I've been playing this recently, and enjoying it far more than I expected. I know the slow pace animations have got a lot of stick, but I'm really enjoying the pace of the open world. The cores, as much as I currently understand them, (the game does a bad job of explaining these itself,) are probably one of the better implementations of survival mechanics in a game that I've seen, where they don't feel like a constant threat that overrides all other gameplay incentives, but they add a level of realism in keeping your character doing things to maintain themselves. I could probably spend a lot of time here just exploring the wilderness, hunting, crafting, collecting bounties, expanding my camp, and all the other cowboy sim stuff going on. Really enjoyable, and surprisingly for a Rockstar game, super chilled and relaxing.
It's not all good though. The usual Rockstar jank is everywhere in the main story content. Missions with zero flexibility in how to approach them, the exact same story structure they've used in all their GTA games, (we've got this great job that's gonna solve all our problems once we pull it off, but oh no, something's gone wrong and now we're on the run again!) and characters with total split personalities depending on whether they're in a cutscene or mission gameplay. The honour system and the overall narrative is clearly set up to portray Arthur as the noble outlaw, who does what he has to, but doesn't enjoy being a bad person, and would rather avoid trouble where he can. But the last story mission I played was one involving busting Micah out of jail in Strawberry, and Arthur turns on a dime from being fully prepared to leave Micah rotting in jail because he's too much trouble in the cutscene, to gunning down dozens of the town's residents to help him escape as soon as you're thrown back into gameplay. The Arthur I'd been playing up to that point was cautious, avoiding conflict where possible so as not to draw attention, and not engaging in violence against others unless they instigated it. But all of a sudden I'm basically paying as Michael from GTA V, escorting Trevor Phillips on some mad killing spree just because he feels like it.
I'm half tempted just to jump onto the online mode and go and enjoy the open world stuff without any of the story/mission gubbins, but for whatever reason, I still want to spend time playing as "good Arthur" and see what happens with the gang and their camp.
Progress is slow, so I'm fully expecting not to get through the story for a long time yet, but overall, the game is great fun, despite Rockstar's best attempts to spoil it.
I'm 95% complete with the story mode now and I don't want it to end. Without spoiling it (although I'm pretty sure I know how it ends, given how RDR1 played out) does anyone know if you can carry on with the world after you've finished the last story mission? I've still got a ton of the wildlife/hunting stuff to do!
As soon as the main story is done I'm going to get John to strip down to his undies, run into the woods and live like a wildman for a while - no haircuts, no baths, no resupplies
As soon as the main story is done I'm going to get John to strip down to his undies, run into the woods and live like a wildman for a while - no haircuts, no baths, no resupplies
Preezy wrote:I'm 95% complete with the story mode now and I don't want it to end. Without spoiling it (although I'm pretty sure I know how it ends, given how RDR1 played out) does anyone know if you can carry on with the world after you've finished the last story mission? I've still got a ton of the wildlife/hunting stuff to do!
Be prepared!
I did the same, but the wildlife hunting is taking so long time to find the specific animal you need but it's worth it.
I have accepted that I will never platinum this. The bloody wildlife trophy (and many other grindy trophies) puts me off and I would end up hating the game. I did the same for Death Stranding and like hell I would grind for 40 hours just for one trophy.
I'm going to get all of the legendary animals (got the albino bull 'gator this morning, what a whopper ) and then see how I feel about trying to complete the compendium. Do you have to kill 1 of every animal, or just study it?
well i just finished the story (got to the credits) on this and i must say - its brilliant its not perfect (shonky mechanics at times, slightly cliche writing) but its damn close - what a journey
Yeah, if you cant get past the controls, the nature of the biome will have little impact on how agreeable you find it all.
I loved it, but i never accidentally punched my horse or shot a stranger etc. One of my top 5 games of all time probably, and i did not really expect to like it (i played it when it came to GamePass).
Victor Mildew wrote:Incredible game. What is give to be able to wipe it from my mind and experience it again.
I bought it in the Epic Game Store Christmas sale just to go through it again in glorious Ultra settings and because my YouTube feed was full of RDR2 secrets and Easter eggs for some reason. I had definitely forgotten how much of a crawl the opening chapter is but I had definitely not forgotten just how bad the overarching plot is.
So is the face mask mechanic just utterly pointless? Even if I put it on first then when I do anything like trying to pull a robbery, I still end up with a bounty anyway.