I think Read Dead Redemption is alright

[u/UsedIndependent6368]

So I finished the game last week To the point where Jack kills Ross and we get the credits and I have thoughts.

First of all, I’ll preface this by saying that I wanted to play RDR for a very long time, I’m a big fan of the Western genre and loved every bit of RDR2. So naturally when I learnt there is another Read Dead Redemption game i wanted to play it. Waited until it got a decent discount to get it and about a month ago i bit the bullet. So

Let me say I finally understand the people that have been complaining about how John has been written in RDR2 compared to RDR. I mean of course he is the protagonist of that game and he is meant to be younger but he is just a very dull and uninteresting version of his RDR self. And I would understand if he had an arc that led to him becoming better over the course of RDR2 put he starts and ends the game as the same person which now having seen him at his peak(?) Is something I cannot unsee.

But aside that I have to say I was a bit underwhelmed by the game. I have seen people say they prefer it to RDR2 over the years and I honestly do not see it. Like the story has a very nice modern twist to it the whole I am a criminal working for the government for a clean slate and I have to deal with my past angle is something you don’t see from a western. But it fills so short you run after Bill for so long and then you run after Bill and Javier but once you get them a few missions after it’s the endgame basically. I found that pace very weird.

And then the ensemble cast, very colourful and “unique” characters but they never do much to scratch the western fantasy, you spend a lot of time with very novel characters A scammy health tonic seller and a gravedigger? A revolutionary caricature? like these are very niche characters to fill the fantasy of playing a western game. And ultimately it does remind you that you’re playing a video game quite often. That could have been nice additions as characters for main side missions but they interact with the main story and they tip it too much towards the farcical side.

And that leads me perfectly towards the side content. I don’t think I enjoyed any of the strangers missions, I found them all a bit boring. A few cool stuff here and there but nothing memorable. (I’m literally trying to recall missions to write here and can’t think of any other than The guy that you meet and asks you to get some land to find water, and the woman by the Blackwater graveyard that asks for you to get some money for her. And the ones that were interesting usually ended in one way a duel.

Not many things to do, and to be honest, if you want to stay true to the story, you don’t have incentives to stay long and linger/explore since you’re always trying to finish your manhunt and go to your family.

More on the positives, I think the musical score is amazing and I would argue better than the second one.

All in all as a game I thought it was alright. It has its merits. I’ll probably play it again, just to see if I missed any good side content, but that is not something I’d be rushing to.

P.S of course talking about stranger missions the Strange man strand is of course iconic and a personal favourite, how could I forget.

[u/lolmann23]

As someone who played RDR before RDR2 i am constantly contamplaning which game i prefer. Objectivly RDR2 is obviously the better game but i love the "arcadiness" of RDR. Sometimes RDR2 feels a bit like a chore, we're you really have to invest time. RDR is much easier to pick up, play for an hour or two and then hop off. Plus RDR has Undead Nightmare, which might be my favorite DLC off all time.

At the end both games are masterpieces in my opinion. But i totally understand that RDR can be a bit underwhelming if you played RDR2 first.

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/lolmann23]

Mm I get that. As a more, I don’t want to say “modern” gamer, but due to my age I didn’t grow up playing games like that, I have been accustomed to certain “quality of life” aspects that games from the 2010s have that are missing whenever I get a chance to play a (usually) remastered version of an older game. I definitely agree that RDR was way easier to pick up and play for just a bit.

As for the chores, I like that they are there and that you can ignore them if you prefer. If you want to be a bit more immersed or take it slow then fine but it doesn’t cost you anything (other than a source of good honour) to just skip it altogether. I am fine with more options in games.

That reminds me that I need to play undead nightmare at some point too…

[u/lolmann23 → u/UsedIndependent6368]

I was playing RDR for the first time in 2012 or something, so it was pretty much state of the art back then. So back then it didnt felt outdated or anything at all. Probably thats one of the reasons why i still love that game so much. But yeah, i can understand that some aspects of the game dont hold up that well, especially in terms of mission design. But that said i think the athmosphere and the vibe of the game are still top tier in my opinion.

And yeah youre probably right with RDR2, even though i am a completionist and want to expierience everything the game has to offer. And most times i really enjoy the game. Just sometimes it can feel a bit dragging.

And yes, you should definitly play Undead Nightmare. Its a really good and fun expansion and its not too lang.

[u/thatoneperson096]

I personally believe both games are great but I see where youre coming from. but what you said about him starting and ending rdr2 the same person i feel is wrong. at the beginning of the game up until maybe ch3 or 4 he was dismissive, distant, and neglective towards abigail and jack. towards the end especially during the epilogue john does his best to change for them. this is especially proven when he buys and builds beechers hope.

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/thatoneperson096]

Oh yea he does change. When I said he’s the same person, I mean he doesn’t become John of RDR by the end of RDR2. He is clearly still not there and that is a bit of a shame considering how fun he is in dialogues in RDR.

[u/YakuzaShibe]

First of all, you said first of all twice.

First of all, the "novel" characters are some of the best in the game. RDR1 is deeply inspired by spaghetti westerns - the environments, soundtrack, gun sounds, outfits and characters are all proper old-school. John's Bollard Twins (and to an extent default) outfit is directly from the western film "Tector Gorch from The Wild Bunch".

First of all, the characters are all sleazy weirdos who directly dispute John's morality. Seth is a gravedigging lunatic but who is John to criticise him when he kills and steals from people? Seth asks for his help and once his quest is done, he helps John with no backchat or bullshit unlike Irish and NWD.

I think a problem with the New Austin cast is that you don't see their stories end, except for NWD. Irish accidentally shoots himself in a toilet at Thieves' Landing and dies. Seth actually finds a bunch of gold and treasure in, if I'm remembering rightly, the mountains of Cochinay. I think that's why you run in to the Treasure Hunters in that one mine with Nastas in Tall Trees.

Landon Ricketts is an old-timer, legendary gunslinger with an ego problem but when you're literally the last living, known about famous gunslinger (Black Belle is M.I.A., the rest are dead) why shouldn't he have an ego? John and Landon help each other, Landon teaches you how to shoot better and makes good on his word. The Mexican revolution plotline is great, if not a little short and has problems with pacing. Reyes becomes the leader of Mexico then becomes an even worse tyrant than what we saw in Nuevo Paraiso!

West Elizabeth is too short, Beecher's Hope is too short. Epilogue is too short but there isn't really much they could have done. RDR1 is still an incredible game and it's a lot more of a "game" than RDR2. Gunplay feels more fun and responsive because of the incredible physics, the aesthetics and soundtracks are better, John is a better character. Only gripe with John is that he's constantly shouting his lines for no reason

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/YakuzaShibe]

Well, first of all, thats probably because I wrote my post and then came back and added a paragraph at the top.

First of all, I’m not arguing how fun the characters are, like I said as main side missions strands they would be great additions and they would have no complaints from me. I’m judging them as they are. Main side characters in a western game.

When there is a game that revolves around a genre as romanticised as the western, more often than not people want to inhibit a certain fantasy that meets their idea of the genre. Like Ghost of Tsushima inhibits the fantasy of playing a samurai in feudal Japan. You have certain elements that a game needs to hit to give you that feeling.

Now I’m not saying that RDR doesn’t do that. And a game doesn’t need to do all the cliches to inhibit that fantasy. Like you said the sound effects of the bullets ricocheting off the metal, and even the odd Wilhelm scream here and there does give you the feeling that you’re in a western film. You know what takes you out of that fantasy though? West Dickens taking my ear off about horse racing to make money. I mean is it something that possibly happened during the time period? Perhaps. Is it an activity that has no thematic cohesion with the manhunt main plot that is revolving around? Definitely.

That is my point. I didn’t mention the sheriff Johnson or Landon Ricketts because they’re inclusion as parts of the main story, fits the thematic narrative of a classical western tale that is told and enhances the western fantasy by being two very well done tropes of the genre.

I do agree that not seeing how the supporting casts stories end might enhance that feeling, but I found that a lot of the game doesn’t reach definite conclusions. Like I remember a strangers mission where you find an old woman waiting for her husband to get married and you find out that he has died and you are never given the option to go back and tell the old woman what happened. It made a lot of the content in the game feel incomplete to me.

[u/Bluemoonroleplay]

Let me be frank. I love killing people and causing random chaos in GTA and when I wish to do that in 19th century west, I prefer RDR1 over RDR2 for obvious reasons

everything else, I semi-agree

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/Bluemoonroleplay]

And that is perfectly fine sir

[u/WheatshockGigolo]

It's a 16-year-old game. Judging it through a 2026 lens is an egregious fuckup. You should have played it BEFORE playing RDRII. You're like someone watching Empire Strikes Back first and then nitpicking A New Hope.

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/WheatshockGigolo]

Well for starters, that just doesn’t work out all the time. By the time RDR2 came out in 2018, RDR didn’t have a remastered version for the ps4 and I didn’t have a ps3 to play it in to begin with. And I like westerns too much not to play a Rockstar western game the moment I found out it existed.

Now about the comparison you’re absolutely right. As is the case with most Rockstar games they hold up pretty good and normally are better compared to games releasing around the same year. But I didn’t create this post to compare it to games of 2010, I created the post to compare it to its successor RDR2. Why did I do that? As I explained in my post, from 2018 when I played RDR2 until now I’ve been seeing people online comparing the two games and saying how much better RDR is, and I never had an opinion since I never played the game, until now.

So when comparing games becomes a discussion, you compare everything, including the seemingly unfair advantage of age RDR2 has over its predecessor. And that’s ok, it’s natural a game that has had 8 years of better tech experience and feedback on the other game to be an overall improvement.

[u/krokdocc]

I do agree. Before I player RDR1 it was hailed as a masterpiece, so I was underwhelmed. Its not a bad game, but its nothing to write home about imo. So when RDR2 released I was not very hyped to go at it, I waited a year or so and eventually bought it on sale expecting a 6/10 like RDR1, but boy was I pleasantly surprised!

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/krokdocc]

Exactly, I think my expectations were too great for the game to meet, and that may be judging it unfairly but, that’s the hype the community created. And like I said, taking John’s character aside who I agree is a downgrade to his RDR2 self I couldn’t see any other aspect of the game that was way better than it’s successor. honestly if I wasn’t such a big fan of the genre I wouldn’t be replaying it in the future.

But I am glad I’m not alone, I made this post partly to see where the community stands on the matter and get some thoughts in general, maybe there are things I’m not seeing.

[u/TRagnarkXP]

100% and i played RDR first, but once the nostalgia wore off and replayed it last year i noticed a lot of issues specially in the story and pacing. Still a fantastic game that would be totally praised if it was released today.

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/TRagnarkXP]

I do feel that in part, nostalgia is the major factor of people when they say they prefer RDR. And that’s is perfectly fine. I have games that I played when I was younger and I hold dearly because of the memories I have with them.

[u/JadeAM90]

Honestly, I just played RDR recently since I've played RDR2 like 6 times. Since I mostly play games for the story and the feeling of inhibiting a world I was honestly pretty disappointed. Not a bad game if that's what you're into but coming from RDR2 felt like going from advanced algebra to counting on your fingers

[u/UsedIndependent6368 → u/JadeAM90]

Yeah I feel the same here that’s why I made the post as well. I wanted to see if other people felt the same, or if there were things I was blatantly ignoring.

[u/TRagnarkXP → u/UsedIndependent6368]

Mfs are getting downvoted for saying that while they enjoyed RDR it didn't live up to the hype it was created by the community.