Absolute masterpiece of a game.

Played it for like 8-10 hours straight in 2-4 days.

Story, gameplay, atmosphere, music... it's all perfect.

Mind blowing. I think giving this game anything less than 4-5 stars is complete blasphemy, it's an insanely impressive achievement. This is the kind of peak fiction that comes along every decade and completely changes everything for you.

It's the kind of game only a triple-A, billion-dollar company like Rockstar with all their talent can pull off. The story is second to none with some of the most impressive character work and pacing I've experienced in pretty much anything, the gameplay is weighty and satisfying although the mission design can feel a little archaic if you prefer more modern open-world story games. It very much has that Rockstar formula but by no means is that a bad thing.

This is just my initial impression after completing the game and I think repeat playthroughs or a more extensive dive into all of the content can easily make this 5 stars.

Коротко говоря, эта игра имеет некоторые недостатки как в наративе, так и в геймплее, и можно понять хейт к этим вещам (особенно к шестичасовому эпилогу), т.к. они вызывают иногда фрустрацию, недопонимание, гнев, скуку. Но, как по мне, всё это было сделано для ""ощущения"" игры, погружения в роль именно этой эпохи именно такого персонажа, как Артур - бандита, свернувшего с изначального пути "Робин Гуда" и пытающегося понять и найти себя. Именно для этого и была сделана игра. Именно это я увидел в моменты осознания и катарсиса всех важных сюжетных точек. Всё сделано так, как и должно быть.

К слову, в игре великолепный визуал, не взирая на довольно частые графические баги не пойми из-за чего, также заслуженные похвалы открытого мира, награды за музыку и актёрскую игру Артура и моя личная игра года 2018.

Lo volví a jugar porque estuve pensando un poco acerca de mi yo y sentí que estaba muy Arthur Morgan. Cuando lo jugué por primera vez no pude pasar de las exageradas pantallas de carga, los gráficos quebrados y una mala experiencia en mi Xbox original. El gameplay se me hacía monótono y muy repetitivo y me encontraba frustrado jugándolo. Ahora unos años después lo volví a probar, pero esta vez en mí series X y con mucha más paciencia.

Me meti en la historia de esta pandilla, de su lider, de sus miembros y su forma de intentar encontrar un proposito en este mundo que ya no los quiere. Y aunque mis problemas con el gameplay siguen siendo bastante fuertes, puedo apreciar mucho más en todos los otros aspectos, Morgan me parece un personaje muy sólido que eventualmente me gano en donde me importaron los personajes que a él le importaban, verlo sufrir me hizo empatizar con su búsqueda en una muerte que valiera la pena. Aunque no voy a coincidir con muchos acá que dicen que es uno de los mejores juegos jamás hechos, definitivamente es un muy buen juego y vale la pena jugarlo aunque sea una vez.

Let’s just be honest here.
It’s Red Dead Redemption 2.
It’s Rockstar. Just get it.
I strongly doubt you’ll be disappointed.

But~ the game, while amazing, is not perfect and maybe you want to know a bit more of what you’d be getting, so, bear with me, I’ll go into more details.

You play as Arthur Morgan, and you’ll be surrounded by his gang which is more of a family than anything else.
The game is set in the year 1899, right as America was getting more civilized and there was no space for cowboys and gunslingers in the new world anymore.
You start this journey as the group is running away from the law after what was probably their biggest score. Though it went wrong and, being forced to leave all the money and gold behind, for now, they are on the run trying to survive.
I won’t go any more into details, I can, though, say, this game’s story is absolutely one of the best I’ve ever played. It’s amazingly written and I could not consider it anything less than amazing. As per usual, from Rockstar.

Talking of Rockstar, the game is extremely detailed. The currency is perfectly in line with the year, which makes winning 76 cents at poker far from sad, but incredible, since today that would be 23$!
The world feels ALIVE, from the cities to the forests with animals that have behaviorism to keep in mind when hunting or fishing, it feels like it has its own well-crafted ecosystem.
This world is nothing short of great and full of love, and it shows in every step you take going from A to B around America's wilderness on your horse as you bond with it by taking care of it.
It’s very simulative and there’s so much detail and so much attention into everything you could literally open the game just to hunt, play poker, or pet and brush your horse and it would still be a worthwhile time investment.
Even side quests are not-so-side after all, and a bit like in The Witcher 3, they are entire questlines and stories of people you meet, with multiple encounters during your journey.
The gunplay and gameplay are extremely fun, every weapon feels unique and it's slightly customizable. There is also the dead eye ability, that evolves as you go through the game, allowing you to slow time when aiming with your gun. A little bit like Micheal in GTA V, but with more variations.
The game also has some survival mechanics. You can increase your stats by using them, but prolonged use at once will drain your core health, stamina, or dead eye. You can recover the core by eating food or sleeping, making you micro-manage these stats, especially stamina because you don't wanna run out of that since it's gonna start draining your health after you run out of it. The same thing applies to the horse, having you take a lot of care of it, and caring will make your bond with it stronger, having it listen to your commands even when panicked.

Praises aside, I want to address what I said earlier: the game is not perfect.
See, being a Rockstar Game, it means you've got to cope already with the fact that inputs are extremely sluggish. It might be good on a controller, but on mouse and keyboard, it feels really unresponsive. Simulative, maybe, but slow.
The game is VERY unresponsive, making sometimes simple things like getting on a cart to use a Gatling gun one of the hardest things in the world, and when you try and get in position to interact with it, it just doesn't.
The Anti-Aliasing techniques they choose for this game are all nightmare. There is FXAA which does less than nothing, MSAA which is way too performance-heavy, and TAA which leaves a lot of ghosting and is very blurry. There is also an option to have TAA Sharpening, but that makes the ghosting even more obvious at times and creates a lot of weird artifacts. Simple TAA with a 15% Sharpening is the best option in my opinion, although still not ideal. Since my original review, DLSS has been added to the game, and with DLSSTweaks DLAA becomes an option, so use that because this game' surely needs it! Besides that, the game is very well optimized and it is quite scalable, but, one other little complaint is that even with the game weighing so much, the textures are only good looking at ultra, making it even high hard to look at, so I really hope that in the future they'll release a better-compressed, while retaining detail, texture pack.
I praised the story and side quests, but...that's mostly all there is to the game. Sure, the world is nothing short of amazing and extremely detailed, but compared to other similar big titles it feels more like a painting than anything else. Stunning to look at, but can't touch it.
And yeah, the game does have some collectibles and side objectives. One of them is hunting the legendary animals that allow you to craft unique clothing, but the clothing is just aesthetic, and hunting animals, even if legendary, is sadly more of a: go around the area, find clue, follow clue, kill. You'll usually just follow the fur, marks, and dung of an animal in the general area of it to find it.
Also, these legendary animals are less than 20, which is a lot, but it's also not since after that there's no reason to go hunt beside some specific pelts to increase Arthur's bag, which is almost useless since the normal bag by itself is just so big that you don't really need the upgrade. Killing the legendary animals gives you a way to craft permanent trinkets that give you a passive buff, which to me is such a wasted chance because if said buffs were instead on the clothing it would make sense to use the whole outfit or part of it cause hey, 10% less drain of my stats would be nice even if I don't like the look, instead of all being passive effects you get regardless.
The game has a great melee fighting system, and as I said earlier you can play Poker, Blackjack, Domino, etc. But that's it, all the things I just listed in the game besides some moments, are just there purely for your enjoyment with no incentive. Leaving the game almost empty after you finish it and you have so much money that honestly going and playing poker for 10$, besides the fun of it, makes no sense. I'm not saying the game should have done much more, but even just some tournaments in fighting and poker would have made these activities more than just an option and something else to do after you finish it or even as you play it, besides the side quests which as I said, don't feel like side content at all.
And don't get me wrong, I played other Rockstar titles, and I know, usually, in these games, after you finish it there's always very little left to do if not replay the game and get all gold medals in missions by meeting various requirements.
BUT, compared to GTAV which came out in 2013, this feels more like an open-world TW3 style and I was hoping for at least some things to do in the open world. It feels bad that after all these hours I put into the game, I realized that I can only go hunt some animals or go around looking for some cards and stuff.

Anyway, let me wrap this up:

This is a Rockstar game.
Great world-building, an amazing story, and an extremely beautiful map

BUT

Atrocious AA, very slow inputs, and a world that has very little to do in it besides the story.

The story is 100% a 10/10. I loved it, but this is still a videogame with a big open world, and, from RDR2 and its budget I guess I was expecting a bit more than just the story. I was hoping for a bit more interaction with this world, besides that 9% until 100 I had left once I finished the story.

The game is great, I strongly suggest it, but I see so much potential unused.

8.5.

PS: R.I.P. Online

fantastic writing and message, Arthur Morgan is one of the best characters in any media and that's not counting the rest of this game's cast, for an storyline perspective this whole game is extremely rewarding and compelling, what a ride. enjoyable combat and exploration, the game world feels alive/immersive and activities like hunting or fishing enhances that feeling perfectly, finely crafted on these details.

the missions are extremely restrictive and rigid on their design, almost all of them consists of following an NPC around, the classic Rockstar Games trope of mashing or holding A to accompany them and listen to endless dialogues until the player reaches their destination which usually culminates on an shooting gallery, repeat that for 60 hours and you got Red Dead 2's whole campaign gameplay. the movement is pretty clunky, taking cover is an pain in the ass and taking turns is just as bad, it's reliance on slow burn animations to every action that the player wants to do are all huge problems, definitely prefer the snappiness of the first game in comparison.

there are some undercooked mechanics too such as the health, energy and Dead Eye cores could have been more fleshed out, maybe some more needs such as hunger or thrist would have made more sense I imagine. the Van Der Linde camp mechanic is also equally useless, there is no consequences if you want to help or not, upgrades doesn't seem to do any difference aside from fast travel, I would say to unlock this and never bother with the mechanic at all.

the game does suffer an drop on writing quality once you reach Guarma, it's not an bad section but it's overall uninteresting compared to any previous and future story arcs, feel like they should have gone more crazy about it or just cut it entirely in favor of something else, the whole buildup to this chapter feels very rushed.

even with these problems I can't deny that this is an overall brilliant game, it deserves this rating, the story and character writing makes the experience worthwhile and that's not counting the immersive open-world and fun side activities, the combat is enjoyable enough for those seeking an solid third person shooter. look for varied activities if you want to enjoy this though, I can't imagine someone blasting through this game's whole storyline that easily reach up to 60 hours without getting tired.