You're About To Have Some Bad Luck With Getting Punched In The Face.

[rionaleonhart]

I can't believe I'm about to say this, because I hate it when games go 'oh, hey, here's some more story if you pay extra,' but the epilogue of Red Dead Redemption II should have been DLC. There was no reason for that to be part of the main game. I finished the game, I was exhausted but satisfied, I was ready for the credits to roll and let me reflect on things, and instead the game went 'NOW HERE ARE SEVERAL MORE HOURS OF GAME.' Red Dead Redemption II is very much a game that doesn't understand the concept of 'too much of a good thing'.

There were a few things I enjoyed in the epilogue, though, even if I'd have sacrificed it for the sake of a better wrap-up point.



- I loved Arthur's beautiful artwork in his journal, and I miss it, but John doing terrible drawings is also pretty great. It's sort of touching that he's taken up Arthur's habit of sketching all the animals he sees, even if he's not really up to the task.

- It was good to see Sadie and Charles again! I love that Sadie is just EXTREMELY ANGRY AND MURDEROUS all the time.

- The house-building montage mission was bizarre and delightful.

- JOHN PROPOSES TO ABIGAIL USING ARTHUR'S RING. Arthur wanted to marry her himself, and John proposes to her using Arthur's ring, whilst presumably being aware that Arthur wanted to marry her on account of having his journal. That's extremely weird and extremely good. I love the way it ties Arthur inescapably into their relationship.

- The mission where he proposes to her is pretty cute, too. I like that he wants their photograph taken together and Abigail thinks this is the most hilarious thing. Also Abigail going 'we can't stay out too late, I have to get back to make dinner' and John going 'let's leave everyone to fend for themselves; if we're lucky, Charles and Jack will eat Uncle.'

- If you get John to full bonding with a horse, he'll sometimes say, 'You know I love you,' as he strokes it.


I had three horses as John. He starts off with a horse called Rachel, and I felt a little bad about stabling her, but there was a Kentucky Saddler on the ranch I was working on, and I'd ridden a Kentucky Saddler throughout the entire first game as John. So I stole him: my one act of non-plot-required thievery! I casually rode him around the paddock a couple of times, and then casually walked him out of the gate, and then rode him to the nearest town and into the stables and went 'MY HORSE NOW.' I was fully expecting the game to go 'hey, wait, you stole that horse, honour penalty!', but it didn't seem to realise I'd done anything wrong. I got away with it!

I named him Arthur. Of course I did.

I got to full horse bonding with Arthur, and I felt really bad about stabling him, but a guy died in a side mission and asked me to look after his horse, so I took on Buell as my main horse from then on.

They're all good horses, but there'll never be another Kay.



So I've now truly finished Red Dead Redemption II! It's a hell of a thing. I don't think it's a good game, exactly - the gameplay alternates between 'bizarre pointless tedium' and 'shooting segments that are near-impossible unless you exploit auto-aim' - but I think I love it? It's a strange, elaborate, beautiful, immersive, tedious, inexplicable experience. I don't understand half the decisions that were made in this game's development, but I found it very absorbing.


My incredibly slow playthrough of Transistor also continues! (I can only play it when a particular friend visits, hence the huge gaps between sessions.) I'd completely forgotten how combat worked and I was consequently disastrous. The 'running out of health means you temporarily lose abilities' concept is interesting, but it does ultimately mean that the game punishes you for being bad at it by becoming harder.

I still really enjoy the relationship between Red and her sword, though, and I love the game's sense of style.

At one point Red used a powerful move, and the sword seemed pretty shaken by it. 'Could you do that again?' he asked. 'Is my sword turned on by how good I am at killing things?' I asked. (Given his reaction the next time I used that move, I am confident in saying that the answer is 'yes'.)

There's a beach ball in this game, and it has a 'TIMES BOUNCED' counter next to it, and when I visit the beach area I can never resist bouncing it around for ages and watching the counter go up. I think by now it's at something like 234 bounces. YES, SWORD, I KNOW WE'VE GOT IMPORTANT THINGS TO DO, BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT TOO.

I'm going to be very disappointed in this fandom if it isn't full of weird fanfiction about Red banging the sword.

Comments

[rionaleonhart]

I'm guessing that the entire point of the epilogue was to set up the first game.

It does seem to be doing that, but it still felt a bit unnecessary. The first game already worked fine!

And presumably to MOCK US with some chance for open-world sandbox stuff with the character I adore much less?

If nothing else, at least it's not as bad on this front as the first Red Dead Redemption, where after the ending you get to play as Jack, who I loathe. HE SHOUTED 'WORK, YOU DAMN NAG' AT MY BEAUTIFUL HORSE. At least I do have some fondness for John, even if I miss Arthur a lot.

[magistrate]

I haven't finished my watchthrough of RDR1 yet, though I have thoroughly spoiled myself for it, but my impression from the RDR2 epilogue and from what I know about the point Rockstar is hell-bent on making is that Jack reeeeeeally should consider just sticking to fantasy novels. Maybe he can go through dad's old journal and track down Mary-Beth and ask for introductions to the publishing world.

[magistrate]

HEY, RANDOM QUESTION

...which has, I assure you, nothing to do with anything at all.

Do we ever get any indication of John Marston's feelings toward horses? I mean, beyond the random "You know I love you" if you as the player put in all the work. From what I've seen of RDR, there's no horse bonding mechanic and you have an unlimited supply of identical horses, and we know that the horse John was riding when he left Blackwater got murdereaten by wolves and John didn't seem too broken up about it, and Javier refers to it as "the horse he was riding when we left Blackwater," when later on, Arthur refers to both Bill's horse and Dutch's horse by name. Does it make sense to think that Arthur loves horses and John just kinda regards them as how you get from place to place?

[rionaleonhart]

Does it make sense to think that Arthur loves horses and John just kinda regards them as how you get from place to place?

My instinctive reaction is NO, HOW DARE YOU because I loved my goddamn horse in RDR and I refuse to entertain the thought that John might not also have adored her. I think 'you know I love you' is pretty solid evidence that he's fond of his horses! Also, even in the original RDR where horse bonding wasn't a mechanic, John had a 'stroking his horse' idle animation.

Jack, on the other hand, will shout 'WORK, YOU DAMN NAG' when you spur your horse as him, because Jack is the absolute worst.

[magistrate]

Fair enough. ...would it at least not be contraindicated by anything to say that Arthur likes horses more than John?

...at least Jack likes horses more than the cougars do?

(I haven't even run into Jack in my RDR watch-through, but I have a feeling that I'm going to be much more interested in what RDR2 was doing with him. Unless RDR1 actually does have him be a little traumaball. I kinda really want him, as a character, just to have massive post-traumatic issues, and have to deal with them in an environment where this was just absolutely not a recognized thing.)

[rionaleonhart]

...would it at least not be contraindicated by anything to say that Arthur likes horses more than John?

Hey, there's no need to pit these men against each other! Even though I do love Arthur more than I love John. The important thing is that everyone loves horses.

In response to your question, though, the only thing that could potentially work against that is a player who's constantly horse-murdering as Arthur and petting all the horses as John. The interactivity element complicates things a bit. (I looked up the TRAGIC HORSE DEATH scene on YouTube, and all the comments were people reminiscing about what their horse was named and how they'd met and all they'd been through, except the one person who said 'Damn I didn't get this cut scene because I always blew my horses up with dynamite for fun.')

[magistrate]

[Hey, there's no need to pit these men against each other!]

There absolutely is, because their relationship is at its best when it's equal parts working snarkily together, saving each other's life / feeling unmanageably indebted to one another, and sheer sibling rivalry.


[except the one person who said 'Damn I didn't get this cut scene because I always blew my horses up with dynamite for fun.')]

WHO DOES THAT. No. I refuse. Arthur's horse must always associate dynamite with oatcakes, not dynamite with death.

[magistrate]

...though it occurs to me: in the tragic horse-death scene, Arthur is devastated and John – who also got his horse shot out from under him – is pretty much like "Oh well, dead horse. Let's go!" Then again, to be fair, I don't know if that was actually his horse, considering that he'd just stumbled into camp from being shot, and the horse he was riding on the robbery might have been lost somewhere in there. ...maybe he likes horses, but he just goes through them too damn quickly to get to know half of them. (Until the player has a chance to directly intervene.) I mean, he is pretty disaster-prone, at least in RDR2.

FAR MORE IMPORTANT QUESTION. Does RDR1 even have a fistfight mechanic? I can't recall seeing one, but I've only just watched to Mexico. Do we ever see John throwing punches?

[rionaleonhart]

I will, I suppose, concede that John going 'come on, we've gotta go' and Arthur going 'wait, I need a moment to cry over my PERFECT BEAUTIFUL HORSE KAY' does point towards Arthur being more horse-sentimental.

I don't actually remember whether you could use your fists in RDR! Huh. I think you could, but I can't be sure. Was there a punch-up in a West Dickens mission?

[magistrate]

I don't remember one in a West Dickens mission? I mean, I could be forgetting one, but mostly what I remember is a chariot race, ill-advised dueling, and John getting progressively more annoyed and closer to murder.

[rionaleonhart]

You experienced this game a lot more recently than I did, so I'm inclined to trust you! I can't check in-game; I'm away from the PS3, and in any case my brother's the one who actually owns the game. Next time the player you're watching opens the weapon wheel, look out for a 'fists' option.

[magistrate]

...okay. I watched to a point where there was a weapon wheel, and there was, indeed, a fists option. So there's that.

I tried to look up "john marston fistfight" on YouTube, and surprisingly, I had to scroll some way down in the results before I found either John or his player fighting very badly. So there's that. But on the way, I discovered John getting drunk and failing to start a bar fight, which is amazing.

(Which also put me in mind of one of my favorite bits from Cohh's playthrough, which is when, during one of the parties, he just has Arthur walk over to a crate of alcohol and start shotgunning entire bottles of hard liquor until his health core is completely red.)

I also learned that if you piss off enough people at camp as Arthur, John comes and one-punch KO's you. Which is also hilarious, though I'm not sure how seriously I want to take it.

But it looks like most of the John Marston fistfights are videos from RDR2, and it doesn't look like he gets a fight engine any different from the one they used for Arthur, so I'm going to call that a Doylian convenience and not assume it's an intentional comment on their fighting styles. (Though I am perfectly okay with John's fighting style being "walk up behind them and then punch them in the face the instant they turn around.")

[magistrate]

You'll be happy to know that John does throw a punch in the epilogue, and it's also a one-hit KO. So I guess that whatever his fighting style is, he has one hell of a right hook.