Both are equally stellar. 1 plays like a typical spaghetti western while 2 plays like a western drama of sorts, so you’ll find the tone a bit off-putting at first and the story doesn’t carry a lot of the heft that 2 did. Mechanics such as Honor play almost no role in the story so it’s a more linear experience, too.

When it comes to gameplay, you’ll most definitely enjoy 1. I’d say the first game plays a bit better; the controls are more streamlined, and I found myself making a lot of mistakes when it came to 2’s weird interaction menus and such, so it’s a nice change of pace. Aspects such as hunting and side stories are naturally not as fleshed out, but that’s up to personal preference. They’re still pretty good and engaging.

If you ever wanted to pick up RDR1, now’s a great time. We long heard stories of how hellish the development of the game was, so it being available on modern systems is a great achievement. We have yet to see how it would perform on the Switch however.

I would say that the gameplay is a more simplified version of red dead 2. The base mechanics are mostly the same but red dead 2 adds more depth. In some ways I prefer the gameplay in red dead 1 as it’s simple to understand health, stamina, and dead eye work without having to bother with “cores” (there are no cores in red dead 1)

Eating and medicine is simply for restoring health, deadeye is refilled by getting head shots. No gun maintenance or inventory management needed in the first game.

The story is a bit more focused in the first game as well instead of strung out into chapters.

The funny thing is that chronologically RDR 1 is set after RDR 2.

That being said, you'll probably enjoy this one too.