I'm afraid.....I may never play a game of this caliber again.

Wow, wow, wow. This was a game that I have been told to play for a very long time. I played Red Dead Redemption 1 a loooong time ago on my 360, and I remember really enjoying it. However, I was always too busy with other games to sit down and play 2. I'm so incredibly glad I finally decided to sit down and play this masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly. This game hits all points I love in a game in such a great way: world, real feeling characters, compelling story, and fun gameplay. It really is all there, but I want to make a specific point on how great the characters are. Arthur Morgan may be the single greatest protagonist I have encountered in gaming. I've never encountered a character who felt so incredibly real and human. From his journal, the random grunts or things he quietly says to himself, and of course the impactful moments he has. This character truly is a treasure. I was afraid to play this game for so long because I remember John Marston being such a great character. I still love John, but Arthur Morgan IS that guy. I pity anyone who doesn't play as high honor Arthur, because it was such a treat to play and watch.

Another great character I didn't expect to enjoy watching so much was Dutch Van Der Linde himself. I have vague memory's of Dutch from RDR1, but from what I remember he is sort of just the big bad of the game, and while he has some individuality in that game, this game really does the justice of how he ends up the way he does. Countless times playing this game I was bouncing back and forth between "he's always been unhinged" and "times are changing him". It really is masterclass character writing. I have such a higher appreciation for the character now, and I hope one day I can replay RDR1 with this game now in my brain.

Please give this game a chance, it really is such an experience and something special. The game is a slooooow burn at first. It may take some time for it to hook you, but give it the chance to. Once it hooked me, it was all over. I promise you will start to look at games differently after you experience Red Dead Redemption 2.

I get it! It's Little Nightmares II because there are two of them now!!!!

I might get some flack for this, and I definitely am in the minority opinion here, but I just didn't really like this game compared to the first. There's plenty of good here though. The atmosphere in this game is really stellar, even more than the first game. The environments are great and I truly am unnerved in each and every one of them. However...in terms of gameplay I really don't like this game, the small segments of "combat" specifically. The controls for attacking the weird hands or doll children just felt plain bad and completely unnecessary. At one point I was just stuck trying to kill like 5 doll children in a row, and I kept dying. Instead of spawning me back where I pick up the weapon, it spawned me....in the middle? I had to run back and grab the weapon every time I failed, which was very tedious. It really feels like this combat was thrown in at the last minute. Without getting too detailed, there were other segments that felt very unpolished/buggy, such as the "Weeping Angels" segment. Many times my flashlight would directly be on one, and it would move to kill me anyway? Idk, maybe this is just a skill issue. Maybe one day I'll return to this game and I'm not completely abandoning it, but for now I have no desire at all to play it and it's shelved.