WoodrowSkillson posted:

one of the things that always make me sad is people that skip the last ones because they (correctly, for High Honor) feel arthur is done with them. you miss out on one of the most heart wrenching parts of the entire game "I'm sorry ma'am"

Ainsley McTree posted:

Yeah I never got a vibe that there was supposed to be a romantic thing between Arthur and Charlotte, I think he's just drawn to an opportunity to do something good and help someone for a change.

I kinda like that about the red dead series in general; it's a GTA clone but you (well I, anyway) never feel compelled to be a psychopath like in the other series, the world of red dead is grim and hard enough as it is and all I wanna do is help the poor shmucks that I come across. The first game had that vibe too, I've never been able to bring myself to do a low honor run.

WoodrowSkillson posted:

one of the things that always make me sad is people that skip the last ones because they (correctly, for High Honor) feel arthur is done with them. you miss out on one of the most heart wrenching parts of the entire game "I'm sorry ma'am"

NikkolasKing posted:

I loved that man and I am going to ride and take care of Buell for much of the rest of the game. Maybe not all of it, I don't wanna subject the old boy to gunfights and carnage.

rotinaj posted:

Feel free to ignore the following spoiler, though I am still going to be vague.

Don’t ride him during story missions.

Hihohe posted:

Buell is a good horse to ride and i suggest riding him

dialhforhero posted:

So when I play online I get the FFFFFFF error. Hooray.

I think it may be related to the G-Hub? I noticed last night I got some weird clicking in my headphones, which told me there was a voltage issue suddenly. I restarted my game and they went away. I played today and got it each time (4 times after any random thing, first time it was triggered by being in the Moonshine shack and opening up my catalogue). I looked up the issue and did the troubleshooting things but it doesn't really help. I opened up G-Hub after reading about someone correlating it to that, and noticed there WAS an update last night. Anyone else know what to do?

Hihohe posted:

Buell is a good horse to ride and i suggest riding him

PlushCow posted:

NikkolasKing posted:

He is a good horse and I will ride him for travel and fishing/hunting but 'take care of my horse" doesn't jive with "ride him into madness and mayhem." M y GF lost her Buell when he got killed in a mission or something and she was so sad.

Hihohe posted:

During one of the later missions, Arthur shows a lot of love to your active horse and if its Buell its just so

dialhforhero posted:

Now I can’t even get i to Online mode. Constant hangs on loading.

I have done everything short of a Windows reinstall because that suggestion is always dumb.

Your Brain on Hugs posted:

He really is just an absolute piece of poo poo in ways that none of the other villains can quite match. Always hate that point where you've put off doing his mission so he's not at camp but you have to go do it to progress the story.

Jerusalem posted:

It's time for me to express a very controversial and brave opinion.... I think Micah is kind of a jerk.

Hihohe posted:

During one of the later missions, Arthur shows a lot of love to your active horse and if its Buell its just so

NikkolasKing posted:

They're both with Hamish now. hunting and fishing in peace.

NikkolasKing posted:

And so that is the main game done. I was so tired yesterday but I played the game all day because I'll be away from my PC for a week and I didn't want to stop. I still have the epilogue of course but I had to get this done. I rushed through things a bit, looking at videos there is so much more that happens in camp than I realized, but oh well. I'll have a lot to do on my replays whenever that happen but it most assuredly will happen.

They're both with Hamish now. hunting and fishing in peace.


So....what to say?

1. On a story level, Micah being the rat is just as confusing as Molly since Milton says it happened after the "Caribbean" which I guess means Guarma? But what does that make of Blackwater or the Saint-Denis bank job? Abigail's miraculous escape and Milton/the Pinkertons being right there and ready for them is just so bizarre. My GF likes to headcanon Hosea helped Abigail escape but I don't know if it's ever explained and even if it was, it doesn't explain why the Pinkertons were already out in force in the city.

2. Poor Bill. Poor simple, stupid Bill. I really did like him as one of my favorites in the gang. But however loyal he and Javier are, it's like Arthur said "we ain't the ones who changed." I did miss a lot of camp banter but I got this one

Earlier on Arthur says to Charles that hiding away in some cave just isn't in Dutch's character. A really neat detail I might have missed if not for my GF But yeah, between this and other things like him screaming at Ms. Grimshaw "we need money or we're DEAD! DEAD!!" - how could Bill and Javier fail to see what is happening? I guess maybe they see less of Dutch the human being and more of Dutch the messiah. Arthur knows Dutch the human being.

3. Speaking of Susan Grimshaw, that is one major problem I have with the ending. What the gently caress was that? One person sides with Arthur, one of the OG gang members, and her death is barely an afterthought. Of course Arthur and the others are more important but just writing off a gang member like taht sucks so hard.

4. And now...thoughts on the ending. I can't see why a High Honor Arthur would go for the money instead of trying to help John. It's just like if you choose to help Sadie, who I assumed would die without my help. The only thing Arthur wants to do with his remaining life is protect people and help give them a new life. Hearing his wheezing getting worse and worse as you rescue Abigail and then flee with John, that combined with the music, just drills it into your soul how much Arthur is clawing and struggling to stay alive to help those he loves. I did not expect Micah out of nowhere but I probably should have. It's the perfect finale, the most fitting ay for Arthur to go, even if he didn't finish the job. I hear Low Honor Arthur actually gets killed by Micah. Low Honor is just poo poo in every way, isn't it?

5. But now I suppose t's time to play Boring Life Simulator. I'm sure John will live out the rest of his days driving wagons or milking cows. Right....? Serious talk though, there's probably some interesting commentary on how people would rather go about fighting and killing than living a normal life. That honestly describes a lot of the gang, including Arthur at points. Although it could be as simple as "I already live a normal life so let me be a cool gunslinger man."

WoodrowSkillson posted:

1. Blackwater was Micah just being Micah. He had recently saved Dutch's life in an undisclosed manner, and Dutch was receptive to him as a result. He convinces Dutch to do a risky job because Arthur and Hosea were absent while setting up a different score in the city. In Saint-Denis the issue was not that Micah was already talking, its that Bronte had already already informed every cop and pinkerton in the area that Dutch was working for him and in dire straits. And then after the trolley job the pinkertons are tailing the gang constantly, with help from the underworld. Dutch and Hosea try and pull a cattle town move in the biggest city in 3 states and are utterly out of their depth. Chapter 3 and 4 are about showing how Dutch and Hosea let hubris strike them down because they twice try and pull con jobs in areas they are unfamiliar. This is not the west where people come and go frequently. They insert themselves in settled palaces and think they can blend in. They are not prepared for the increasingly modern police force and pseudo FBI they are dealing with.

Abigail's escape is not really miraculous. The pinkertons don't care about the handmaidens of the camp, they want Dutch and the other triggermen. Ostensibly most of the pinkerton's are not psychopaths like milton and ross and would object to mistreating a woman simply to get a rise out of a gang. This is before the modern justice system so as she was not a target they just let her go and treated her as a local cop problem or even as a victim of the evil gang. And yeah its also possible Hosea just helped her escape and took the fall himself, he references being sick more than once and him sacrificing himself for Abigail would be entirely in character.

2. Bill and Jaiver owe their lives to Dutch, and why should they side with Arthur and John, the former favored sons now disgraced? What future do Arthur and John offer them? They are not willing to go into hiding in the north like John does, so they stick with a gang that can potentially help provide for them.

3. Yeah she gets done dirty, but I think its just to emphasize how fast everything collapses.

4. High honor Arthur would go back in an attempt to go out and taking Dutch and Micah with him. He knows they will also go for the money, and that is also a valid way of buying John time. Low honor Arthur would see it purely as a chance for revenge. Low honor Arthur is a mean, callous, and bitter man really.

The wheezing and stuff is brutal. One of the true tragedies of the story is TB is/was not a 100% death sentence, even back then people recovered, and many still lived for years and years with the disease. Doc Holliday, one of the main Arthur inspirations, is a perfect example of that as he lived for 4 or 5 years. The death rate was like 70-80% so not good by any stretch but Arthur as a big strong guy had as good a chance as anyone to beat it. What does in Arthur so fast is that he gets tortured and severely injured by the O'Driscolls, and then literally never slows down after the Saint Denis bank job. He gets tortured again and starves in Guarma, and then upon coming back is immediately tossed into the fire of a desperate few weeks/months (time is a bit sketchy) wherein he is constantly traveling, fighting, and exerting himself. He just burns himself out.

Hihohe posted:

I never let arthur "go for the money" but i see how it goes and i think the choice of words is a little misleading.

Its more Arthur being angry and going for Dutch and Micah. Maybe to spite them... to kill them... to ask why. He just want to settle things with his Old family.

It also has that bad rear end version of Unshaken.

https://youtu.be/uSi83bmDvA0

And i hope you dont think me mean or that i tricked you. Its just that the whole scene is so heartbreaking but specially meaningful with Buell. It makes Arthurs "Oh NOOO" like a gunshot to the heart.

You could share that moment with any horse really but With Buell hes not only thanking the horse for his service, but Hamish for some happy moments in his life.

NikkolasKing posted:

Something I noticed is that Dutch is actually nervous about the bank job. The pre-mission dialogue between him ad Hosea is Dutch saying repeatedly that he doesn't know about this and Hosea insisting it's the only plan that will work. Just kind of a contrast between the usual perception of Hose as the voice of reason and Dutch as way too gung-ho/cocky. But you make a fair point about Bronte and the lessons not learned from Chapter 3. Maybe that is all there was to it.


As for Bill and Javier, I understand Dutch saved their lives. But John and Arthur both had their lives saved by Dutch, too. That's one reason I think the Van der Linde Gang are morally defensible in some respects. Most everyone in there would be in a worse spot if Dutch hadn't taken them in, to give them a family and protection. Even Hosea talks about how he was a much worse man before meeting Dutch. So if Arthur and John could see past their gratitude, why not Bill or Javier?

Jerusalem posted:

You only get that Swanson scene if you didn't do the nun side missions, from memory. I had never seen it myself until it popped up on youtube for me like a month ago.