South Park The Stick of Truth Review

Even though its not the first South Park game to be released, South Park The Stick of Truth is their first AAA title. Matt Stone and Trey Parker teamed up with Obsidian Entertainment and Ubisoft, to create what I believe to be the best video game adaptions of a television show. We can all agree that adaptions of shows or even movies into video games, just never really works out. South Park Stick of truth paves the way for all future adaptions.

1. The Plot – As the new kid in town you are sent out on a task to befriend and unite all the different kids of South Park. Along the way you engage into fights with Homeless people, Crackheads, Elves, and even Man Bear Pig if you have the right stuff.  While there is a main story to follow, which is hilarious on its own, there are plenty of side missions to engage and lose yourself in for hours. And without spoiling to much, the plot has a few twist and turns that even surprised me. Lets just say the main villain is not who you expect it to be.
2. The Characters – The game features the four stars of the show: Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny, but you also get all your  favorite and bizarre secondary characters, such as Butters, Tweak, Token, Timmy, Jimmy, The Girls, The Goths, The Mayor, and all of your Parents and Teachers. They are integrated into the game by providing you with side missions to help you build your character along the way, and give you the chance to add them to your friends list. You also get a lot of cameos from frequent visitors, like Mr.Slave, Jesus, Mr.Hankey, and Tuong Lu Kim, after you complete their missions not only do you get friend invites, you get to also use their special abilities once per day to help assist you in an intense battle. Pretty much if you look hard enough you can find that all of South Park is there.
3. Design- The design is what you expect from a South Park game, it looks like crappy flash-style animation. But in this case that’s a good thing, it looks exactly like the show! When you first pop in the game you get this exciting feeling as if you just started a 14 hour episode of the show. With all of our favorite stores, houses, and Countries (yes Countries) in the game. You can find tons of hidden cameos, from Mr.Hankeys magical castle in the sewers to the Prince’s castle in Canada.
4. Gameplay- I’m not particularly a huge fan of turn based RPGs, but I am a huge fan of South Park. With all of your basic designs of a turn based RPG South Park does not fall short here. With the ability to choose your own Class, weapons, armor, special abilities, and your own team mates. While leveling up your character you choose from a tree of four different special abilities that you can upgrade along the way. Stickers allow you to upgrade weapons and armor, boost the strength of an attack or your defenses against an attack. If done correctly this could make or break a battle. It’s a nice system designed around the show’s themes.
5. Replayability- This is where I believe South Park falls short. When I went to go play for my second time around, I learned nothing changes not even a few jokes here and there. So with knowing all the vulgar, and horrendous jokes coming up I found myself just choosing a new class and completing all the side missions I did not complete the first time.
6. The Basics – The game ran very smoothly, I had very little problems with understanding how to play the game. Everything is pretty much laid out for you in hints on loading screens or instructions when you come across a new obstacle. Now if you’re playing on the console version like I did. I found that when in battle the circular display of choices made it kinda hard sometimes to pinpoint what attack or spell you wanted to use.
7. South Park Lore- The attention to detail that went into this game is great. I found going into all my favorite characters houses and searching their closets and dressers to be one of my favorite parts. Cartmen’s house is by far the most interesting, with at least 15 throwbacks to some of the best episodes hanging in his closet, adult toys, and drugs littered all over his mother’s room, it is by far one my favorite parts of the game.

Verdict 6 (out 0f 7) – Great adaption of an already great show with hilarious jokes and great gameplay, only wish I didn’t hear all the jokes the first play through.

If you have any ideas or suggestions of what I should review next, or even your own thoughts on the game leave a comment below!