I'm fully expecting Arthur to be more interesting than John.

[Original Light]

I'm blinded by nostalgia. John Marston will always be my favorite video game protagonist. I also don't doubt that R* can make another great protagonist, Arthur Morgan, and I'm sure I'll connect with him too.

 

But there's something about John that I don't think can be replicated for me. His morals and personality, while pretty much set in stone unlike Arthur's will be, happened to align with mine. As a side effect, I don't think the dishonorable choices that could be made in RDR1 aligned with what John would really do - and I almost wouldn't consider the dishonorable choices canon... in a way. The game was almost designed to be played honorable, since that was John's personality. 

The choices that can be made in Red Dead Redemption 2 make Arthur more varying in personality and his moral compass, but I also feel as if my Arthur will be different than everyone else's, and nobody will have the same experience, unlike how most of us did with John. Some of us will make Arthur play as a saint, some of us will make him play as a deranged psychopath with no morals - while all of us can pretty much agree that John was a hero, with an unfortunate childhood, and just having been born into the wrong world in a way. 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Original Light

[MarlboroMan1995]

John Marston is one of the most popular video game characters so far. I actually felt sad when he died! I did, though, feel he was somewhat dumb are naive about things; but, loved and admired his loyalty to his wife and child and his intentions to provide a better life for them. Arthur Morgan reminds me of people I actually know; unforgiving and at times brutal people. But, only that way because it was necessary for survival in their environment. Seems like Arthur might be that type; ruthless, but knows better. 

[Cutter De Blanc]

John Marston = Clint Eastwood
Arthur Morgan = John Wayne

[The Algerian]

To be honest, the more I play RDR1, the more John strikes me as a complete idiot and a clown.

First thing he does is getting shot by Williamson while trying to act tough.

Along the way he falls for an extremely obvious trap in Mexico, in both cases he just got extremely lucky.

 

And then, his luck runs out, as Dutch explains what's going to happen after they're done with him and he just shrugs it off.

 

15 hours ago, HockeyMike24 said:

I'm really surprised people dislike Morgan. For one we know very little about the character and from what we do know, he seems like a total badass that doesn't take sh*t from anyone. Which is very refreshing from playing as the errand boy John was for the feds. As Dutch puts it.

I didn't really like him as of trailer #2, only striked me as a complete jerk with little to no room for redemption.

My impressions got better by trailer #3. Definetly think I'm gonna like him more than Marston.

[Gunboat138]

3 hours ago, The Algerian said:

To be honest, the more I play RDR1, the more John strikes me as a complete idiot and a clown.

First thing he does is getting shot by Williamson while trying to act tough.

Along the way he falls for an extremely obvious trap in Mexico, in both cases he just got extremely lucky.

 

And then, his luck runs out, as Dutch explains what's going to happen after they're done with him and he just shrugs it off.

 

I'm not even sure he was trying to act tough, he came into it with naivete, "me and Bill go way back, he'll come along with me" even though there were probably countless signs that Bill hated him.  He even goes to draw his gun with rifles pointed at him, what did he think was gonna happen?  Same with playing both sides in Mexico.  Marston is dumb and lucky(to an extent). Lucky Bill didn't shoot him in the head and lucky the rebels didn't execute him, even after he mowed down hundreds of rebels.  

[SinisterRaccoon]

1 hour ago, Gunboat138 said:

I'm not even sure he was trying to act tough, he came into it with naivete, "me and Bill go way back, he'll come along with me" even though there were probably countless signs that Bill hated him.  He even goes to draw his gun with rifles pointed at him, what did he think was gonna happen?  Same with playing both sides in Mexico.  Marston is dumb and lucky(to an extent). Lucky Bill didn't shoot him in the head and lucky the rebels didn't execute him, even after he mowed down hundreds of rebels.  

He hated him then in that moment. We don't know what he was like before. And maybe he didn't go for the headshot for that reason idk.

[Cutter De Blanc]

"You always did think I was an idiot"
"That ain't fair Bill"

doesn't even have the sense to deny that at gunpoint

[Gunboat138]

Also, in relation to John's aloofness, I'm fully expecting to hear some jabs at John's hunting and herbalist skills.  Arthur is gonna be brewing some poison or something and he's gonna make fun of John for just picking flowers and doing nothing with them. Or how he just leaves dead animals where they lie. 

[Non Funkable Token]

3 hours ago, Gunboat138 said:

Also, in relation to John's aloofness, I'm fully expecting to hear some jabs at John's hunting and herbalist skills.  Arthur is gonna be brewing some poison or something and he's gonna make fun of John for just picking flowers and doing nothing with them. Or how he just leaves dead animals where they lie. 

Making jokes about John's inability to swim is a must.

[Nutduster]

 

[jamesos]

On 10/4/2018 at 8:30 PM, Gray-Hand said:

John Marston was a great character, but RDR1 wasn’t a particularly great story.  It was pretty good, but it definitely wasn’t one of the great American stories.

 

 It had several structural flaws such as the villains, particularly Dutch, not really being present throughout the story, and barely interacting with Marston.

It didn’t do a great job of conveying any sense of desperation on Marston’s part to free his wife and son.

It also could have done more with its theme of the death of the old west.

 

I’m looking very forward to the story of RDR2 though.  The implosion of a closely knit criminal gang has great dramatic potential, and it looks like they have crafted gameplay mechanics to enhance the players feel for the personal ties between all the characters, which will make it hit harder when it all unravels.

The only thing I agree with you on is them being able to do more with the death of the old west, everything else is just rhetoric. Have you even played RDR? Thats the entire plot of the game, looking for Dutch, he doesnt need to be in a bunch of scenes. Just hearing the lore and his backstory from dialogue is interesting enough. And though I didnt really feel the desperation, I definitely felt the strain of having the feds forcing you to do task after task after task, I got just as frustrated as Marston did. 

 

The thing about RDR is the characters and the world. No sh*t the story isnt that good, its a pretty by the books wild west story, but its the writing and characters that make it great. Do you know how f*cking bad Red Dead could've turned out if given to another company? 

[Cutter De Blanc]

24 minutes ago, UnknownDivision said:

 Do you know how f*cking bad Red Dead could've turned out if given to another company? 

I do. It's called Gun.

[Haha365]

17 hours ago, Cutter De Blanc said:

I do. It's called Gun.

For its time, I don't think it was that bad. Not RDR good, but not bad. 

 

Edit: Not to mention,  it didn't have much competition.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Haha365

[Grizzy]

The horse riding in that game was surprisingly very smooth lol

[Typhus]

On 10/9/2018 at 7:31 AM, Cutter De Blanc said:

John Marston = Clint Eastwood
Arthur Morgan = John Wayne

Arthur actually reminds me a lot more of Johnny Cash than anyone else.

[CJ Allex]

On 10/4/2018 at 9:03 PM, UndeadPotat0 said:

I can't imagine much of Dutch's gang being bigots. Lenny Summers and Tilly Jackson are African American and Javier Escuela is Hispanic. 

I could see it for sure. Would add more layers of tension within the gang. Just because they are sll in the same gang dosent mean they have to agree or like each other.

[RetardOfTheYear]

I'm not gonna lie, first time i've seen the few screenshots of the main character, it felt a bit dead rising 3-ish ot me (one of the least charismatic character ever) but since I don't care that much about main hero story at the end, more about the environment and the gameplay, i wasn't too concerned, lately I started to like a bit more from what i've seen though, but I will not bet that much on him being more interesting (and I didn't find Marston was that interesting although he was still interesting anyway)

[SinisterRaccoon]

On 10/17/2018 at 6:37 PM, CJ Allex said:

I could see it for sure. Would add more layers of tension within the gang. Just because they are sll in the same gang dosent mean they have to agree or like each other.

I think it says alot about how much the gang have rejected societal norms at the time by being opposed to bigotry.

Edited November 30, 2018 by UndeadPotat0

[Benaz]

On 10/5/2018 at 4:30 AM, Gray-Hand said:

John Marston was a great character, but RDR1 wasn’t a particularly great story.  It was pretty good, but it definitely wasn’t one of the great American stories.

 

 It had several structural flaws such as the villains, particularly Dutch, not really being present throughout the story, and barely interacting with Marston.

It didn’t do a great job of conveying any sense of desperation on Marston’s part to free his wife and son.

It also could have done more with its theme of the death of the old west.

 

I’m looking very forward to the story of RDR2 though.  The implosion of a closely knit criminal gang has great dramatic potential, and it looks like they have crafted gameplay mechanics to enhance the players feel for the personal ties between all the characters, which will make it hit harder when it all unravels.

 

Edited October 24, 2018 by Benaz
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