It’s stayed in my top 5 since its release in 2010, and I wanted to post in full about it awhile ago, but it’s a fairly exhausted topic.
Most games by Rockstar, I’ve picked up per its release date. The last, Red Dead Redemption 2, arriving when everything became all digital anyway, so it was the mere click of a button. Not in the case of the original title, where I’d roll over to the shit-pit that was GameStop and grab something where the physical cover alone was enough to solidify a ‘wow.’
My last replay of this campaign was sometime after my one and only playthrough of the sequel back in 2018 - - really 2019 on count of how late in the year 2 came out.
This time around, I’m revisiting after a very extensive replay of Grand Theft Auto IV (2008).
GTA IV specifically was very much the blueprint for both Redemption’s world, and just how the story of John Marston would be delivered. Both titles brought on a high definition era and redefined many of its qualities.
There would be no John Marston without Niko Bellic, so I’m going to focus a lot on that aspect instead of the sequel that simply expanded on something that had already existed and thrived for years.
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[New Austin Chapter]
“We die alone, but we live among men.”
IV and Redemption begin with our lead hero exiting a boat, exhibiting very different, yet equally sinister slices of the supposed “American Dream.”
You boot up GTA IV for the first time - - Soviet Connection is blaring. The theme does not let up. Crime, alongside all of Niko’s baggage from the Serbian war follows him where ever he goes. In spite of this, Liberty City is Bellic’s home to stay. No one in Niko’s story truly wishes for revenge more than Niko himself.
John Marston isn’t given the same luxury of wanting revenge. He’s ordered to enact such a thing for Bureau agents not wanting to get their hands dirty.
John already had his life of crime, something he left long ago. Only through sudden intimidation and kidnapping of his loved ones was John forced to confront his past head on.
In contrast to the predecessor, Red Dead Redemption’s introduction barely wastes any breath. A simple, stand-alone depressing stroke of a piano is the choice of music you are first greeted with. The end of the west.
John doesn’t mutter a single word until you get to the gameplay. For the first few minutes, you’re left with train passengers discussing good and evil, alongside aviation.
Ultimately, you couldn’t ask for a more appropriate start to this adventure.
In spite of what’s at stake, Marston’s in control of the narrative. John’s motives and ambitions are all heard from John’s mouth as he’s riding horseback. You never get it second hand, and that’s immediately what defines him as a protagonist.
Something that’s stuck with me forever since first playing was John initially confronting former friend Bill Williamson at Fort Mercer. You’re naturally used to the Rockstar main lead being vulgar and snippy on the automatic, but here you’re given someone who genuinely wants the best out of the situation.
John’s former gang, the Van Der Linde gang, wasn’t something they precisely mapped out for you from the beginning. It’s meant to be a subject that only expands as you go along. For the sake of the beginning, Bill Williamson is the big and bad.
Most of the GTAs begin with a betrayal, or lead up to a big betrayal in the following acts. And while it’s something that still happens in this game as well... central betrayal had already happened off screen.
Again, John trusts you with all of the information he provides. You don’t get a flashback scene. You don’t see his wife and son until the game decides you are ready.
Marston’s tasked with hunting down his old friends (dead or alive, more so dead) in order to earn his freedom. He further justifies the act by proclaiming they all left him to die in a past life.
Seeing as John takes a shotgun blast to the ribs within seconds of first confronting Bill, it’s safe to say old habits die hard...
Bonnie MacFarlane, a young woman maintaining a ranch with her father, gets Marston to a doctor and looks after him for the next few days on her property.
Marston temporarily wears a cast, and will periodically hold onto where he was shot. For its time, it was an amazing detail to not only show John’s strength/durability, but also present this mortality factor where the guy you’re controlling isn’t as untouchable as you’d think. Niko & John’s gunshot wounds are otherwise purely cosmetic.
Bonnie MacFarlane: Red Dead Redemption’s introductory guardian angel and tutorial guide.
Given their charming chemistry and the fact she’s the first lady, let alone first loyal acquaintance John’s shown to have in RDR... the player would naturally reach the conclusion that they’d be a great couple. And I’m glad the relationship was never reduced to such a thing.
Bonnie’s voice isn’t always the most pleasant to listen to, but she is a part of the more positive female portrayals in games. She’s entirely honest and keeps to a lifestyle that doesn’t ‘condemn’ her. Let alone how happy she is with it, even when she knows the business has problems.
GTA IV either had commentary on misogyny, or otherwise simply had misogynistic humor. A good foil Niko had would be his best friend’s sister. She grew up in a house full of Irish gangsters for a family. Her key source of function in the plot was how she looked at someone else who’s fucked up, and the killing didn’t impress her.
Roman Bellic gets to a point where he pleads for his cousin to give up the violence and vengeance; Kate McReary’s the one who knows pleading doesn’t work. Kate’s a positive portrayal as she’s the only one to point out Niko’s bullshit to his face multiple times. And she does this while respecting Niko Bellic the person, not Niko Bellic the killer.
You get A LOT more of this in Red Dead Redemption.
Niko’s so invested and praised in contract killing all around Liberty City that he develops an ego by the time he’s barely stepped foot in the central island.
ALL of the Redemption characters brush off John Marston’s bounty hunter & gunslinger skills. And I do mean every single one. In his world, any man can do that. Thinly veiled threats are muttered from time to time, but Marston typically doesn’t consider himself as anything special. With or without the reputation of an outlaw.
The player doesn’t fully know yet about Marston’s already existing farm in Beecher’s Hope.
John helps out MacFarlane’s Ranch by any means. Even climbing and jumping inside a burning barn to free all of the trapped horses. In doing this, Marston doesn’t ask anything from Bonnie, other than to be a friend and potentially help his own business in the future.
John goes from owing 15 dollars for the doctor bill (lol) to being someone the MacFarlanes are in tremendous debt towards, just out of loyalty.
Bonnie can’t help in the Williamson pursuit, but she does direct you over to Marshal Johnson in the town of Armadillo.
By the time you reach Armadillo, at least back then... that was your first go at exploring the map early on. You’d have no idea how big the world truly is. The mountain path leading into the town by itself was fucking beautiful, even now. Forget the sequel. Games today seriously struggle maintaining the art direction of something close to decades old.
Redemption’s towns and regions nail exactly how it’s like in the old movies. I think that’s a key difference that helps. With Number 2, you’re playing a blatant hyper realistic western shooter RPG. Here, you’re playing something timeless, and you’re playing a Clint Eastwood flick all at once.
Marshal Johnson, again, adds to the immersion. He’s played off very much identical to how he would be played in any random spaghetti western.
You could say I have a better understanding of Marshal and Marston’s dynamic now compared to launch. He had more reason to be skeptical of Marston than other characters. He makes it known. I always enjoyed the comradery but I understand it’s not purely for comradery sake.
Probably says something that with corruption and deadly gangs leaking about, this former gang member was the best thing to have happened to the town, as well as the region in a long time.
Strangers (and Freaks) was a gameplay element first featured in GTA IV that made its way here. Became the norm for HD era Rockstar.
GTA IV Strangers, you’d just find a random character on the street, drive them somewhere or have a scripted gunfight, and you’d be done.
Red Dead, basically I could do without being forced to play Liar’s Dice, or be forced to grab some random herbs in the middle of no where. All to really just get one extra cutscene.
There are a couple Strangers that are so obscure that the casual player would’ve never known they existed. There’s one where you buy the freedom of a Chinese slave and then wait a couple days before you find him high on opioids.
Obviously the most valuable Stranger encounters are the ones that extend/challenge Niko and John’s moral compass.
Niko will make it known he doesn’t have the time, but will still make the occasional good deed. The main game will provide individual player choices whether to spare and kill from time to time, but Strangers often has Niko acting good on his own instinct. It’s very much Niko testing his own free will, he deep down struggles with a lot of the orders he’s given and yearns to be free.
John helps people in Red Dead because he wants to be useful with a head on his shoulders, although Red Dead gets about as cynical, if not, more cynical than IV sometimes.
Two people stranded in the desert. One thought “God” would help her, the other so stubborn about going by his own directions that he puts a gun to your head so you won’t help him. At least one of them was definitely very dead after repeat encounters (starved), but John always just left with his tail tucked tight. If you were getting help from Niko Bellic, it’s almost not an option. I think Niko can be more persistent, and John often reaches the conclusion that some, like himself, are beyond saving.
Red Dead Redemption debuted with this edge of an honor + fame system. Halfway into all of my past playthroughs of this game, I’ve had John be regarded as a gunslinger and a hero. By the end, NPCs around towns will know and respect John Marston’s name. Nuns will gift him. One guy I saved found me at another time and gave me 54 dollars just because he wanted to.
I’ve never known anyone - a single person - to have ever played John with low honor. The system’s more or less there to encourage as well as reward you for being good during gameplay.
Marston encounters a figure known only as the Strange Man; Top hat with mustache and elegant suit. Not of this world. He’s a figment of the afterlife who’s tallying John Marston’s sins.
Besides some of the world’s most powerful foreshadowing, this was an impressive feat for Rockstar to play around with supernatural elements.
I’m always fascinated by the harshness of Strange Man’s encounters. 100 good deeds from John Marston inevitably fails outweighing just one massacre. John’s alive in the moment, and yet his life is remarked as already gone when speaking to this entity. Nothing about it is over-the-top or overtly antagonistic, which is part of why it’s so damn chilling. Phenomenal “look in the mirror” storytelling that actually works.
Marston & Johnson’s attempts at apprehending Williamson had shown to be messy.
While the game paints this picture that Bill Williamson’s an uncultured half-wit... his gang is shown to break into innocent people’s homes. Raping the women and hanging/mutilating the men.
The women that survive take righteous anger in the Marshal Johnson.
There’s also the separate event where John saves Bonnie MacFarlane from being hanged by Williamson’s men in a ransom trap. Was never too fond of that mission, but understand why they did it.
The tortured women of Ridgewood Farm provided a more substantial stance on John being delusional that his past way of life would never have always resorted to that.
John will describe his time in the Van Der Linde gang in the same robinhood esque fashion, but also suppress Dutch’s brutality as it hits too close for comfort.
John Marston had to band together a team to stop Bill’s terrorism, and this is where the chapter takes a much crucial lighthearted derail.
Besides the support of the Marshal, you gather the allegiance of a snake oil salesman (Nigel West Dickens), a literal madman exhuming bodies at cemeteries for treasure (Seth Briars), and a drunken Irishman known only as... Irish.
Nigel West Dickens as the old timey conman always screamed good natured fun. His role in the story and his banter with John Marston was simply one of a kind. It makes sense that John had grown to like Nigel the most out of the New Austin trinity.
Seth Briars is a fucking deranged gremlin, which is also why you gotta love him. I can’t tell you how fucking hilarious it was each and every time that all of his efforts in obtaining treasure were wasted on a glass eye. CLASS ACT!
Irish, again, is just Irish. It’s understandable for a western set in 1911 to do this stereotype, but it comes after GTA IV where Packie McReary was one of the greatest Irish characters in fiction without needing to put on a leprechaun voice.
The allegiance ends the chapter with a grand payoff.
The Assault on Fort Mercer.With the help of his new friends, John performs a triumphant gatling gun attack on the gang hideout.
All of Williamson’s men are dead. Gang officially disbanded.
The story advances where Bill Williamson, now on his own, flees to Nuevo Paraíso to reunite with Javier Escuella; the other wanted ex-member of the Van Der Linde gang.
John Marston’s going to Mexico...
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[Revolución!] John Marston and Irish arrive to the country on a raft.
They had been in the river from dusk til dawn fighting off bandits from the other side.
The first horse ride into Mexico is something that’s stayed in my brain since 2010. Even now, if you made me point to the most lovely display of modern gaming; I’d look no further than the Far Away segment. It’s forever that powerful to me. The sequel tries living up to it multiple times when there’s just no replicating the original feeling.
The music that plays during battles of this whole chapter in general is still out of this world. Real heavy on the sax!
John Marston arrives into the town of Chuparosa. (My favorite destination in the entire game)
While in Chuparosa, John meets western legend, Landon Ricketts. With supervision and sharpshooter training, Landon & John make a pair of two aged gunslingers in a era that’s *seemingly* bested the both of them in some ways.
This is where my opinion changes more negatively compared to several years ago.
Landon Ricketts is a vain, prolapsed anus.
He’s the in-universe folklore legend who simultaneously has the most obnoxious fucking self-absorbed opinion of himself.
Just because Landon’s modeled after Lee Van Cleef and can handle himself doesn’t mean he carries any actual wisdom.
Ricketts moved and retired to somewhere that had been more convenient for him to settle quietly,
He says all this unwarranted catty shit to John out of his own insecurities. All the big talk, and mind you; Landon Ricketts is no where to be found when the Revolution really pops off. He’s around and in your ear for a whopping 3 missions and then fucks off into nothingness.
You’re supposed to value the dynamic of this duo when I don’t believe either truly enjoy the company. John very much knows right away that Landon’s an entitled asshat who can’t handle being a wash up. At least Marston works on a goal without begging you to know his name is John Marston.
Landon Ricketts makes scarce, not before introducing you to Luisa Fortuna. A teacher and a noble woman amongst the rebels. She will be important later.
John’s real first order of business in the Williamson/Escuella pursuit was reaching the town of Escalera and seeking help from the Mexican army.
Marston meets with Vincente De Santa, as well as Colonel Agustin Allende.
Allende was a sadistic, genocidal rapist of a military leader, with De Santa being an equally morally bankrupt accomplice as the Colonel’s captain in command.
There’s enrichment to be had with this part of the game as you’re really seeing the psyche of evil, and how a government rooted in evil tend to treat their own side shitty.
Allende and De Santa are men who laugh in your face, smile and only speak of promises that they’d never intend on truly delivering.
Only, De Santa’s shit-eating grin typically goes right away the second Allende yells at him like a dog.
The other army captain, Espinoza doesn’t at all hide the fact he’s got no respect for De Santa.
These men at the end of the day are all responsible for killing hundreds of rebels and burning their homes, and then you have this short stubby fascist with an eyepatch who hates his rival captain’s homosexuality. They’re all just very mean pieces of shit that have somehow existed as a function for that long.
In the grand scheme of things, Javier Escuella was Allende’s vital muscle for quite some time, and you were foolish to believe the Colonel was going to give that up. Whether or not Allende could deliver on Williamson and Escuella wasn’t the point. He was never going to.
John is lead on for awhile longer. Realizes on his own that he was killing undeserving, throwing fire bottles into houses just for him to not be respected.
Marston says he belongs to no one on his search for who he’s after. Taken directly from Niko Bellic.
Espinoza says otherwise, but oh well.
Meeting with Luisa Fortuna reveals the true hardships of honest rebels during your violent escapades with their common enemy. Luisa’s father was killed. Her underaged sister, you have to escort out of the country with bullets flying everywhere. Like many others, the Fortuna family home would not be seen standing much longer.
The bad you’ve done is hardly confronted, and if so, this was the opportunity to make things right.
You’ve heard from your recent employers about Abraham Reyes - - rebellion leader.
You’re tasked with saving Reyes from his arranged execution on the grounds of El Presido.
Army officials dead. Reyes now allied with Marston.
Something very amusing about the time spent with De Santa and Reyes is seeing two smarmy guys speaking ill on each other.
Luisa has this cruel running gag at her expense that she’s never made aware of. She has you break Reyes free, thinking the two will eventually marry when they claim their freedom. Abraham when left alone can never remember Luisa’s name. If she’s not “Laura” she’s “a peasant girl with a tight cunt.”
In spite of the cruel gag, Luisa isn’t any less of a genuinely honorable person in this story, and I’ve always been more than happy with such.
Abraham Reyes is dark comedy in general. You’d think good and evil would be set in stone for this whole chapter, but being with this rebel leader takes you to this sharp nihilist turn. The best motivational speaker towards freedom is a simple womanizer who’d have a gold statue of himself if he could.
One thing John found troublesome. He speaks to Reyes about his motives. Marston’s past life in the gang. His former leader, Dutch’s descent into madness. Abraham obtains first-hand knowledge of Dutch’s horrible ways, and propels to wanting to shake Dutch’s hand. Abraham by himself shouldn’t go unmonitored, but John vaguely seeing another Dutch in the making is, well... yeah. It’s fucked.
You meet back with De Santa some odd days later where him and Allende deliver “good news.”
Bill Williamson and Javier Escuella captured in Chuparosa, which definitely isn’t a trap. Yep. It’s a trap.
Turns out going against government’s orders would get you killed. But credit where credit’s due... fucking Abraham Reyes saved Marston’s life with a rifle in hand.
Espinoza’s immediately killed by John ahead of the betrayal... and eventually De Santa meets his end at the cemetery of Sepulcro. A good thing Seth wasn’t there to take his badge and uniform.
Surprisingly, suddenly the rebels aren’t so weak in the fight after all.
And unlike the army... Reyes is the one to deliver on the location of Javier Escuella.
It’s a bitter reunion, but John finally gets to confront Javier for being left behind in the past. While you can’t evade what needs to be done, some semblance of closure is there.
Javier’s death will bring on the first appearance of bureau agents Edgar Ross and Archer Fordham since the very beginning of the game.
John was not at all happy with what had happened. However, this just left unfinished business with Bill Williamson before the work in Nuevo Paraíso was done.
The war had reached its climax in Escalera.
Burnings, bodies on the street, gun squads. No matter.
Luisa was a casualty and hero of Mexico, even if Abraham kept calling her Laura.
You use the army’s own gatling gun against them with glorious victory.
Williamson and Allende flee the Colonel’s mansion, only this time - - no one was getting away.
In a last ditch effort after the wagon breaks down, Agustin Allende takes his sword and “captures” Bill Williamson for you to claim.
*Allende dies from Marston headshot*
“Alright, John. I’ll come quietly...”
*Bill falls from the shots of John’s cattleman revolver*
At last, the Revolution was won, and the journey in Mexico was now complete.
Abraham Reyes becomes the new leader, and soon-to-be dictator of the land.
While disheartening that things might not really change for the better after all, John still urges Abraham to use his powers for good before bidding farewell.
The game obviously doesn’t end here, but this chapter high and low is the undisputed peak. It’s the one part of the game you really get to soak in and enjoy. Of course, I’m biased. I’m Salvadoran and so the Spanish was much appreciated. A great dive into culture that the original westerns, ie the source material otherwise shittily executed.
I’m sure I’d feel the same way still if I was actually born in the United States to boot.
Even though most of the chapter’s characters were assholes... that alone doesn’t make them bad characters. I didn’t like when GTA TBOGT called me a four letter word that I’ve been called before while walking around my own neighborhood. So this made up for that. I applaud them refraining from easy below-the-belt stereotypes and instead applied negative attributes that were constructive as well as coherent to the plot.
John Marston rides off away from Mexico into the sunset.
The Colonel’s body laying deserted in the middle of the trail...
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[West Elizabeth]
“Our time has passed, John.”
Marston’s back to where it all started in Blackwater, answering to agent Ross and Fordham.
Back in the United States for a minute, and already a swift patriotic kick in the ass.
Dutch Van Der Linde.
The brains of it all gone haywire.
Dutch is the last target.
Going after Dutch was something John already knew by the previous chapter.
Nonetheless, the tone here is understandably grueling.
After his last two brief encounters throughout the ordeal, Edgar Ross finally spews out his diatribe on salvation, and says everything to remind John of what scum he is. Not at all grateful that gangs were eliminated and a tyrannical government from another country was dismantled just so two men were taken down like asked.
Accompanying Ross... you get a new aged high powered pistol... and a car! That only they can drive! Womp womp!
John had spent his time only describing Dutch as someone who had ideals in a past life and simply went mad.
In spite of that, Dutch Van Der Linde’s infinitely more crafty and opportunistic than the game has been letting on.
Dutch saw what the US government had done to Native Americans and formed a new gang in the forests of pissed off men who wanted their land back.
It’s a very grotesque line of fire you see RD playing with.
What the United States did was already heinous enough. Then you have this 50 year old lunatic in long johns who’s getting enjoyment and sport out of the bloodshed.
It’s in some ways worse than what the rebels back in Mexico had to deal with, because at least plenty of the rebels would rise above the torture and win the movement even temporarily.
But what Dutch is doing only leaves you with hundreds of natives being killed for his benefit.
It’s the ugliest scenario they could have conjured up.
I think mainstream Red Dead audience gets too caught up in the idea of “Dutch gone crazy” and not maybe that this was always entirely who he was to begin with.
Dutch uses these men to rob the Bank of Blackwater.
Strange Men reminded John a long time ago about a Heidi McCourt, who was shot in the head by Dutch during the Blackwater Massacre. An innocent bystander described to have had her own eye hanging from a thread, with her brains against the wall.
After all those years, Dutch returns to this town to destroy more people’s lives.
When ever John & Dutch meet together face to face for the first time in ages during the heist, it ends, again, with another poor lady taking a shot to the head. Another cowardly, yet successful escape for Dutch.
How does Marston witness the same awful things a decade apart, and still reaches the conclusion that this wasn’t always an absolute monster? I’ll always believe John tried to do good even with previous ties. It’s only him routinely making excuses where you don’t fully get it. He did that shit even with Bill.
This is shorter than the chapter before, as the game understands that Marston’s tale needs wrapping up.
Your quest for Van Der Linde is accompanied by a cocaine addicted Professor MacDougal, and Nastas, a federal informant from the reserve who saw the evil in Dutch.
A little dark humor, mostly one sided racist banter for MacDougal to bash Nastas and his people as savages.
Incase you didn’t know, Rockstar Games is very... very British.
GTA evolved to have accurate portrayals of different cultures. Between the lines, GTA San Andreas was written by DJ Pooh (Friday). And when San Andreas returned for GTA V, Franklin & Lamar’s actors have gone on the record saying they had to improvise and completely change the scripts to something that didn’t stink of London slang.
Professor MacDougal annoyed some of the fans, but you can tell Rockstar had too much fun going over his shit the same way they often tackle their own American experience via GTA radio stations.
Everything’s brought to a seeming close when the Bureau agents, American soldiers and Marston advance toward the snowy mountains of Cochinay with military weaponry to eliminate Van Der Linde once and for all.
This had all the makings of stellar battles as before, except it’s nothing too pleasurable.
Any joy to be had when ultimately confronting Dutch is squandered by Dutch’s overall message, and suicide.
“When I’m gone, they’ll just find another monster. They have to, to justify their wages.”
I don’t share the sentiment of sympathy for Dutch the way other players do.
It’s possible for me to hate what he did, and also detest the work of the government agents.
John regroups with Edgar Ross, and that gunshot to Dutch’s already mangled corpse was just self-fulfilling tastelessness from a busy body of an office clerk.
Nonetheless, the dirty government work was over and the routinely spoken reward had arrived.
Marston’s told to get back to his family on his farm in Beecher’s Hope...
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[The Last Enemy That Shall be Destroyed]
John finally had his wife and his son back. Abigail and Jack Marston. Back in his arms once more.
No more bounty hunting.
No more disastrous threats.No more senseless murder.
John Marston felt as though he finally obtained redemption and could start anew like he always wanted for himself and the few loved ones he has left.
Abigail had lived the life with John. She knew the gang life as well as him.
Jack was 16 and a child who saw death more than once. His relationship with his dad was uncomfortable at best because there was always the element of when John would be absent again.
The word of mouth spoken about John isn’t always pleasant no matter how high the honor system is. To many, he’s still a killer, and Jack knows of this.
The Marston son spends much of his time hiding away in books that correlate with what John has done. It’s an easier escape for him than the reality that what his father and his family endured over the years was not at all entertaining for them.
Instead of shooting people, John now uses the same rifles to keep crows away from his corn, and to hunt for the family’s food.
An old kook named Uncle (no one’s actual uncle) was a leftover from the Van Der Linde gang who did no real killing. Thus, was under the radar of the Bureau and Pinkertons.
Uncle had lived with the Marstons for years at their ranch, almost like a grandfather. He’s a side of the harsh past that was actually good natured. Just comically lazy.
Uncle had watched over the ranch for John all this time, which meant things ultimately sucked for keeping business afloat.
John & Uncle encounter rustlers, and the player’s given an option to pursue them or leave them be
Upon letting the rustlers run off, alive....
John: “I’m done fighting a fight that ain’t mine.”
Uncle: “You really have changed.”
This was, in my eyes, the most underrated exchange in all of Red Dead’s storyline.
It negates everything that suggested John Marston was perpetually doomed.
Everything he did, and the most gratifying feeling was to let a few nobodies live as free as them, regardless of wrongdoing.
John brings Jack along for the hunting, all around the woods Dutch had previously lingered.
John struggles ensuring his boy that all the troubles of before are over. Needless to say, the bonding’s very crucial for the both of them. These missions are much more easygoing, but it’s the uncertainty that drives them. Fighting so long to be free, and the stress doesn’t fully vanish when you are.
Like promised long ago, Bonnie MacFarlane helps John with the ranch.
Revisiting MacFarlane’s Ranch with both the wife and the son.
Those farming tutorials from the very beginning of the game make their way back, and John couldn’t be more happier because it’s the life he wanted. A mundane but long haul reward for the player with these missions.
There’s dialogue on the journey back home with materials where Abigail doesn’t think they’ll get away free.
Now, when Kate McReary expressed doubt in the same exact way during GTA IV’s conclusion... that meant Kate’s death. Within seconds.
But here, as time went on, you’re left with the plausibility that maybe things can be safe.
Regardless, any player of GTA IV who moved on to the following R* should’ve been wary right as Abigail said that. Problem being that Red Dead’s tragedy had a little something else in mind.
Before: The ultimate consequence was losing someone the protagonist cared about.
Now: “The Day John Marston Stopped Shooting.”
Everything at Beecher’s Hope was finally perfect and content.
John and his son Jack were in the barn speaking as comfortably as ever on a bright sunny morning.
Any replay of this mission is always met with the utterly cold, mocking foreshadowing of John’s death. Thinly veiled wholesome dialogue, at that.
The topic of aviation from Red Dead’s opening sequence was brought back full circle. Jack Marston describes it as “one of the machines that can turn men into angels.” In the moment, it’s the loveliest thing John had ever heard.
When you’re playing the final act for the first time, you don’t even notice that Uncle is outside the barn window scoping out the army men emerging from the hill.
By the time John knows, there’s absolutely no time to act.
Jack’s ordered to go inside with his mother.
John: “Well, old man, looks like things is about to get settled once and for all.”
Uncle: “So it seems.”
Edgar Ross sends the US Army to kill one man in broad daylight.
This was always going to be the outcome, but John wasn’t wrong in his naivety that this wouldn’t happen to him. He did everything he was told until he made himself one loose end.
Uncle’s given a chance to run away, and he doesn’t. And stays and helps fight off the troops. Really, the first one to open defense fire.
The stealth attack becomes so severe that Uncle doesn’t stay alive for very long. More and more soldiers swarm around the house.
Jack Marston, aged 16, previously not being brave enough to shoot a bear... takes his rifle and picks off mercenaries.
No time left to spare, John Marston guides his family to safety.
Abigail and Jack escape the property through the back of the barn with the remaining horse.
To make it clear there would be no running after this,
To make things so his family could finally live at peace,
John Marston was left to face these men alone.As tragic as it was, not a total cheap shot.
John gifts you, the player, one last time with the ability to take as many of Ross’ men with him to the ground.
Once there’s been years to soak in the sadness of the ending, you grow to appreciate that it was an *almost* fair final fight.
Taking them head on with one handgun before swiftly being shot to smithereens.
Edgar Ross walks off with the remaining men after John was executed.
Jack and Abigail go back to find the patriarch in a pool of his own blood.
All either could do was grieve.
John was no more...- - - - - - - - - -
[Remember My Family]
The year is 1914.
John, Abigail, Uncle... all buried over the hill of Beecher’s Hope.
Strange Man had told John that it was a “fine spot.”
Jack Marston looks over their graves at age 19 before going on a trip.
Jack roams what’s left of the old west with the same honor and fame as his father.
All of John’s baggage transferred over to the point where his son dons his father’s hat, and can wear the same attire as Jack aged into his old man’s looks.
People responded fairly negatively to this player replacement. Was seen as a cardboard cutout of a prolific character, only less charming.
But it’s somber as this kid in the end wasn’t allowed to live his own life. He did the one thing his dad never wanted and became his dad.
No triumphant ending shootout.
What happens, Jack travels on horse and stalks the family of Ross before he can locate and kill Edgar in 1 secluded duel with no witnesses.
Still, a good eye-for-an-eye end.
Where one outlaw’s avenged... another outlaw is born.- - - - - - - - -
I’m glad I gave the story another spin even when I knew it too well to the point of fatigue.
I do feel for Jack more this time around, all of his lines about being alone are depressing. The same cold emptiness from IV’s ending, except no one’s calling to go to the strip club or go bowling.
This all took days to write, and I recently did a 7 and a half hour session of the DLC for the Halloween season. So yeah. Holy shit.
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