Pretty unfair playing the second game before this, I almost feel bad. And I’m not just trying to be snobby or crapping on older games, I just loved RDR2 so much that it was impossible for this to meet that standard.
This is a very fun cowboy game. And especially for 2010?!! Oh ma gawd.
I vividly remember my brother showing me and my dad that you could get drunk and get into duels, this was just one of the coolest games that I really wanted to play as a kid.
And yeah! The atmosphere is still great, and the storytelling and voice acting are very well done. I would assume especially for the time with how “real” some things feel and how fairly unconventionally the story is structured.
The main thing holding this game back for me aside for some minor gameplay issues (too easy, only being able to pass time by sleeping exc.) was my investment.
It took a long time for the “real” story to kick in. There is an entire chunk in the beginning spent on tutorial missions and low stakes goofy encounters that were occasionally fun but I was getting pretty tired after a while.
After you cross a certain border it got a lot more interesting both in terms of conflict and new characters and it didn’t really let up after that. But sadly I never got as emotionally invested as I’d like and some parts of the story felt quite anti climactic (the difficulty played into that as well).
I will say the ending is pretty great and it gave me a new perspective on the game, reflecting on the themes of destiny, power and cruelty on both sides of the law. I can already feel that the game it starting to grow on me seeing the story as a whole.
But yeah, sadly I felt pretty disconnected from the experience all-throughout, hence the long time it took me to finish it.
Objectively a great game for the time, I am just a goofy goober I suppose.
Anyways, should I replay 2? Yes. Yes I should.