This review contains spoilers
Red Dead Redemption 2
Since my thoughts are a bit all over the place the pros and cons are sort of mixed together but I’ll give it some headings so its more structured and easier to read, tl;dr I really like the game despite how much I hate the last quarter of the game
(+) Characters and Animation
When I talk about character writing and specifically banter writing I can point to RDR2, this is where it shines the most and every single interaction is solid. The attention to detail in this game is insane, I can’t tell how much was captured by mocap or how much was carefully animated by hand, and in either circumstance its hard to even imagine the effort, even towards the end there’s a scene where John is unboxing the present Abigail gave him and he almost tips it, the game loves doing these small things so much so that you can often times forget that you’re even playing a game. I love Dutch as the villain, I love Arthur he’s just one of the best protagonists ever, every character has their traits that uniquely sets them apart and all of them are given plenty of room to develop.
(+) The Plot (Chapter 1 &2)
I feel like the plot as a whole is where Rockstar finds some big hits and some big misses. I think Chapter 1 is a great way to set the stage for Dutch and company, it feels important in retrospect since it also explains why they choose to stick together for so long especially when things go south given the circumstances they had to brave and endure together. Again, with most things in RDR2 it feels like it goes on for a while since you’re subjected to long cutscenes and tutorial missions. Chapter 2 is where the game hands you the reigns and since this is where the game is still in its handholding stage, you’re pretty much doing minimal stuff like catching bears or buying guns etc.
(+) (Chapter 3 & 4)
Chapter 3 sets up a very interesting conflict where two families have a history of friction and as much as I was expecting it to be executed in a more meaningful way, I still enjoyed all that crop burning vigilante stuff that you’re set up to do, this chapter is also where you experience your first death and ends in a spectacular way where you burn the mansion. Chapter 4 is the cream of the crop, Saint Denis starts off kind of stupid with the usual chores where you stop a bunch of grave robbers in exchange for the boy, but then towards the end everything its just this beautiful chaos, this is the strongest point in the whole game quite literally everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Perfect.
(-) (Chapter 5& 6)
Chapter 5 is the worst in the main chapter line-up, I hated Guarma, I hated the negro rebellion, and even less did it make sense why they return to Saint Denis despite how charismatic and convincing Dutch is, I know they wanted to really set up how he’s completely losing it since he also kills the woman there in cold blood and comes up with a “prey or be preyed” explanation for it, but instead of sowing the seeds of distrust and cracks in Dutch’s authority it just overall felt so out of place. Anyways this chapter SUCKS. The only contribution this chapter makes is by pushing Sadie into the spotlight as a huge person of interest in the climax.
Chapter 6 is the one that really confused me, all of a sudden you’re part of this NOTHING plot with the Indians and the game has this weird explanation that they want to create a lot of sound so that the army is focused on a separate matter altogether, but then you’re also participating in the fight…. Oh nvm it was all part of Dutch’s plan now he gets to steal the bonds from the oil plant…. Or something? Again towards the end it felt like game was fucking around, none of the characters seem to get it either. I really liked the idea of Dutch unravelling and in the game’s own words its not that he’s changing, its moreso that he’s becoming what he really is, it seems to encompass the entirety of Dutch’s arc, but truly what I felt towards the end was the main plot was more interested in what would happened after Arthur’s death than whatever precedes it, which almost made his death feel way less intense and meaningful than what the game delivered on. I don’t want John to deliver Micah’s judgement at the end of a trenchantly long epilogue, I want it to be Arthur.
(-) Epilogue
Rockstar flops in this regard, it wanted to make the ending more deep and cinematic in nature by having John be the one to deliver the final blow to Micah but it just makes everything feel messy and honestly? The epilogue ruined the game for me, its hard to separate it from the main chapters because the way the chapter 6 ends is just incomplete. To settle the score you have to build a home for your nagging wife and be subjected to “you can’t outrun your sins” – the epilogue. I can respect so much in this game but I just could not for the life of me wrap my head around this epilogue, why does it exist? Who is it for? I would rather have seen a bunch of montages and a final showdown, unless RDR2 is the last in this franchise I’d understand them subjecting everyone to this misery, I saw more interesting things in the ending credits than I participated in in the epilogue. It makes me NOT recommend this game.
(-) Final thoughts on the Last Quarter
Chapter 5, 6 and the Epilogue feel misguided when it comes to the main plot. Rockstar doesn’t want to have one point of conflict it feels like it HAS to compound two varieties of it in order to be interesting, which is not the case. By the end of the game your two major rivals, Leviticus Cornwall and Colm O’ Driscoll die in uninteresting ways and are replaced by the Army and the Milton Agency which you really don’t even care about to begin with, and for the Epilogue your villain is Micah but instead of having to journey to him the game wants you to do chores and many hours later you have a full circle moment of killing him at a place similar to where the game started. The story doesn’t seem poetic when Dutch has nothing to say, instead of feeling like he’s a broken man, it feels like the game just doesn’t have much of anything to do with him, and I felt like the epilogue under-delivers on Dutch’s fate which is probably the only thing I was interested in after Arthur’s death.
(-) Gunplay
This is the primary form of combat you engage in and I don’t know WHO told Rockstar that there needs to be this many shooting encounters, its insane. Oh a stealth mission? Must end in a gunplay section, there’s no such thing as a covert operation or killing discretely in the universe of RDR2, everyone is an esper who instantly knows at the end of a chapter as some wizard wiggles his finger instantly alerting everyone and you have to fight off gangs and gangs and gangs and gangs it got annoying, and when I say there’s a lot of gunplay, its almost like there’s nothing BUT gunplay.
There’s some missions I enjoyed like the one where you’re scamming some losers on a ship by winning at a poker game but no that also ends in a gunplay section. They only have variety towards the very end in Chapter 6 where you are being physically chased by men wielding machetes and sniping sections but its just not much of anything in my opinion.
(+) Side quests
Admittedly I did as many were in my path, I made peace with the woman whose husband gave me TB, I helped Penelope Braithwaite escape, I helped my ex-love to get her brother back from the cult, I helped the army officer get vaccines for the kids at Rainfall’s camp, I collected debts for Strauss, I helped two brothers help impress a girl by shooting bottles off their heads, I met up with some legendary sharp shooters and took pictures of them to remember their legacy, I helped a man take photos and not getting devoured by wolves, and I know there is so…. So much more to the world of RDR2, I barely touched the surface and hopefully I can go back and play some more. I remember having really high honor already before I started collecting it at the end since I was always donating to the blind or sucking out poison from someone’s thigh or escorting someone to the village, which I still think is one of the stronger points of RDR2 because it really keeps you immersed in the world.
(-/+) Soundtrack
I liked the audio mixing and like some of the scenes are really well staged with the music and get you really hype I might revisit a few tracks but not any tracks that I am absolutely dying to hunt down
(+) Environment Design
Its just really good, every area is instantly recognizable and its just a beautiful game that is probably going to age very gracefully
(-) Linearity and Physics
This is a complain that I had from very early on in the game, it hates when you don’t execute things in a very linear way, I just could not understand it, GTA games have always been very flexible in terms of how you approach missions and circumstances and this game just does NOT like you doing that, every scenario felt so hand-hold-ey because the game just wouldn’t quit telling me to execute everything in a specific order, its just fucking annoying.
This also plays into the second part of the sub-heading, physics. The physics is just really volatile in this game, you can get fucked or smushed around places or have your horse knocked out for the dumbest reasons, where I would find this endearing in other games just getting up and moving in this game is so weird. Like just getting on your horse can just be such an awkward maneuver I don’t know why, because the game is also linear you’re often supposed to go over a long distance and listen to a very long conversation but if you “accidentally” crash you are subjected to hearing that long conversation all over again. It was SO FUCKING ANNOYING, IT HAPPENED SO MUCH.
Conclusion
I love this game for many reasons but the sunk cost fallacy you face when you’re done with Chapter 6 and have to sit through the epilogue makes me think twice before recommending. Rockstar had this game in the bag up till the halfway point but then just made so many questionable decision thereafter, its still one of the best stories ever told and one of the most interesting open-world that a game can offer, when Rockstar delivers in this game it delivers HARD.
Good job Rockstar, despite the flops.
Since my thoughts are a bit all over the place the pros and cons are sort of mixed together but I’ll give it some headings so its more structured and easier to read, tl;dr I really like the game despite how much I hate the last quarter of the game
(+) Characters and Animation
When I talk about character writing and specifically banter writing I can point to RDR2, this is where it shines the most and every single interaction is solid. The attention to detail in this game is insane, I can’t tell how much was captured by mocap or how much was carefully animated by hand, and in either circumstance its hard to even imagine the effort, even towards the end there’s a scene where John is unboxing the present Abigail gave him and he almost tips it, the game loves doing these small things so much so that you can often times forget that you’re even playing a game. I love Dutch as the villain, I love Arthur he’s just one of the best protagonists ever, every character has their traits that uniquely sets them apart and all of them are given plenty of room to develop.
(+) The Plot (Chapter 1 &2)
I feel like the plot as a whole is where Rockstar finds some big hits and some big misses. I think Chapter 1 is a great way to set the stage for Dutch and company, it feels important in retrospect since it also explains why they choose to stick together for so long especially when things go south given the circumstances they had to brave and endure together. Again, with most things in RDR2 it feels like it goes on for a while since you’re subjected to long cutscenes and tutorial missions. Chapter 2 is where the game hands you the reigns and since this is where the game is still in its handholding stage, you’re pretty much doing minimal stuff like catching bears or buying guns etc.
(+) (Chapter 3 & 4)
Chapter 3 sets up a very interesting conflict where two families have a history of friction and as much as I was expecting it to be executed in a more meaningful way, I still enjoyed all that crop burning vigilante stuff that you’re set up to do, this chapter is also where you experience your first death and ends in a spectacular way where you burn the mansion. Chapter 4 is the cream of the crop, Saint Denis starts off kind of stupid with the usual chores where you stop a bunch of grave robbers in exchange for the boy, but then towards the end everything its just this beautiful chaos, this is the strongest point in the whole game quite literally everything that can go wrong, goes wrong. Perfect.
(-) (Chapter 5& 6)
Chapter 5 is the worst in the main chapter line-up, I hated Guarma, I hated the negro rebellion, and even less did it make sense why they return to Saint Denis despite how charismatic and convincing Dutch is, I know they wanted to really set up how he’s completely losing it since he also kills the woman there in cold blood and comes up with a “prey or be preyed” explanation for it, but instead of sowing the seeds of distrust and cracks in Dutch’s authority it just overall felt so out of place. Anyways this chapter SUCKS. The only contribution this chapter makes is by pushing Sadie into the spotlight as a huge person of interest in the climax.
Chapter 6 is the one that really confused me, all of a sudden you’re part of this NOTHING plot with the Indians and the game has this weird explanation that they want to create a lot of sound so that the army is focused on a separate matter altogether, but then you’re also participating in the fight…. Oh nvm it was all part of Dutch’s plan now he gets to steal the bonds from the oil plant…. Or something? Again towards the end it felt like game was fucking around, none of the characters seem to get it either. I really liked the idea of Dutch unravelling and in the game’s own words its not that he’s changing, its moreso that he’s becoming what he really is, it seems to encompass the entirety of Dutch’s arc, but truly what I felt towards the end was the main plot was more interested in what would happened after Arthur’s death than whatever precedes it, which almost made his death feel way less intense and meaningful than what the game delivered on. I don’t want John to deliver Micah’s judgement at the end of a trenchantly long epilogue, I want it to be Arthur.
(-) Epilogue
Rockstar flops in this regard, it wanted to make the ending more deep and cinematic in nature by having John be the one to deliver the final blow to Micah but it just makes everything feel messy and honestly? The epilogue ruined the game for me, its hard to separate it from the main chapters because the way the chapter 6 ends is just incomplete. To settle the score you have to build a home for your nagging wife and be subjected to “you can’t outrun your sins” – the epilogue. I can respect so much in this game but I just could not for the life of me wrap my head around this epilogue, why does it exist? Who is it for? I would rather have seen a bunch of montages and a final showdown, unless RDR2 is the last in this franchise I’d understand them subjecting everyone to this misery, I saw more interesting things in the ending credits than I participated in in the epilogue. It makes me NOT recommend this game.
(-) Final thoughts on the Last Quarter
Chapter 5, 6 and the Epilogue feel misguided when it comes to the main plot. Rockstar doesn’t want to have one point of conflict it feels like it HAS to compound two varieties of it in order to be interesting, which is not the case. By the end of the game your two major rivals, Leviticus Cornwall and Colm O’ Driscoll die in uninteresting ways and are replaced by the Army and the Milton Agency which you really don’t even care about to begin with, and for the Epilogue your villain is Micah but instead of having to journey to him the game wants you to do chores and many hours later you have a full circle moment of killing him at a place similar to where the game started. The story doesn’t seem poetic when Dutch has nothing to say, instead of feeling like he’s a broken man, it feels like the game just doesn’t have much of anything to do with him, and I felt like the epilogue under-delivers on Dutch’s fate which is probably the only thing I was interested in after Arthur’s death.
(-) Gunplay
This is the primary form of combat you engage in and I don’t know WHO told Rockstar that there needs to be this many shooting encounters, its insane. Oh a stealth mission? Must end in a gunplay section, there’s no such thing as a covert operation or killing discretely in the universe of RDR2, everyone is an esper who instantly knows at the end of a chapter as some wizard wiggles his finger instantly alerting everyone and you have to fight off gangs and gangs and gangs and gangs it got annoying, and when I say there’s a lot of gunplay, its almost like there’s nothing BUT gunplay.
There’s some missions I enjoyed like the one where you’re scamming some losers on a ship by winning at a poker game but no that also ends in a gunplay section. They only have variety towards the very end in Chapter 6 where you are being physically chased by men wielding machetes and sniping sections but its just not much of anything in my opinion.
(+) Side quests
Admittedly I did as many were in my path, I made peace with the woman whose husband gave me TB, I helped Penelope Braithwaite escape, I helped my ex-love to get her brother back from the cult, I helped the army officer get vaccines for the kids at Rainfall’s camp, I collected debts for Strauss, I helped two brothers help impress a girl by shooting bottles off their heads, I met up with some legendary sharp shooters and took pictures of them to remember their legacy, I helped a man take photos and not getting devoured by wolves, and I know there is so…. So much more to the world of RDR2, I barely touched the surface and hopefully I can go back and play some more. I remember having really high honor already before I started collecting it at the end since I was always donating to the blind or sucking out poison from someone’s thigh or escorting someone to the village, which I still think is one of the stronger points of RDR2 because it really keeps you immersed in the world.
(-/+) Soundtrack
I liked the audio mixing and like some of the scenes are really well staged with the music and get you really hype I might revisit a few tracks but not any tracks that I am absolutely dying to hunt down
(+) Environment Design
Its just really good, every area is instantly recognizable and its just a beautiful game that is probably going to age very gracefully
(-) Linearity and Physics
This is a complain that I had from very early on in the game, it hates when you don’t execute things in a very linear way, I just could not understand it, GTA games have always been very flexible in terms of how you approach missions and circumstances and this game just does NOT like you doing that, every scenario felt so hand-hold-ey because the game just wouldn’t quit telling me to execute everything in a specific order, its just fucking annoying.
This also plays into the second part of the sub-heading, physics. The physics is just really volatile in this game, you can get fucked or smushed around places or have your horse knocked out for the dumbest reasons, where I would find this endearing in other games just getting up and moving in this game is so weird. Like just getting on your horse can just be such an awkward maneuver I don’t know why, because the game is also linear you’re often supposed to go over a long distance and listen to a very long conversation but if you “accidentally” crash you are subjected to hearing that long conversation all over again. It was SO FUCKING ANNOYING, IT HAPPENED SO MUCH.
Conclusion
I love this game for many reasons but the sunk cost fallacy you face when you’re done with Chapter 6 and have to sit through the epilogue makes me think twice before recommending. Rockstar had this game in the bag up till the halfway point but then just made so many questionable decision thereafter, its still one of the best stories ever told and one of the most interesting open-world that a game can offer, when Rockstar delivers in this game it delivers HARD.
Good job Rockstar, despite the flops.
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Abigail Shepherd
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6 months ago