Okay long thoughts about RDR1. This is my first game this 2024. If this was ported to the ps4 many years ago, I would have played this first before RDR2, which I played in 2019. This game obviously trigged my memories from playing RDR2, especially areas like Hennigan's Stead, MeXico and Blackwater. In RDR1, MeXico looks the best which looked great in RDR2. Those mountains are good looking.
I focused on the main story missions. I mostly ignored the "stranger" missions, though I finished some of those and hideouts, which gave me eXtra trophies. Aside from Rdr2, this reminded me of the Mafia games and LA Noire. I really felt that this was made at the same time as LA Noire. Their graphics are almost on par with each other.
I don't remember a lot about John in RDR2 aside from I played him after Arthur died. 2019 is like light years ago for me, so at first I didn't care much about the story here. I instantly remembered Dutch when he showed up. I was surprised how short his screentime was. Then when John's family showed up towards the end. It made me a bit nostalgic about RDR2. I went to YouTube to watch the ending of Rdr2 and to see if there were other characters in RDR2 that were in RDR1, and there were two gang members I don't remember from RDR2. RDR2 has a really good story and it is much deeper and has a lot more weight compare to RDR1, and its weird that continuation to the story of RDR2 isn't as well developed and fleshed out. I know it would be impossible for Rockstar, but RDR1 should have been remade, so it would be on par with RDR2 - gameplay, story, graphics. I feel like RDR2 is 9.5 while RDR1 imo, is 7.8 at its best.
To be honest, I didn't really enjoy RDR1. The open world is pretty barren. I feel like this is missing that "sense of fun". RDR2 grabbed me with its story. The story of RDR1 didn't grab me until towards the end when more familiar faces showed up. Even though there's so much more I could do here, the environment of this game didn't entice me to do all the things possible in the game. Its like the complete opposite of GTA and I just wasn't satisfied with the game. I wasn't a bit disappointed when I could no longer use John after the final story mission. Aside from triggering the actual ending, I used Jack for some "stranger"missions.
Rockstar should have remastered this or at least, put some new touches to this to modernize it a bit. The cutscenes look quite rough especially the textures. Even though this doesn't look bad, it does look like an early 2010s game and in 2022-23, Rockstar should have given effort. For a straight up PS4 port, this should have been out in 2013 to 2017. I just don't know why it took them this long, if they weren't even going to remaster it. There were rumors for a remaster, that it was canceled because of the poor reception for GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition, but I played that collection last year and imo, it was fine and they should remastered RDR1 (and GTA IV) as well. I also found out it annoying when missions failed because of the NPCs. There was a mission which I failed because the horse got stuck in a horse and couldn't get away from that rock. Another, Jack's horse suddenly jumped in the river. Another one, this long mission which I had to restart - the enemies were shown in the radar but they weren't actually there for 5 minutes. Another was Uncle suddenly disappeared when I was catching horses shown in the map so I had repeat that annoying "calm the horse" part which is my least favorite thing to do in the game.
Over all, I liked I finally experienced the first RDR to judge it for myself. Maybe I have played so many games in the ps4 that I don't see the big fuzz about the first RDR. It was just a 7.8 for me, but I'm still giving it eXtra credits, since this led to RDR2 which is a much better game. Also, I don't want a RDR3, I feel like the story of these games are tragic and not really uplifting. The setting alone (late 1800s/early 1990s wild west) is just not my type and I really get immerse when I play videogames. I feel like I would have been either bored with my life or a mess (like these characters) if I was living in that time period and that crossed my mind when playing RDR. I want something more fun from Rockstar like GTA, so I don't want another RDR3. Though I would probably play it if it gets made.
