It's interesting to read the other reviews and find people who found the story as boring as I did next to others who liked this game better than the first one. One of the latter reviewers seems like they didn't play much else than the main quest and can ignore side quests and optional dialogues. I'm not that kind of person. I usually like to do and read everything a game offers (apart from very difficult tedious quests and trophies...), but spending time in the hub and speaking to the other characters felt like a chore and took up to an hour of a gaming session...
The world is huge, but the things to do there are always the same. I didn't understand my friend's complaint that a game series like this is the same game over and over again, just more of the same, but I soon started to feel it.

Also, in my opinion, there are too many weapons. Having a variety is good, but here you had to say goodbye to the thought of getting all the weapons and improving all of them. Maybe that's fine, but I was overwhelmed.

All in all, I still spent too much time in this game to say I didn't enjoy it, but for me, it was too big, and therefore, the story(telling) was not compelling enough.

It took me 15 years to finish. Somehow I always got distracted by other games. I don't know how many times I had started over. But here I am today, celebrating 60 played games with this entry. I can't believe how close to the ending I had been when I stopped playing the last time. All it took was a couple of hours and I was through.

Final Fantasy (8) was my first dive into the video game world outside of Nintendo's Mario realm and I was a big fan of 8,9,10. This installment, however, never really caught my fancy. I don't care as much for the characters as I did with the other parts and ironically (because everyone says 8's story is a mess) I find the story a bit confusing.

I feel good that I've finally finished this game, but it doesn't get room in this special place of my heart that others have.

--- Minor spoiler but might be important to know ---

I’ve played the first (I’d say) half of Heavy Rain and finished the second trial (Butterfly). Now, I didn’t know much about the game when I started. Yes, I knew it was a thriller, but no, I definitely didn’t expect it to be a SAW horror kind of thriller. I think I’m going to stop before I find myself having to saw someone’s foot off. Because I wouldn’t. And then I’d probably get the worst ending.

Also, I feel the game needs trigger warnings. I usually don't like them too much because they can give away a lot, but so far there was at least one scene where I felt very uncomfortable and I'm sure there are more to come if I continued...so if you are a person who needs trigger warnings, I found this useful blog: https://vgtriggers.tumblr.com/post/53603448114/trigger-warnings-for-heavy-rain

Apart from the uncomfortable violence (and the sometimes clunky controls when walking) I somewhat enjoyed the game and abandoning it was a difficult choice.