Well, I've completed RDR2. Two days ago...and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since....
Wall of text ahoy (this took over 3 hours to type lol)
I'll discuss my general thoughts spoiler free, and then spoiler box my chapter specific thoughts after.
Brilliant game. Absolutely worth the wait and more than lives up to the legacy created by the first RDR. I'd say it's the best single player game I've played since The Witcher 3, and I think it will be a long time before anything else tops RDR2 in my mind. It's a masterpiece of storytelling and character building, but that is not to say it's a perfect game. It's definitely a flawed masterpiece, but one that I absolutely loved the vast majority of, and will definitely continue playing and revisiting in the future...
Characters: It's official. Arthur Morgan is my favorite video game character ever. In an era when most game protagonists are one dimensional superhumans who exist merely to spout one liners and mow down enemies, Arthur stands out for his extreme depth and complexity. A hard man who is not afraid to dirty his hands, but who also has a great capacity for thoughtful introspection and genuine tenderness. The decision to include Arthur's journal is a brilliant one, and I highly recommend to everyone that you frequently stop to read it, as it provides a fascinating insight into the workings of Arthur's mind. He's angry and jaded one moment, and incredibly naive about the real world in the next, and it's all 100% believable.
Environment: What Rockstar have achieved here is nothing short of a technical and artistic marvel. The map is absolutely huge, detailed and brimming with content to explore and discover. In RDR, most of New Austin and Mexico are deserts, but RDR2 offers up an incredible variety of environments, from soupy swamps where you can almost feel the insects buzzing around your head to snowy mountain peaks with bone chilling winds, and everything in between. The fact that you can ride your horse from one extreme to the other without any load screens and without any of the transitions feeling unnatural is incredible. The draw distance is simply amazing and texture pop-in is non existent. You can stand at the peak of a mountain and look out over miles of gorgeously detailed terrain, and many of the views are truly awe-inspiring. This is augmented considerably by the superb lighting and sound design. I spent many hours just riding around, enjoying the incredible sensory feasts RDR2 serves up regularly.
Controls/gameplay: Here's where some of the flaws start to creep in. Moving Arthur around can be frustrating to get used to, I quickly learned that it is much easier to walk everywhere than to try and run (this was ok by me though, as I was happy to take the game at a slower pace). Trying to focus on specific items you want to interact with can be tediously fiddly at times. Melee fighting is improved from RDR but still fairly shallow in its complexity. The auto-aiming and gunplay is serviceable but unspectacular, remaining largely unchanged from RDR 8 years ago, but the excellent deadeye system makes most gunfights fairly easy affairs anyways. It feels as though the game was not made to be particularly challenging to play (indeed, there is no difficulty setting to be found), but that the action was simply there to serve the story they wanted to tell. The Story is the meat of the game here, not the action. Again, I was ok with this as the story was so damn good. All that being said, the horse controls and animations are fantastic.
Immersion: I was initially scared by the early reviews that mentioned all the micromanagement Arthur and his faithful steed require. You have to eat, sleep, bathe, and shave. You have to clean, feed and otherwise bond with your horse to get the most out of him. You have to maintain your relationships with the members of your camp by talking to them regularly, and paying for regular upgrades and maintenance of various supply levels. It all seemed like it was going to be overwhelming and take away from the time spent robbing trains and shooting lawmen...but as I said before, this game is more about the story and the characters than the raw action. Performing all these duties was fairly straight forward and never obtrusive, and they made me feel much more immersed in the game and it's world than had they not been there. RDR2 is not a cowboy outlaw action game,
it's a western life simulator. The more you put into it, the more you'll get out of it. I spent weeks in game camping by little lakes, fishing and exploring by day, and sitting by the campfire at night, sipping bourbon and talking to my horse....advancing nothing but just living as Arthur and loving it. The borderline insane attention to tiny details only increase the feeling of total immersion.
Hunting/Fishing: I admit it, I struggled with the hunting in this game for a long time. I understood the mechanics but I never seemed to have the right gun at hand when an opportunity presented itself, or I was too hasty on the trigger and missed a clean kill. The fishing game is much more straight forward, although the need to keep the left trigger pulled down while you reel in fish was terrible. It was not so bad for the smaller fish, but dealing with the legendary fish quickly became an exercise in agony and cramping as the battles could last several minutes. But the hunting eventually clicked for me and I managed to get a perfect pelt from just about every animal I needed for the trapper (a perfect beaver pelt still eludes me), and some of his unique clothing pieces are decidedly badass (Wolfskin trenchcoat and fuzzy bear chaps FTW). The legendary animals were fun to hunt as well, but I have to say that several of the trinkets you can make with their parts are pretty useless. That's one uncharacteristically bad bit of design in the hunting system: there are legendary animals you cannot hunt until you are in the epilogue section of the game, and the rewards you get for them are of no value by the time you can get them.
Stranger missions: The stranger missions in RDR were fairly formulaic. John would get asked for help by someone, and he would try his best, but in the end there was always some dark twist and even though the missions were successful, it could be argued that John never really gave any of the people what they wanted. Stranger missions in RDR2 are much more varied, with some of them being genuinely as interesting and detailed as the story missions, unfolding over multiple parts, and others that are just flat out silly to provide a comic relief from the intense main story. However, there are also several extremely boring and difficult fetch quests that really turned me off. Collecting 144 unique cigarette cards was a frankly ridiculous chore (I eventually gave up on finding them in the world and just spent almost $1000 on premium cigarettes in a store and throwing them away so I could get cards), and there are at least 3 other quests that task you with finding 10, 20 or 30 specific items in the world with little or no indication of where to look...and many of them were found in nearly impossible to reach places. These were transparently tedious "busy work" missions that even the most meticulous explorer would struggle to finish without the use of a guide. And the ultimate rewards for them were nothing special.
Music: Incredible. You know the part in RDR where you get to Mexico the first time and that awesome song plays? RDR2 has about 20 moments like that. Add in the excellent ambient music as you're just riding around, and the fun renditions of traditional songs around the campfires, and this was a top notch effort.
Oh and geese: you asked about whether you should plow on to chapter 3? Here's my take on that: Do every stranger mission available to you before you move on from Chapter 2, but once those are complete, move on to Chapter 3. Many of the story missions in Chapter 2 introduce more mechanics that are essential to have available. By the time you get a couple of missions into Chapter 3, you'll have everything you need....IMO mid Chapter 3 is the real "sweet spot" for world exploration...by then you'll have access to a solid range of weapons, upgraded deadeye, a decent little stockpile of cash and access to what I think is the best camp location in the game. Then explore every nook and cranny of the map before you complete Chapter 3.
Story spoilers below
Chapter 1
A wonderful introduction that went almost too long. It was essential to introduce a very large cast of main characters as well as familiarize the player to most of the core gameplay mechanics. I loved the feeling of desperation, with the gang on the run and at an emotional ebb, having just lost several members in a botched job in Blackwater, and struggling just to survive. The decision to set the opening chapter in a remote snowy mountain was brilliant, providing an immediately different look and feel from the hot dusty areas of RDR. And how about those snow physics? Amazing. It was also very cool that they immediately addressed the elephant in the room and got John Marston involved in the story with bang, finally giving us an explanation for those distinctive facial scars. The feeling of relief as the wagon train descended from the hills into a more temperate area was palpable.
Chapter 2
Valentine is a hell of a lot of fun, much more alive and vibrant than Armadillo from RDR. Much of Chapter 2 is still a tutorial, introducing additional camp mechanics, melee combat, fishing, legendary hunts, and the companion side missions like home invasions. This is also the chance to breathe a lot of life into each of the gang members who we met in Chapter 1. Rockstar had a huge task on their hands, to try and make more than 20 people each feel interesting and distinct, and they did a fantastic job. Other than a couple of the women who I felt were kind of interchangeable, every member of the gang gets a real moment to shine and make their mark on Arthur. I very quickly established a core of favorites and was consistently rewarded by talking to them as often as I could. The cataclysmic shootout at the end of this Chapter was amazing, and really made it feel like you had fucked up and the only solution was to pick up camp and get the hell away from Valentine.
Chapter 3
Moving out to Rhodes was a welcome change of pace, and as stated above, my favorite camp location in the game. The Romeo and Juliet storyline was pretty funny to me...Beau Gray filling his letters with lovesick mush, and Penelope Braithewaite seemingly much more interested in women's rights and the suffragette movement. Dutch seems to be having real fun fucking with both families and trying to figure out how to rob them both. The Bill Williamson mission where you take a few members of the gang back to Valentine to rob the bank there was probably my favorite "heist" mission in the game. Then the game takes a pretty dark turn when Sean gets killed and Jack gets kidnapped. This is the first time you really see Dutch get angry, and the result is Braithewaite Manor getting burned to the ground. Epic.
Chapter 4
This was where the story REALLY gets going. After spending the first three chapters meticulously building up the world, the gang and everyone's place within it, here is where it all starts to fall apart. Dutch gets in well over his head by mixing it up with Angelo Bronte, and even though he comes out top of that exchange in the end, a part of him is broken forever. Hosea and Arthur both openly start questioning Dutch and his motives, and tension in the group begins to snowball. The sequence where Arthur is captured by the O'Driscolls was pretty harrowing and effective, and I also really liked the high stakes poker mission on the riverboat (such a shame that there is no real high stakes game you can play in any of the towns). Of course the bank job was a setup from the start, and losing Hosea and Lenny both was a pretty savage one-two punch. The escape from Saint Denis was both breathless and sad...which leads to
Chapter 5
This was a weird chapter. Ripped out of your comfort zone, deprived of your weapons and items and thrust into the middle of a conflict which you had little or no personal stake in. This was a short chapter, and mostly on rails with one story mission leading right into the next, with almost no chance to explore much of Guarma. The story missions on Guarma were also all extremely action oriented, every one was essentially a huge gun fight. I guess this chapter did a little more to establish Dutch's deteriorating confidence and increasing paranoia, and it was kinda necessary for narrative reasons to have the gang back home be leaderless for a while (giving Sadie the chance to step up her game, and for the heat after the Saint Denis bank job to die down), but it almost seemed like most of this chapter could have been cut out without really affecting much. Also, the "clear out the Murfree cave so you can have a camp there" mission when you get back to America was brutal...the only story mission in the whole game I failed multiple times before completing. Goons lurching at you out of the darkness brandishing machetes was terrifying, and they surrounded you so effectively it was very hard to fight them all off. Add in Charles rushing in like a fucking madman, and the mission also failing if he died....man. That was the hardest mission by far in the game for me.
Chapter 6
Well shit fire. Based on the fact that Arthur Morgan is never mentioned in RDR, I had assumed from the get go that he was probably not going to survive....but the TB story was a stroke of genius. Instead of just going out in a violent blaze of glory, Arthur knew his death was imminent and had the opportunity to choose how he would be remembered and how his actions would affect those he left behind. I really feel like the game was pushing the player towards the honorable choices throughout Chapter 6, which was probably necessary for people who had been playing more dishonorably early on, but wanted to try and get the "good" ending (Redemption, it's in the damn title). From the moment Micah emerged out of the snow in Chapter 1, I guessed he would end up being the villain/cause of the gang breakup, the guy just screamed evil, I was so mad when Arthur died without being able to kill Micah. Dutch's descent into panicked self-preservation, greed and madness was expertly written here. Also, despite fully expecting and being prepared for Arthur to die in order to save John, the moment when Arthur's horse died in the chaos was absolutely heartbreaking. When Arthur kneels down and whispers "thank you" to his horse as it dies, I got genuinely choked up. I had bonded with that horse for reals (I was lucky enough to find a black Arabian fairly early in chapter 3 and used it exclusively for the entire game after that). As a sidenote, the Stranger missions in Chapter 6 were by far my favorite in the game. Trying (and failing) to save the widow from Chapter 2 who had become a prostitute in Annesburg, trying (and succeeding) at helping the widow in the extreme North of the map learn to survive, and becoming friends with Hamish, the one legged Civil War veteran were all fantastic moments that only added to sadness of Arthur's passing. He was finally establishing a life and relationships outside the gang, but far too late.
Epilogue and other thoughts
This was straight up fan service for people who played and loved RDR. Unfortunately I had it spoiled for me that you get to play as John in the epilogue, but in hindsight it was kind of obvious that it was coming. It was wonderful to see that Arthur's sacrifice paid off, and it was a lot of fun seeing Beecher's Hope come to life and John repairing his relationships with Abigail and Jack. I loved seeing Sadie complete her journey from victim to angry gang member to focused badass bounty hunter. Plus of course I was very happy that Micah finally got what was coming to him, and both Sadie and Charles (two of my favorites from the beginning) survive the encounter on the mountain. The final credits sequence (clocking in at nearly 45 minutes) is worth watching in its entirety as many little cutscenes are interspersed throughout. Now it's time to fully explore New Austin and Tall Trees to see what they have to offer, as well as finishing up a few side missions.
Playing RDR back in the day, I remember being shocked that John seemed like an unstoppable badass killer, but when he finally returns home, he seems like a henpecked loser with a harpy of a wife. Playing RDR2 and seeing the sacrifices made by Arthur and others to get John and his family safe, how difficult it was for John to establish his home, and how much he really loves Abigail gave RDR a lot more context. John was willing to go and hunt down his former gang members not just to protect his own family, but to honor those who helped him have that family in the first place.
On that note: one final complaint about RDR2. After fully enjoying the experience of 100%ing RDR, it's kind of sad to know that despite how much I loved RDR2, there is simply no way I will ever 100% it. That is largely down to the frankly awful Challenge system. You have to complete ALL 90 challenges to 100% the game, but many of the challenges are absurdly difficult or painfully repetitive. The last few gambling challenges are ridiculous, requiring no skill at playing the games, just the patience to endure the RNG long enough to get what you need, and many of the Bandit challenges are just doing the same coach robberies over and over. That's not to mention the hunting request mission you get from a poster that requires you to ship a crazy amount of perfect animal carcasses through the mail, or the amazingly tedious Algernon Stranger mission you pick up in Chapter 4 that requires you to sit in the swamps for days collecting nearly 200 specific feathers and rare flowers. Fuck that guy.
