Just to be clear, I watched my friend beat this game a while ago. We sat down one day, and he just pumped it out, so I knew what I was getting into when I started playing Heavy Rain for myself.
And to be completely honest, it wasn’t as good as I remembered. I remembered being blown away by the graphics and the ingenuity of the gameplay. But it just wasn’t that impressive to me anymore.
Sure, it was groundbreaking when it first came out, but now, in comparison to games like Fallout 4 and Until Dawn, Heavy Rain serves as a relic of the innovations it brought.
Heavy Rain isn’t a conventional video game. It’s more of an interactive movie. You watch the cutscenes slowly unfold the storyline while you, the player, have to react to sudden events. So you can never be too comfortable while playing.
I got to a point where I was SUPER wrapped up in the story, and I suddenly had to escape. My mind was in movie-mode. I wanted to WATCH these events happen, but I was running and dodging and making split-second decisions. It was a seamless transition from watching to playing, but this was the first video game to incorporate this style.
And I loved it. The graphics haven’t held up that well, and I was lost a lot of the time, but Heavy Rain had a great story that I wanted to finish.
To be completely honest, it was pretty cool to play through the story already knowing how it would end. I had a unique perspective, and I could see how characters interacted with the antagonist.
You play the entire game not knowing who the bad guy is. But I knew. And I loved knowing.
In all, Heavy Rain may not have aged well, but the story is still worth experiencing. I loved the different storylines, and I also loved how they came together at the end.
Definitely worth playing, but playing it for a second time was even better.
#113
Dalaran Brilliance 
World of Podcasts 
Illidari, Con Before the Storm