Spent 70 hours on this behemoth the past month. I very much enjoyed it, but the usual critiques I've seen of this game are valid. Those shortcomings did not detract my enjoyment though, it's pretty easily a 9/10 at minimum. These are mostly spoiler free thoughts, nothing catastrophic.

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Everyone was right: the character writing and story telling are that phenomenal. Falling into the role of Arthur Morgan feels natural, and your love for him only grows as you learn more about his past, his inner turmoil, and the gang's evolving struggles. The Journal is simply poetic: watching Arthur gruffly mumble his tough bravado in cutscenes then whimsically contemplate the deteriorating situation with various artsy doodles on the side paints a troubled man with a distant, untapped loving core.

The ever-changing hideout is just so brimming with love and care you cannot help but get immersed. You gain so much insight into all these characters so quickly, everyone getting their own flourishes from the myriad of natural interactions as they bumble around the camp, singing, arguing, drinking, gambling. There's a harrowing, distant thought and understanding this will all collapse eventually, which makes you savor it all the sweeter. The hideouts slowly becoming deprived of joy and noise in the final chapters was so heartbreaking.

(It's a shame that, as far as I could tell, there would have been no mechanical penalty for not donating to the camp and such. But, it's a minuscule complaint; if you're a dillweed not interested in taking your time and enjoying these smaller things, I don't think the game is worth it)

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I enjoyed the mechanical open world for what it is. It would've been nice if you could camp (mostly) anywhere instead of magically teleporting to a predetermined location when you decided to RP it out and tent up to wait out the rain or cook up that freshly caught game. It's a bit strange this was a streamlined mechanic when looting houses, skinning animals and such all have so much weight and length built in.

Stranger missions were nearly always a good time; there's a particular few, especially near the end that so confidently cement Arthur as a character I could not imagine a playthrough without them.

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The landscapes and lighting so effortlessly create jaw dropping views no matter where you go, and there's so much variety in the world's setting you'll never run out of eyecandy to admire. This is possibly the only "realistic graphics" game in the past decade that I've truly loved over a stylized presentation. The vast soundtrack accompanies you everywhere with its beautiful arrangements, and yet its never afraid to take a step back and let silence and natural sounds take over.

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For me, Rockstar's bluntly bland mission structure and lack of player creativity really didn't matter all that much. The set-pieces, music, sound design, definitive character moments, its all so damn good and adds so much more oomph to each mission that it didn't need to be particularly innovative mechanically. Having the chapterly, meltdown town shooting where everything has gone to shit with a fresh new triumphant bass, trumpet, or guitar gracing your ears, it's always a h*cking banger.

There's a pretty significant dip in mission quality in the later half of the story, starting during that...brief excursion (you know the one). There's endless, rampant shooting galleries, just mindlessly shooting waves and waves of dudes to an immersion breaking degree, continuing up until the climax. But everything else I've mentioned so easily triumphs over this blunder. I just wish they had thought of a way to make the final missions more challenging other than have more dudes.