Go for the remaster. If you were coming to the series blind I'd recommend starting with 3 (or even Elden Ring) but if you've already played ER I'd say go straight for Dark Souls 1.

Friendship ended with font gatekeeping and dogpiling, accessibility is my new best friend

All mine are modern budget models. As much cool factor as there is to a vintage axe it's nice not worrying about parts and electronics (and nitrocellulose finishes!) that are older than my parents :-). In terms of sentimental value, nothing beats my first, a 2003 Squier Affinity I got for Christmas:

Also most of mine only have four strings for some reason???

RDR2 suffers heavily from the same problem as GTAV's single player mode: it's a movie posing as a video game and both aspects suffer for it.

RDR2 would have been great if it was just the part where you wander around tracking critters and collecting flowers and playing cowboy dress-up, but the game really doesn't want you to do that. Not to belabor the point, but between how unpredictable the connection between "interact with item/character X" and "start mission with character Y" can be and the game's tendency to fail missions the second you go off-script, RDR2 often felt like it was directed by someone who actively resented the concept of player agency.