the original, I do feel it's better than other 20th anniversary soundtracks I've heard, however. *coughDigimonTricough*