Sadly for me I can confirm it. In the new game content you soon get into a free roam screen. And seems you have to do the tasks there in a right order, too. In my second attempt it jumped quite soon from the evening to the next day without the scene I had in my first try...That'd be a shame as it'd become an instant drop for me if so, and I enjoyed the original quite a bit, havent touched the remake yet though.
Well, for me it's time to move on, not a big fan of such gameplay. As someone already said this game needs now the sandbox tag.