this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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My critiques of the game
the story is at odds with the gameplay. Arthur belongs in a slow burn Coen Brother's anti-western with very little shooting and a few moment's of shocking violence. The gameplay is gta on horses
way way too unfocused. Like you said, many parts of the game drag. There's far too much side content and it's easy to lose track of what's even happening in the story. Way too many systems - quasi rpg elements, a huge and mostly irrelevant inventory, fishing.
what no theory does to a mf'er. Rockstar is clearly flirting with Dutch as an illegalist or egoist anarchist, but they can't or won't commit to actually talking theory and the game loses much of it's potential as social commentary because of that. They could have said a hell of a lot more if they actually explicitly discussed different theories of anarchism and how Dutch's predatory fake Anarchism contrasts with contemporary Anarchist and communist movements, and how his theory fails in the face of encroaching industrial capital
you can't fucking shoot micah. Dude's such a goddamn albatross and he's out of line with the rest of the gang. I don't think he was needed as a character for the plot and i think he detracts from the gang's charicterization and Dutch and Arthur's dynamic.
The story being at odds with the gameplay is such a common thing in a lot of these big budget popular games that I just sort of look past it now. Joel is a man who struggles with his morality while he's racking up a triple digit body count and throwing Molotov cocktails at people's groins. Am I doing the right thing? He wonders as he single-handedly wipes out a hospital full of people to make sure there's no cure for an apocalyptic disease
Well he didn’t care if it was the “right thing” because he wasn’t given any reasonable information to ponder about.
He was lied to, had a gun pointed to his head by his employer after keeping his end of the deal, and denied the chance of seeing his surrogate daughter before a vague, ominous medical procedure. Given that context, I would say he was a horrible person if he reacted any other way than killing everyone and rescuing Ellie.
Does Joel ponder about his morality at all? Maybe in the show but I can’t remember in the first game. He kind of stopped giving a shit about everything after his daughter died, and only regained his humanity in a handful of moments. Not to mention, it’s not completely unrealistic. How many soldiers have killed dozens of people and wondered if they did the right thing, then kept doing it anyway?
I apologize to once again to keep my bullshit going but to your point about Dutch’s characterization (which I think nails him to a tee) I think he was written a faux (some kind of) radical intentionally but not because of some lack of theory (but this could still also be true) but for both finishing up Arthur’s arc when he realizes he’s full of shit and setting his character up to make sense retroactively for RDR1 as a villain for Marston.
Agreed. I think Dutch is brilliant. He is absolutely an Egoist and has essentially recontextualized American self-mythology to justify doing the same shit that the bourgeoise do. Not in a "revolutions are bad cause they just become the tyrant" way, but in the sense that Dutch witnesses real suffering and horrors, takes note, on some level does care, but still cannot kill this BS idea of the American Dream. He is "I'm not like other girls" but as a gunslinger. We see it in how he never really interacts with the workers we see suffering, he never really interacts with the immigrant communities, he never really interacts with the Natives. He cares on some level for their plights, but he will use them as excuses, as cover for his own schemes.
he is like those people in the early days of the Russian Revolution who joined anarchist orgs just to be criminals and had to be purged by said orgs and led to a bunch of distrust
I agree with that. He's s totally superfluous character, who seems to only exist to let Dutch off the hook to a degree.
I actually made a post titled that here when i played it
I really love the game and story though. I'd disagree about it being unfocused or ill paced, but the nature of the medium allows the player to mess up the pacing to a degree - so its a hard point to argue, except i think that team did it better than anyone and you can see them learning over the years how to tell stories in that style of game.
It's a slow burn for sure, long game, but I felt like all the times RDR2 messes up the pacing is entirely unforced errors. So much of it was me not magically taking the golden line on my horse on the ever-present "ride and talk" phases that inexplicably require me to do shit despite nothing ever happening and having characters cut out in the middle of their sentence to go "We're here now" or "Hey, wrong way!" 'cause I veered off 1° too much
I think that's one of the biggest problems RDR2s story has. Just committ and pull MGS4 levels of cutscenes instead of this bullshit
Dear gods no! Not that! I'd put up with it from Kojima, but only because MGS4 was great(despite being the lesser of those 4 games in my opinion).
I actually enjoy riding and talking, and i prefer it a million times over to a cutscene. That's part of why the camp is so good! It allows story to be there without taking you out of being in the game. A lot like the codec from MGS - MGS3 (they really fumbled the codec and hiw you interact with it in 4 in favor of cutscenes)
But I also enjoyed the fishing, so we may just have different taste. I liked going out on a long fishing trip, going camping, doing some hunting. Afterwards, go into town and get a shave and trim, a nice meal, maybe gamble. Doing those things, for me, was part of the experience of rhe story. Not a separate thing. It was a chance to be Arthur, and live in that world for a bit. Go out and get money or hides for the camp to upgrade it, hang out with the gang etc.
I feel like the overall pace of the game is based on an idea of how most people interact with these kinds of games. I know when i play a game like this, the fitst thing i want to do is explore the world, and interact with all its mechanics. Thats why Chapter 2 at Horseshoe Overlook is perfect, in my opinion. Its fairly central in the map. The story stakes, despite being on the run, don't feel as high. The attitude and atmosphere of the camp are I'd imagine similar to what it was before the Blackwater Ferry job.
That whole section lends itself to going off and expporing, gambling, doing challenges, fishing, hunting - and most important of all - getting Arthur a decent wardrobe and the facial hair/hair length situation you want. That's why they tucked that gold in the burned down sheriff's office just west of camp - they want you to buy some essential cosmetics for Arthur or maybe get you guns engraved, or saddles for your horse, whatever you care about most. That's why most of the map is completely available from Chapter 2 on. You're not really gated from too from the start because thats when most oeoole want to do those things.
The story and stakes, pick up steam and focus as you go. With each new camp things get more dire. And you want to engage more directly in the story.
That was a big thing that yeam learned. For ages video game stories would start off as focused and coherent and then completely lose the plot as they gradually let players off to do sude stuff. I feel like they learned to do things the opposite way and i feel it works better.
The camp is fine, at least that paint's an atmosphere. The limited walk speed and some of them camp reactions when you cross the magic boundaries are kind of annoying at worst, but that's it.
My problem is RDR2 already has MGS4 level amount of cutscenes with every mission startind and having middle parts of "ride your horse and talk", except they're all uncinematic and the pacing gets thrown off over the smallest things. It feels like trying to have your cake and eat it, too. Either make this interesting or engaging in gameplay, or at least use the very good looking world you've built and make it cinematic. Cowboy Desert Bus Talking simulator is just the worst combinations.
True. It would be rad it you were fighting some bigger power. Fighting personal demons for dozens of hours gets tiring.
You do fight larger powers. You fight government agents, oil/sugar tycoons, and the industrialization of society.
Also you assist in a revolt on Not Cuba against some imperialists/gusanos.
You quite literally fight a giant colonial Spanish warship that’s sent in to assist a private company to kill you after you help (presumably socialist) Cuban slaves rebel in a sugar plantation
I think they are confirmed socialist, but they are more an expy of Puerto Rico than Cuban. that warship is Cuban actually. Dont ask me how that makes sense
The only source for the socialism is a one off comment made by gusanos while hanging the slaves. It’s never really explored upon whether they were actually socialists or it was just a red scare, but i’ll choose to believe they’re socialists.
I mean this is 1899, LatAm socialists are not super prominent or common at the time, certainly not in armed revolts yet. I read it as more serious. I mean yeah maybe it is a callback to Landon Ricketts in RDR calling John a socialist. Though in that context you also had a revolution happening around them which once again the military call socialists. We do get more of their political program which Reyes aside, is pretty socialist. The Guarma rebellion is likely based on the Cuban Revolutionary Party, the time lines right up and said party fought in Puerto Rico as well, which while not proclaiming itself socialist, was led by various figures who would form the Popular Socialist Party of Cuba decades later like Carlos Baliño
Well Dutch is already the epitome of what no theory does to a mf. He spouts platitudes and motivational speeches based on what he wants. The gang is largely illiterate/uneducated, on the run, and, well, gangsters. I don’t know much of organized crime groups during this era that cared much for any theory.