Hey, the game’s great but at the end of the day, it’s just a game. It’s not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The game will always be there. It’s not going anywhere. I’m still picking up games I never got a chance to play 20 years ago and I’m having an absolute blast. The game will still be there after you’ve saved up for it, I promise. It’s not worth it to drive yourself into depression over not having a video game—I’ve lost too much of my youth like that.
And let me tell you, this game isn’t perfect. Its probably one of my top 5 favorites but it’s not God’s work. Yeah I was amazed at how lively and detailed the world is, but that comes at a price. The world is so detailed, it becomes work. I had to put the game down for a month or so halfway through the campaign because it felt like I was doing just more chores and scutwork in the game than in real life.
It’s a good game, but no game is worth your sanity and confidence. Trust me on this, you’re setting yourself up for the game to take over your entire life or to disappoint you. Historically, this is the best time to own a last-gen console, especially since the next-Gen has no exclusives. Game subscription services give you tons of games for little money and I highly recommend that, especially if you want to get into some classics. Also, if you’re good with computers, you can also hack your consoles to play pirated games (at the expense of being able to play online).
If playing RDR is the only thing that could prevent you from getting depressed, get Red Dead Online. It’s a prequel to RDR2 and in my opinion plays very much like Grand Theft Auto III. It would be a great way to get familiar with the game and the characters. Just don’t buy gold bars—RDO makes it seem like you need gold bars to get ahead but once you chose your profession you don’t really need them, and there’s a few ways to get gold for free in the game. Hell, Rockstar mails a bunch to your character every once in a while.
Oh, and consider yourself lucky! I found your thread cross-posted in another sub where some folks are trying to pitch in money to get you the base game. It’s very, very rare for something like that to happen.