Everyone says this is one of the best stories in video games and I just don't see it at all. And they never explain why. It's like it's just a given it's a great story and it's become a truth we all have to accept
But from the start, all I thought is that this was very poor storytelling. We are never even shown the catalyst of the events, the Blackwater heist, and thus investment in the story is decreased. Because we only see the gang on the run, the falling apart of the gang has much diminished impact; it would be more effective if we had some time seeing the gang at full strength.
It is hard to sympathize with Arthur because Dutch is clearly bad from the start; so why are we supposed to connect to Arthur's struggles? The game constantly beats us over the head with how Arthur is a "good man" and yet he goes along with Dutch's plans while murdering hundreds. Arthur is the worst example yet of the "reluctant anti-hero with a heart of gold" trope that Rockstar loves doing so much, because almost every line of dialogue he has is some non-committal "sure aw guess" or "I dunno".
Really there is hardly any real plot at all until chapter 6, where Arthur gets sick and for the first time we have an actual thing he is trying to achieve, getting away from the gang. You could scrub the vast majority of chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 and lost none of the plot at all. All that really matters is that Dutch is going crazy, Arthur gets sick and wants to help John. This is a poor story poorly told.
It's just something jrpg zoomers will never be able to understand
Isaiah Bell
You're mentally handicapped if you can't see what's impressive about RDR2's story.
Thomas Anderson
it's a story about human misery and the things we choose to do to make that misery. it is like a Greek or Shakespearean tradgedy. yes, it's not artfully told, but the threads and structure are there.
Dominic Smith
wow no info, just ad hom. so intelligent
Jace Lewis
End of chapter 6 hit me right in the feels. At least John got to live on in peace with his family...
Xavier Kelly
What are some games that you think have a good story OP?
Justin Myers
>At least John got to live on in peace with his family... user I.......
Ryder Richardson
>it would be more effective if we had some time seeing the gang at full strength. braithwaite manor and that entire series of events playing two families like that, then destroying them is the gang at full strength >It is hard to sympathize with Arthur because Dutch is clearly bad from the start; so why are we supposed to connect to Arthur's struggles? The game constantly beats us over the head with how Arthur is a "good man" and yet he goes along with Dutch's plans while murdering hundreds. Arthur is the worst example yet of the "reluctant anti-hero with a heart of gold" trope that Rockstar loves doing so much, because almost every line of dialogue he has is some non-committal "sure aw guess" or "I dunno". that's called a character arc. it's when the character changes over the course of the story. Dutch is not clearly bad from the start. >Really there is hardly any real plot at all until chapter 6, where Arthur gets sick and for the first time we have an actual thing he is trying to achieve, getting away from the gang. You could scrub the vast majority of chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 and lost none of the plot at all. All that really matters is that Dutch is going crazy, Arthur gets sick and wants to help John. This is a poor story poorly told. aaaaaaaand you're retarded.
Michael Myers
Chapter 6 reminded me a lot of Sopranos season 6. An aura of everything you know slowly falling apart, a sense of foreboding and dread. You're a dead man walking disillusioned by everything you ever thought you knew and simply trying to salvage something good out of the mess you helped create. Iirc dunkey and some other people were saying the game went to shit after 5 and story wise that is total bullshit. Chapter 6 is the entire fucking reason the game exists. It's the redemption in the damn title, the only time in the game Arthur gets woke and realizes the hollowness of outlaw life. He choses to give Strauss' debtors money instead of collecting, he helps Charlotte survive in the woods where in chapter 2 he may not have given a shit, he gives Edith Downes and her son another chance at life, and ultimately gives John a way out to start a real family. Anyone who says chatper 6 sucked because 'it sad not like muh horseshoe overlook' misses the point. Horseshoe Overlook was so great because it was the calm before the storm. Imagine Hamlet but 5 acts of him shooting shit with Horatio, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern and musing with the play troupe. RDR2 is ultimately a tragedy and imo it does that to great effect.
>Chapter 6 is the entire fucking reason the game exists. It's the redemption in the damn title It blows my mind how people can finish chapter 6 with low honor
Bentley Cooper
>aaaaaaaand you're retarded. You dont understand plot
Logan Anderson
It takes like 40 hours to beat the game and half of that is cutscenes. It doesn't really matter if the game or story is good at that point, you're too heavily invested
Noah Cooper
Horseshoe Overlook is a false sense of security and idyll Lemoyne is the delusion that the gang's ideals are not beholden to the changing times like the history of the south St Denis is the realization that modernity is already here, crime is feudal and corruptive Guarma, with the sugar barons connections to figures like Cornwall shows that Dutch's misgivings about America can not be outran, they are happening globally Dutch exploiting Eagle Flies' anger as a distraction is hypocritical and shows how blinded he is to his own plans' futility. Rains Fall shows Arthur the grace and wisdom that Dutch is lacking, and the manipulation of Eagle Flies holds up a mirror to Arthur's futile loyalty
This is a short summation, but to disregard all chapters before the TB diagnosis as filler is being oblivious to barely subtextual themes
Henry Myers
Whats your point?
William Jackson
New games are designed to make your play them and enjoy them. But not the way you think. Instead of compelling gameplay they just make you sink time into them so that you have to like the game
Ryder King
Nice blog post >we're just supposed to accept it's the greatest ever No, people have their opinions, nobody forced shit on you
And lol @ complaining about them not showing Blackwater, the fact you dont see it and have to draw your own conclusions based on everything you've heard is an example of good writing, not the opposite
And you're leaving out the whole part about Dutch being his dad and them being bandits their whole life, and only through the mid part of the game does Arthur begin to question not only his motives but his entire life, he even says "was I really any different back then?"
Seems like you either purposely left out a lot of shit or legit didn't playthrough the game
Lincoln Rivera
>i play Japanese rpg Dumb poster who wants everything exposed to him
Nicholas Long
This anachronistic anomaly ruined the entire game. Basically Micah 2.0 but gets a free pass because she has a vagina. The balloon ride mission was the heightcof Houser's lack of insight.
I agree, it's pretty garbage, and filled to the brim with dei ex machina and shitty suspension of disbelief. The characters are also extremely uninteresting. The plot follows a very, very predictable path. You can tell what's gonna happen from a mile, a sign of poor trope-following storytelling.
imagine actually thinking liking rdr2's shit story makes you intelligent
Hunter Evans
Hated this anomaly too. Really wish she would have died in one of the multiple needless gunfights she started
Elijah Russell
>Micah 2.0 How? Micah is a violent psychopath who was just interested in the money and was going to rat out the gang from the start, and she just wanted revenge on the O'Driscolls because they killed her husband.
Joshua Evans
She was so fucking insufferable, when the balloon guy started saying mildly sexist things I knew he was fucked, that goes for every character in the game by the way. Anytime anyone says something bigoted they WILL die at some point without fail, great mature storytelling there, Cockstar, all the racists lose and all the not racists win at the end, very complex.
She's not even close to as bad as Micah and the game makes it clear her actions are destructive. The only bad thing about Sadie is how she somehow survived American Venom
Blake Taylor
It's like the older GTAs, before V focused on 3 faggots only. You have the journey across the map, with side-characters (friendly and un-friendly) popping up the whole time, progressing your way across the map. You had the intro with the O'Driscoll's who last as a thorne in your side all the way through to chapter 6, the Grays and Braithwaite's story (arguably the best part of the game), the whole Angelo Bronte business, Guarma, then back to Cornwall and the Pinkertons, and even the army in chapter 6. Leading into a feral gang of Skinners in the epilougue, not to mention the Del Lobos in the end-game.
Luke Reyes
He didn't say that, it's just the japanese are obsessed with spoiling absolutely everything from the start. I started noticing this when I watched sub DBZ, and every goddamn title spoiled what happened at the end of the episode.
Anthony Price
>all the not racists win at the end >Dutch is very anti racism >is the main fucking antagonist Anti sjws are such crybabies
Jose Perry
This is why you millennials shouldn't be allowed to either play videogames or watch movies. You don't give a shit about anything but your epic as fuck politics of Reddit epicness. Idealists have always, and will always be the bottom of the barrel of humanity. No wonder they are always the tergets in genocides.
Austin Barnes
>is the main fucking antagonist you spelled micah wrong, dipshit. a character that literally says "darkie" on the game's 2nd cutscene, lmao.
Liam Smith
>Micha is a violent sociopath And Sadie isn't? Sadie is honestly more unhinged than Micah, if you couldn't see this when you finished off the last of the O'Driscoll's then you're a fucking idiot. Hell, she even picks up bounty hunting afterwards, she completely succumbs into the life of a murdering thug and the game praises her for it. At least Michah had some charm and played a great bad guy, and he still gets his comeuppance in the end so he still remains likeable. Sadie is just all around a shit character, easily the worst Rockstar has ever written.
Micah is only an antagonist for like the last 2 hours of the game. Until then it was Milton and Cornwall.
Hudson Moore
Only the last two hours of the game mattered?
Easton Carter
If you shoot anyone it takes like 15% of your honor and since any tiny kerfuffle leads to shooting your way out of town it's easy to lose honor. I'm doing all the challenges and my honor has been -100% for a while, there's not many opportunities to boost it back up but my friend says the story throughout chapter 6 will give me enough opportunities to max it out again which I believe.
Leo Ward
Nigga shut the fuck up, we all played the first game, we all knew where this was heading.
Wyatt Hughes
>Sadie is honestly more unhinged than Micah, if you couldn't see this when you finished off the last of the O'Driscoll's Well yeah, that guy was the one who killed her husband. Micah literally butchered an entire family before the events of the game just for the sake of it, and he is the one who started nagging at Dutch to kill that girl in Blackwater for literally no reason.
Brayden Perry
I seriously dont get you autists For fucking months I see posts like these about how she ruins the game and I eventually finish the thing and she's not even 5% of it Theres a couple typical whacky r* missions where everything goes off the rails and at WORST her surviving American Venom was a bit odd. Big deal holy shit
I didn't. I got bored by the time I got to Mexico. Although I did know about Dutch going crazy, which is why I thought he was going to become the bad guy. Honestly, it doesn't make sense why Marston lets him go at the end.
Ryan Adams
>they killed her husband!!!! So? That doesn't make it ok to slaughter people by the dozen and constantly put your friends in danger. Revenge is the biggest fucking meme, what is there to be gained in killing the ones who didn't even kill your husband? They were already dead, they're the first goddamn people you kill in the game.
Jack Murphy
Because they are stupid American millennials, they are soulless creatures who don't care about anything but being offended in a political context. If they can't be offended they won't care about it. Hell, I remember when RDR2 was announced, when the only thing we had was the cover with the gang, and literally everyone here was desperate to convince others that all of them were niggers because of how much they wanted to feel offended.
Idealists are subhumans and I honestly have lost any capacity to feel sorry for any of them when the police beats the crap out of them.
Nathaniel Parker
>That doesn't make it ok to slaughter people by the dozen When has she done that that wasn't O'Driscolls? Literally every mission with her is hunting them down, except the one where you rescue Marston and the one where you rescue Abigail.
>constantly put your friends in danger She did that once, where she shot a guy who was obviously going to try to rob Arthur and her in that mission in Rhodes.
Andrew Kelly
Says the fat faggot that consooms our media
Carson Williams
>they killed her husband >So? My fucking sides
Jaxon Campbell
> consooms Ah yes, I forgot that intentionally spelling words wrong is a very important part of your brave activism.
Aiden Richardson
>H-he called me a name! Better call the police
Andrew Smith
This. She doesn't even do shit until late chapter 4
Logan Cox
>reluctant anti hero
He's pretty clear on how much of a scumbag him and the gang are. Keeps saying it to Dutch and to himself over and over. He even becomes embarassed when people praise him for helping them because he knows he could just be robbing or shooting them the next day.
He's a criminal and a violent man but only prefers fighting if he has to. Only Marston was truly able to right himself in the end.
Michael Clark
I believe this. There were a shitload of boring side characters, the snakeoil salesman I wanted to skip, all the Mexicans were dumb skip skip, gravedigger guy skeeiiippp, even the Scot and Brit and whatever were just walking stereotypes skip skip. Landon Ricketts was based as fuck as was the Sheriff from the first town you're in. The Deputy was funny, I don't mind comedic relief, but god damn 80% of RDR was retarded shit.
Blake Gonzalez
Because it goes in direct opposition of the series core message, you will never be able to run from your past, the life of crime will catch up with you... Unless you're a woman in which case you're strong and independent.
Carter Campbell
I liked her voice, sounded very tomboyish. Nagging her in the camp was fun, specially when she shouts "WHAT IS THIS SHIT".
Henry Morales
>That doesn't make it ok to slaughter people by the dozen and constantly put your friends in danger. Killing O Driscoll's is not the same as killing innocents like Micah does. You're right about her putting her friends in danger but Arthur rightfully gets pissed at her for doing so in the hot air ballon mission
Gabriel Barnes
none of it makes sense in the context of RDR 1 the story would have been 500x better if they made arthur a ruthless piece of shit and never gave the player the option to do "nice" things for anyone but himself until the end
micah was a shit villain and the whole gang should have acted like him
Caleb Reed
>Unless you're a woman in which case you're strong and independent. But there's a good bunch of people who get away with it. The reverend, Pearson, Mary Beth, Tilly and Charles all end up surviving, and for all we know, they were alive by RDR1.
Asher Miller
I really don't give a shit about any of that, you don't read another person's mail. That's fucked up.
Grayson Reyes
This is the best piece of media ever made. Better than any other movie game tv show book you name it. Genuinely and unironically art. I always hated when people say they wish they could experience something for the first time again but this is how i feel looking back on this game
Nolan Walker
>Sadie is honestly more unhinged than Micah Have you forgotten the mission where you rescue Micah where you end up killing an entire fucking town just because he wanted to recover his custom revolvers?
Brayden Adams
Micah was fine as a villain. Im tired of this "villains need to be sympathetic" meme. All classic western villains are irredeemable pieces of shit
Nathan Scott
Leftoids don't know how to write strong women without making them insufferable cunts
Kevin Jones
The series is called Red Dead REDEMPTION. You don't want to play as a realistic outlaw because most of them were just mexicans and niggers who assaulted people in the middle of the desert. There was no retarded shit like "lets rob a bank in the middle of a city in 1900".
Jack Thomas
how the fuck do you stand out as a bad guy in a group of outlaws make him a fucking racist mustache twirling retard and have him painfully predictably be the traitor
James Myers
Will all this being said, why is Micah still objectively more likable than Sadie? Seriously how did they fuck up that bad?
Brody Ortiz
It's a 8.5/10 story with 5/10 direction
>it's not artfully told This is the biggest gripe I have with the game. For a story that's so dry and meditative, the presentation is like a fucking marvel movie. The animal metaphor sequences were laughable. It's like The Thin Red Line if it were directed by JJ Abrams, like they tried to take something harsh and raw and turn it into an easy melodramatic blockbuster and It trips over itself with every step it takes.
Adam Martinez
>you don't read another person's mail. That's fucked up. That's another thing where she's right. The whole gang kills and robs people all the time, and not reading the mail is where you draw the line?
Samuel Walker
there is no redemption in RDR2 arthur just struggles with guilt and dies
Kevin Brown
No wonder you are all going on about muh politics if you can't even understand a story like this, you'd struggle to even understand the plot of a goddamn Call of Duty campaign. Then again, this place is the one that needed 10 years to understand Metal Gear Solid 2.
Tyler Nelson
go back to Yas Forums you complete fucking retard, you must have the attention span of a fucking toddler or you didn't actually play the game
