Let's share our first (spoiler free!) impressions!

[Sephiroth]

blows my mind how people are already done when there is so much to see and do in this game (they must have skipped 90% of the game)

Indeed I did! I love these games for their stories. So the fact that 90% of the game is something other than story content is a) why I finished it so quickly and b) why I don't like it very much.

Looking at people's opinions on reddit, I kind of noticed this trend that people who took the time to actually go and explore everything actually have a much greater appreciation of the story because the way the world builds it in subtle ways is really effective. And people who rushed through it are incredibly disappointed for the very same reason

To be fair, I did some exploration while going through the story. And even doing as much as possible would not help erasing my complaints because I complain about what is not in the game. Which I hope is mostly covered in DLC.

My struggle was getting them hooked in the first place. I can get the red bar to appear (ie they are alert) but it disappears after a few seconds.

the red bar is their interest, some fish like fast moving bait, others like it to not move at all, while others like slow moving bait, the faster the bar fills the more their interested... jig it around a bit too see which fills the bar faster and recast (Circle Button) to the same spot using what you learned from observing the red bar... also try changing the Lure, different fish like different bait, you can check each Lures description to find out which bait are for which fish...

I am 100% done and have already played through the game 2 1/2 times so no, not skipped. 100% as long as we do not have the DLC for story and all, that is.

i should have expected that from you though, you remind me of this guy i knew with eidetic memory that would play through games in under a weekend, he'd buy/rent them and be done by time i'd come back over the next day, it always amazed me...

Funnily enough I did finish Final Fantasy XV over the course of one weekend. Friday Night, Oct 25th 2016-Sunday Night, Oct 27th 2016. Not 100% though, of course.