Shorter version

Buy this game if:

✅ You're in love with and you want to dive into a heavily story driven Western game (which feels like a tv-series sometimes)
✅ Open world exploration,shooting, side questing, item collection and completing ( sometimes long) challenges is something you’re interested in:
✅ In case you want to enjoy online features at its fullest: you’re willing to spend 10€ or you local currency into it to avoid unfun early game grinding;

Don't buy the game if:

❌ (IMPORTANT) your PC’s spec aren’t meeting even remotely the average suggested requirements, as having proper graphics, light and game effects improve drastically the in-game experience and activities such as: shooting, resource gathering and hunting;
❌ when playing open world games, you often engage only with the main mission stories and skip/leave aside the optional game content;
❌ you’re looking for a straight online matchmaking or for a refined experience, as that mode was sadly abandoned and not further developed years ago. You’ll find more about online in the detailed section of this review down below;
❌ (IMPORTANT) you don’t want to have a Rockstar account which is active and online while you’re playing as it’s mandatory;

Verdict: 9

Time required to finish the single player game campaign: 30 hours
Time required to complete it at 100%: 200/250 hours (took me 250 including online achievements)

Longer version:

a) realistic and historical american environment

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972922065

RDR2 takes place by the end of the 19th century, in an imaginary area that could be generally summarized as a mix of Louisiana, New Mexico and Nebraska (or any other US state filled with a mountain type of environment).This excellent mix of different biomes is filled with hundreds of animals of all species; fauna itself is “real” in the sense that their behaviour and daily (and nocturnal) life are well represented and very close to reality (i.e. you’ll see owls flying into the night mostly, different temperatures etc…). You’ll really feel like living in a beautiful yet hazardous country, enhancing even more the immersion and the narration.

Another great touch of realistic fauna: when hunting animals, different weapons and ammunition, along with the animals’ body parts that will be hurt will lead to different results when hunting, for example shooting a rabbit with a shotgun will destroy the carcass, while using a bow with a precise shot or headshotting it with a low calibre rifle will allow you to skin the animal properly and get a higher quality pelt and more edible meat quantity.

Funny side note: horses will p00p. A lot. Often. Consider yourself warned.


b) Clothes, voice acting and face cameras:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972367589
Given how accurate and detailed the clothing (of all kinds, even the pijamas!) is (and not only that) the immersion is made much deeper, thanks also for the countless hours spent by the developers’ team and the actors/actresses while animating the characters while in game and during the cinematic cutscenes;

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972965029

c) Narration and gameplay: (dis)honorable choices and (grey) remarkable characters:

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2972612738

RDR2 has a “honor bar” system, which goes up when helping people, being honest or being merciful and goes down while being the opposite, impacting both how NPC perceive you, in part how the game will end and how your companions and surroundings will interact with you; all the characters…are quite remarkable and deep, the whole roster of people have all their own story and background, even those who don’t see much screentime or play an important role in the story…it’s almost impossible to not be or become somewhat fond of them or even not remotely interested in their stories and epilogues.

The narration is extremely fluent and hits hard thanks also to its main protagonist - Arthur Morgan – which is one of the best fictional video games characters I’ve ever seen in my experience due to his versatility, his falsely crass (yet extremely fun at times) attitude, his sarcastic comebacks and his overall growth, in every aspect.


d) Red Dead Online, few important points to mention :

This game mode is set up in the same world that you’ve spent your single player campaign, sadly whether you’re going to play to get the online achievements only or to just enjoy it for the sake of it, my advice is to buy some online currency and unlock two specific roles (collector and bounty hunter) to be over with the online as quickly as possible. To be more clear and specific:

1- there are microtransactions, worsened by the fact that the cost of each item on online mode is multiplied excessively in comparison to its single player counterpart;
2- is it possible to farm online currency with daily and weekly activities but in a really slow pace, which really doesn't go well with the nature of RDR2 online which allows for free roaming, but becomes chaotic pretty quickly;
3- there are many griefers and cheaters on online servers, which can slow your progress, even though changing servers usually gets your rid of those annoying people;
4- the online gamemode could have seen some more love, sadly GTA online was/is too profitable to be put away in favor of this one, probably harder to be managed/modded and rectrated due to its historical setting;
5- as soon as you'll join online mode you'll be swarmed and overwhelmed by ingame messages,tutorials, tips and quests, making the learning curve quite brutal. I'd recommend playing 5-10 hours of single player campaign before going online;
6- most of the fun online is made by roles, which are "licenses" which will unlock you key rewards, new activities and game modes. Sadly those are behind a paywall, literally.
7- some online items (example: clothes, horses and equipment items) aren't included into single player mode, which is a shame, but this happens when the online experience isn't as well thought of as the single player one;


Thanks for reading and for bearing up with me, leave a comment below if you have any questions or observations, have an amazing day/night, feel free to follow my other reviews at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32344423/

Buy this game if:

✅ You're interested in farming, even though you're allowed to make that it isn't 100% of the core gameplay;
✅ You were looking for a long, yet various and easy to be resumed game;
✅ You're fond of pixelated indie games;
✅ You can bear resource hunting and you have some patience, as there are some RPG and crafting gameplay;
✅ You love games that are supported by modders and regularly updayed by the developer himself (Update 1.5 - see longer review part down below)

Don't buy the game if those above points aren't significant for you;

VERDICT 9 - an indie masterpiece - which now includes also the December update, called " 1.5 Update "

Time required to get to the "grown up" part of the game: 50 hours (depending on player's choices,skill and luck)
Time required to get all the achievements: around 100 hours (just the achievements i mean, i haven't completed the whole new update,as this is my third gameplay)

Longer version:
Let's see now the most important points, including the DLC, described in the 6th bullet point:

1- The simple yet deep premise:
Your grandpa, who lived the last part of his life is Stardew Valley has passed away and you as his nephew/niece have inherited a plot of land in Stardew Valley itself. Bored and saddened by the repetitive and dull life that you're spending working in a big firm (feel free to imagine it as Amazon/Nestlè)... you decide to accept the inheritance and embark in this new life and adventure.

2- The core gameplay is based on farming, but you can "drop" it or leave it aside after a while, you're free to design your gameplay:
Even though clearing debris, pruning weeds, killing evil monsters and cutting trees is fun and necessary up to a certain point, you're not "forced" to keep farming 24/7, as the game is full of side activities who can be remunerative and of course fun, such as:
- tending to animals;
- mining;
- foraging;
- fishing:
- more...

3- the customization has a external and a deeper side:
this means that besides customizing your own home, buildings and clothes there is a skill system, which can shape and improve the way on how you've decided to play the game;

4- Stardew Valley is a living community, its people are likable and your activities make a difference:
The NPCs are actually interesting and they're worth your time, socializing with them, helping them and confronting them on events, quests is always a good distraction and worth your time, as they'll be quite rewarding in terms of money, items and story progression in general, even though you're not forced to follow any particular path. Your actions have consequences that will also change the landscape and the city.

5- there's a strong and thriving MOD community and the game allows multiplayer gameplay:
I personally recommend Stardew Valley Expanded as a mod to be installed, feel free to check it on Nexusmods

6- the 1.5 update is extremely good and needed
my biggest gripe with SV before this free massive update from December 2020 was that there wasn't enough end-gameplay elements or goals to be reached. This update addressed completely these issues by adding a new whole area, distant from Stardew Valley, by adding new minerals, animals, crops, quests, weekly quests, npcs and much more, including many quality of life changes, which make the gameplay much smoother and fluid.

Thanks for reading and for bearing up with me, leave a comment below if you have any questions or observations, have an amazing day/night, feel free to follow my other reviews at: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32344423/