This review contains spoilers
Sad as hell when you've already played the second game. So much of the mythos of the American west that still felt mildly present in the prequel is nearly gone. Everyone that tries to hold onto it is left behind in the name of progress. Treasure hunters are near incoherent. A man lives alone in the woods, convinced that his dead wife still lives. Red Dead 2 places you within a close knit community. In Red Dead 1, everyone is a stranger, and everyone is out for themselves. For every new law that's put in place, everyone becomes increasingly isolated from each other. Rarely do you find someone who comes across as warm or inviting. A desire for connection still lingers in the back of everyone's minds, but it's snuffed out by the corrupting desire for power. It's all very disturbing.
At the center of all this, you have John Marston. Marston is much more cynical this time around. He's run out of empathy. He plays both sides of any given conflict without much regard for the ramifications. Anything that doesn't already have to do with his life is rendered useless. You could argue that he deserves the ending he gets, and I think I would be one of the first people to make that argument. But he's a victim of the hand he's been dealt. In his mind, he's tried his best to make something of himself in a world that's always been out to pull the rug from under him. In reality, he was both a perpetrator and a complicit bystander to many terrible things. But while he may have deserved punishment, his family didn't deserve to go on without a husband and father. For that reason, despite all the atrocities he's caused, his death is heartbreaking. He's an excellent example of a protagonist who manages to be completely unlikable in a way that actually enhances the narrative. There are critics of this game who would argue that it's actually somewhat racist and irredeemably lacking in morals. These arguments are valid, but to me the whole thing feels deliberately ironic and deconstructive enough to get away with it.
I think that as a game, Red Dead 2 is much better. The open world is more fleshed out, the characters (including the unlikable ones) are way more interesting and MUCH better written, and the themes and story are perfectly intertwined with each other in a way that the first game doesn't always succeed at. But this is still very good, and often for different reasons than RDR2. Definitely worth playing at least once.
At the center of all this, you have John Marston. Marston is much more cynical this time around. He's run out of empathy. He plays both sides of any given conflict without much regard for the ramifications. Anything that doesn't already have to do with his life is rendered useless. You could argue that he deserves the ending he gets, and I think I would be one of the first people to make that argument. But he's a victim of the hand he's been dealt. In his mind, he's tried his best to make something of himself in a world that's always been out to pull the rug from under him. In reality, he was both a perpetrator and a complicit bystander to many terrible things. But while he may have deserved punishment, his family didn't deserve to go on without a husband and father. For that reason, despite all the atrocities he's caused, his death is heartbreaking. He's an excellent example of a protagonist who manages to be completely unlikable in a way that actually enhances the narrative. There are critics of this game who would argue that it's actually somewhat racist and irredeemably lacking in morals. These arguments are valid, but to me the whole thing feels deliberately ironic and deconstructive enough to get away with it.
I think that as a game, Red Dead 2 is much better. The open world is more fleshed out, the characters (including the unlikable ones) are way more interesting and MUCH better written, and the themes and story are perfectly intertwined with each other in a way that the first game doesn't always succeed at. But this is still very good, and often for different reasons than RDR2. Definitely worth playing at least once.