This has to be the greatest game a hardcore rdr2 player can experience for the first time.
As a person who already put 500 hours on rdr2 (and countless more on ps4 since release), having to play rdr1 for the very first time in my life may as well earn the #1 spot on my list for having the most timeless designs ever (especially considering it was made back in 2010. From my experience alone, I was only stuck to rdr2 for a very long time, especially if you can account that it only took for rdr1 **14 YEARS** just to get an actual PC port. Anyhow, what seems to also be one the biggest contributing factors to my radical satisfaction to such a game was the fact that rdr2 was supposed to act as a dedicated prequel to rdr1 - and since i had already been stuck playing rdr2 for a long time, that means that i was basically incarcerated as playing as john in the epilogue. Speaking of the epilogue of rdr2 and prior to actually playing rdr1, i had always been dissatisfied as to the lack of any significant content in New Austin as you only get a few bounty missions and some minor exploration, which is basically about it. With RDR1 being a more dedicated game to the spaghetti western desires in the desert, i was completely SHOCKED as to how much content it contained with the succession of rdr2. For example, right at the beginning of rdr1, you literally start off boarding a train in Armadillo - which in rdr2 was just basically a useless, empty, refugee camp of cholera victims. while i do understand that the developers didn't want to put too much effort into polishing New Austin for rdr2 in order to resort for the storyline continuation dedicated in rdr1, it still extremely shocks me on how absolutely stale rdr2 literally feels in New Austin right after the epilogue not knowing that such a first-hand player like me would get to experience the tragic wonders of hunting down your once frowned upon gang members of the past.
Now, another prominent topic that i also was deeply astonished by was how less restrictive the game mechanics were in rdr1. While I'm not saying that the rdr2's weren't a direct downgrade from 1's, what i should point out here was basically how extremely less restricting rdr1's mechanics were, especially when it came to minor tasks. Rdr1 just frankly gave the player more freedom in their actions as a whole, such as being able to preserve your honor by wearing a bandana and not worrying about which 4 weapons to choose from your horse's saddle every time you engage in a battle. You even have the ability to pay off any amount of bounty for free by just using a pardon letter (which i couldn't even believe wasn't even a feature in rdr2 in the first place). I would also like to point out how well-detailed the game was for its age, such as when you can get bigger profits off of animal pelts by selling them in areas where the animal is purely non-existent (grizzly bears being sold in mexico, etc.)
While I do have more to say about appreciating the classical design of rdr1, i'm just glad that i actually got to experience one of the most timeless masterpieces rockstar has made for the very first time, especially with the fact that I had already expended my life playing on the game that very well represented the unplanned prequel to it. I would actually pay 1 billion dollars to time travel back to 2010 just to have the chance to play this game on the xbox 360 right after a school day. Too bad i won't have the luxury of having to insert a physical disk anymore and wait for a crt TV to boot up everyday.
(also, rdr1 has the freaking wilhem scream in it, which might be the #1 reason why i'll play the f out of this over 2 from now on)
