#granted its a different naughty to sitting around as arthur

[azarathedragon]

Mild spoilers. Nothing is really stated, but its enough to clue in to stuff that happens in the main story.

Nothing has emotionally destroyed me more this year then Red Dead Redemption 2. And for me, thats saying something, because i uh....dont usually cry during a video game. I cant actually bring to mind another game that had me that upset over a character. Books, yea. Tv shows, yea. But a video game. Make me sad, sure, but actually cry, nope.

And i loved the game to bits, enough so that it actually got my ass in gear to play and attempt to finish the first game. My only gripe would have been some of the choices made with horses.

First being that the best horses are locked behind the epilogue, where theres maybe a dozen hours worth of content. Maybe more if you didnt do some stuff as Arthur. It doesnt make sense that the character you spend the most time with, only has access to lower tier horses, barring the black arabian and gold turk (which i find ugly as shit by the why. Sadie's turk was a far prettier color.)

The unique horses like the black shire or Buell. If you sell either, or it gets killed, they are gone for good. There is no getting that specific coat color back. And that is dumb as shit my friends. As a side note, we shoulda been able to get Buell earlier on. You basically get that stubborn bastard when theres only a few hours of gameplay left (story wise anyway. If you spend fifteen hours just dicking around, all the more power to ya. Lord knows i did because the game ending was spoiled for me within the first week of its release. Thanks youtube. Thanks.)

Second. All horses should have been able to be found wild or stable bought. Just decrease spawn chance for the real nice ones like the Arabians and Turks. Horse herds were depressing to look at after a while, when you realize the three fastest wild breeds only have two wild coat colors. Nokota, Thoroughbred, snd the Anerican Standards. Two colors. And you find herds with 4 to 6 of one of the afformentioned breeds in it. Two colors. Its just...sad to look at. And its not like Rockstar was short on coat colors snd patterns. Also. Fuck them for patching the St. Denis spawn glitch. I found an alternative as john and got that pretty rose grey arabian. For free. And i think i found an alternative as arthur. But my lips are sealed, because frankly, its bullshit i cant steal a real nice horse. Were outlaws, lemme steal the nice horses you bastards.

Coats and their patterns. The only ALL black horse is a American Standardbred. They are an average horse. Ok speed, and ok health and stamina. And i will say it again. Rockstar was not short on coat colors and patterns. There are so many colors for the Kentucky Saddlers, Tennessee Walkers, and Morgans. So fuckin many. A lot of these could have been copied or split into other breeds. Or pull the Nintendo BotW method where there is a dozen base colors, that then have additional patterns thrown over top. Because i really want an all black horse that has good stats. (And unless im crazy, im pretty sure the initial launch of the game there were no all black horses? The standardbred used to have like...a snip on its face. Mandela effect probably. There are a handful of black horses they all start to blur together after a while)

The horse types like War and Work should have meant more than more health over stamina or vice versa. War horses shouldnt balk at gunfire, its what it was bred and raised for. Work horses shouldnt have felt the stamina drain from carrying pelts, it was born and raised to do intensive work. Wild horses should have handled threatening wildlife (snakes, cougars, bears, alligators) better than stable horses. Stable horses spook easier at said creatures, but handle towns and nearby trains better. Yes, you read that right, trains. Horses dont like loud things, and trains to them, are downright terrifying. It takes years of consistent exposure for a horse to calm down around such things. (My family had horses, and we lived near John Trovolta. The dude has a private jet. Taking off in practically our back yard. The horses freaked about it at first, but after a while began to realize the giant screaming metal demon bird isn't here to harm them. They still dont like it, but they dont freak out as easily to it either.)

Im still not sure as to what Handling meant. Does it turn faster? Different animations? Game devs love putting shit in, and then not tell us what it means. Like that "wild horses will keep some wild tendencies." That means nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. Tendencies could be anything, literally anything. Maybe this horse really, really likes chewing on its butt. Maybe it has a biting problem. The word means nothing if we arent given context on what it means.

Volume slider for the horses please. My god. Both of my parents are hard of hearing, and while my dad has no interest in the game other than "oh what gun is that? A wincester?". My mom did on the other hand. So she turns the volume up a little to hear characters better, but then we have to turn it back down, because the horses are overly loud at times. (And yes captions are on, but we still like hearing the voice behind those words. Pretty sure the tv speakers are going anyway, but there are other audio issues with the game at times that are unrelated to a shit tv). Audio option are important. And we are stuck with only three sliders. Master, score, and dialogue. You dont want to listen to a horse grunting, overpowering whatver it was that character said? Too bad. You dont get to decide that. Really hope the pc release adds a few more sliders to make it bearable.