This is the greatest game of all time. Okay… that's an exaggeration… it's the 2nd. Without a doubt the greatest story in any game of all time, the best characters, and one of the most in-depth open world experiences ever. I’m struggling to put into words how amazing this game is. Arthur's story, and the story of the Van Der Linde gang are some of the most incredible stories, not just in gaming history, but in storytelling history. Every character is beautifully crafted with multi-dimensional personality traits and the story that follows the gang, and Arthur is beautiful and moving. Arthur may be one of, if not the, best character in all of storytelling. On top of the story, the game has a beautiful and intoxicatingly immersive open world, every character you meet feels like a real person passing through the world, every animal you hunt, bounty you bring to the law, food you cook just adds to this real experience of being an outlaw in the west. I remember a moment of this game, where I was riding through the countryside and I saw a watchtower with a camp next to it. The camp has trapper supplies, canned food, and cold weather gear. I mean just that small area holds a story within it, and stuff like that is littered all over the map. There is shit that I didn't even know about until 60 hours in that alone I could've spent hours doing. I don't even know what to say to give this game the flowers it deserves, but just know once you finish this game you will look at gaming, storytelling and the world differently.

This game is very good, but I have a lot of regrets the way I played it. Me and my friend played it over the course of 2 days, we didn’t play a single stranger side mission and just hardlined the story. Even with this rushed experience, this game was amazing. It is really interesting to see how John has evolved since we last saw him, and the cast of characters, while not Red Dead II’s, is still very interesting. While John's character is great, the game is carried by Dutch and his performance, he was great in II and seeing his descent into madness is very very encapsulating. This game manages to capture a very specific moment in time and represent it incredibly. The dying west meeting the new age of technology, the uncomfortability with authority still lingering in the air. The idea of redemption not only in John but in everyone and the 3 dimensionality of morality represented sparks very thought provoking questions. This game is really fuckin good, but I think I would’ve enjoyed it more with more time played.

I have a very hard time reviewing this game because similar to its cousin Skyrim the open world is expansive and there is so much to do, in the same fashion as most bethesda games you can kinda just walk into a direction and you'll find something to do. What makes this game different from its counterparts is that the issues with the game overshadow the open world. I think the most glaring issue with Fallout 4 is the settlement system, settlements suck to play with and they aren’t self-sufficient at all, which makes it feel kind of impossible to leave them for too long, also the crafting mechanics, while fundamentally okay take weird resources to get, and you can't buy most of the resources so you have to go out in the world, but they don’t tell you places to find them and it just sucks it feels like there’s no way to upgrade your weapons in a fun way. This isn’t the biggest issue with 4 though, the biggest issue with this game is that the rewards for each mission just aren’t much so I never had any motivation to play a single level besides intrinsic, which only goes so far. By the end of my time with Fallout before I eventually never picked it up again, I would end up playing one mission, not feeling rewarded at all for doing so, then going to my settlement before realizing I couldn’t do anything there, then I’d just turn the game off for the day. This game is really disappointing, and it is one of the last bethesda games I’d recommend to anyone.

Okay, this is actually the greatest game of all time, completely seriously. I stopped playing this game at 115 hours, and had explored maybe half of the world. I’m so serious when I say I could put twice as many hours in this game as I did and still would have more to explore. The value of this game comes in the open world, and the creativity this game sparks. This game improved on everything I didn’t even think you could improve on from breath of the wild. The building mechanic, the fusion, they are all incredible abilities that lead to so many great moments. The only real issue I have with this game is the story, I think it’s kinda lazy and once you figure out the plot twist before everyone else does it gets a little silly. But that's not why you play this game, and if you’re playing for the right reasons you will get an amazing gaming experience. It’s fucking insane to me that when I found out this game was coming out I kept thinking to myself that there was no way they could improve from what BOTW built off. When I found out they were using the same region I was very cautiously optimistic. The sky islands were an interesting subversion but I thought there was no way they could fit a whole new game's worth of content up there, and I was right. Then I found out about the depths. There's literally a map sized nega-verse directly under Hyrule that I didn't even know about till I played the game. Each shrine is rewarding, and the gameplay and combat are great as expected. God this game is amazing.

This is what I'm talking about when I say I wanna play a Pokemon game, the first time they tried something new and to me they knocked it out of the park. Trials were just what Pokemon needed for it to feel refreshing, the starters are all good and unique, the final four is actually challenging. This did start the trend of having your rival choose the starter that is weak to yours, which really sucks to me. It's kind of indicative of the biggest issue with the game, its so easy. They really hold your hand the entire time which kind of lets it down, if it was more difficult this could be the best Pokemon game.