Second Opinion - South Park: The Stick of Truth

While I hadn’t seen much of South Park beforehand, having seen a handful of episodes and the movie (South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut), it wasn’t until I saw a preview of the then-upcoming game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, the subject of this review, at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con, that my interest grew. From what I had seen in that preview, I knew it would be imperative for me to see every episode of South Park I could in order to get the most out of the game, which I did over an extended period of time. While the preview I saw was from THQ, the company would unfortunately go bankrupt, causing the game to shift hands to Ubisoft for release, in turn leading to a number of delays (to the point where the penultimate 3 episodes of Season 17 (“Black Friday”, “A Song of Ass and Fire”, and “****ies and Dragons”) that lead up to the game, collectively known as the Black Friday Trilogy, made numerous jokes about it). Even then, from the small snippet of gameplay in 2012 to the night before the game’s release in 2014, I knew it was a game I wanted to play. Having played the game, with this review delayed by school work and my Bionicle Heroes review, I would say the overall investment in South Park was worth it to the very end.

You play as The New Kid, whose appearance you get to customize, who has just moved into the quiet little mountain town of South Park. When The New Kid’s parents insist he go out and make friends, he comes across Butters Stotch, who takes him to see Eric Cartman, the Grand Wizard of the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, who currently holds the Stick of Truth as part of a LARP campaign. Soon after The New Kid joins in the game, the Stick of Truth is stolen by the Drow Elves of Larnion, the enemy of the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, and Cartman tasks him to retrieve the Stick. What starts out as a fairly simple game of LARP eventually turns into something much bigger than anyone involved could ever think possible.

The eponymous Stick of Truth, right before being stolen by Drow Elves.

Due to having heavy involvement from series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the story of The Stick of Truth feels and plays out just like an episode of South Park, especially in how the characters interact and how everything blows further out of proportion the more events play out. Numerous references and call backs are made to the show throughout, so only those who have already seen the show will get a good number of them, but they are still inserted such that prior knowledge is not required in order to enjoy the game. Of course, with South Park being a comedy series, the game is extremely funny, with every humorous moment, of which there is plenty, hitting more often than they miss; the show has its own ups and downs in regards to its humor, but, like the Black Friday Trilogy preceding it, this is one of South Park higher moments when it comes to laughs. Some of the jokes are based in pop culture references that will eventually make the game more of a product of its time, but the way they are executed is so hilarious that, unlike other games that do this, I don’t really mind it in the slightest. In essence, if you play this game, you are definitely guaranteed a laugh.

Once you join Cartman’s ranks, you not only get to choose your name (though everyone else calls you a different name(s) anyway), but also your Class, of which you have a choice between Fighter, Mage, Thief, and Jew (if you play as a Jew, damage output increases the lower your health is); I chose the first, mainly because I haven’t played many RPG’s that use a Class system. You can also customize your armor and weapons as you go, mainly to befit your Class, although the leveling-up system (not to mention some side quests) may require you to change your equipment a number of times over the course of the story. Certain scenarios in combat may also make you change out your weapons a few times as well, but you will find a strategy you’re comfortable with in no time. Interacting with residents of South Park also nets you Friends on Facebook in-game, allowing you access to Perks that can really help you depending on your play style.

Combat itself is similar to that of Penny Arcade’s Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness series, having the turn-based system of Rain-Slick 3 and 4, but also having timing-based attacks like Rain-Slick One and Two. When you or your buddy (one of a select group of South Park characters) initiates an attack during combat, timing is very important, in that you have to press a button(s) at just the right moment in order to maximize the damage you deal to an enemy. These attacks can either target single enemies or a whole group of them (when multiple are present), and the ever-changing tactics of some enemies can make you make some important decisions on how to approach a given situation, including whether to use a ranged or melee weapon on a target. Some special attacks require PP to pull off, but they are often worth it in the end, such as being able to jump and perform a massive ground pound or having Princess Kenny summon a unicorn to ram an opponent(s). You can also use your Mana to fart on enemies (this game’s form of magic), with stronger farts requiring increasing amounts of Mana; this is the only stat that does not regenerate after an encounter. Certain residents of South Park can also be summoned, such as Jesus, in order to take care of an enemy, but only once per (in-game) day; they also all give their own excuse for not being able to take on bosses (some of whom are actually pretty easy to take down, even on a higher difficulty).

A small sample of combat in-game.

There are also a number of collectibles to be found in the game, including Chinpokomon and a number of useful items. Some of these items, however, are very miss-able, meaning you can’t go back and retrieve them once you’ve gone through certain story points, which can hamper one’s experience with the game a little bit. To this end, learning from my brother’s frustrations with this during his playthrough, I tried to get everything I could whenever I could, though I also used an online guide to make sure I grabbed everything.

The graphics of this game are very impressive, especially considering an engine capable of advanced 3D graphics was used to accurately replicate the 2D construction paper cut-out look of the show. This helps the game look and feel just like an episode of South Park, further increasing enjoyment of the writing and gameplay. Due to Parker and Stone’s ties to the development of The Stick of Truth, the two of them, alongside the returning South park voice cast, give performances that help the whole experience feel even more authentic. This is not getting into the background music, which generally would not sound out of place within the show (it even includes the show’s signature banjo music and ending credits theme), along with some (often humorous) recycled sound and music clips from the show that offer extra enjoyment for dedicated fans of South Park.

Once you find Jesus (among others), you can summon him during
combat once per day.

South Park: The Stick of Truth is not only a great South Park game, but also an amazing RPG experience in general. The whole thing feels as if it was ripped straight out of the show, providing a faithful South Park experience to those seeking it out. Prior experience with South Park is not required to have fun with the game, so fans of, or newcomers to, RPGs (within the appropriate age group) can safely be encouraged to seek it out, as it is very accessible to players with little to not experience in the genre, although watching the show beforehand is a necessity to understand and laugh at the numerous references and call-backs to previous episodes (I would highly recommend watching the Black Friday Trilogy at a minimum before playing The Stick of Truth for the first time). Admittedly, the game doesn’t take that long to get through, clocking in at roughly 12-15 hours depending on your actions, but getting the full South Park experience alone makes it all worth it in the end.

South Park: The Stick of Truth

In August, 2012, I wrote a review of South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, declaring it one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. In that review, I mentioned South Park: The Stick of Truth, the subject of this review, as though it was going to be released in 2013. Though the game was certainly announced before I watched the movie that time, and I saw a preview for it at San Diego Comic-Con 2012, it wasn’t actually until last week that the game came out. This is due to multiple factors, the main ones being that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone kept rewriting the script and that THQ, the original publishers of the title, unfortunately went bankrupt, forcing them to sell off all of their assets and original IPs; in the end, Ubisoft gained the rights to The Stick of Truth. So numerous were these delays that South Park itself lampooned them during Season 17’s Black Friday Trilogy (“Black Friday”, “A Song of Ass and Fire” and “****ies and Dragons”). Some good did come out of these delays though, as it gave my brother and I more time to catch up with the entire run of South Park as well as see The Book of Mormon at the Pantages (long story short, go see The Book of Mormon). In true South Park fashion, we even finished catching up with the show the night before the game came out; there are still only three episodes out of 247 that we haven’t seen because Muhammad (“Super Best Friends”, “200” and “201”), so we’ll probably need to invest in the season sets to try and rectify that (though we did settle with text summaries). Since the game finally came out, I actually had a lot of free time, so after we rewatched the Black Friday Trilogy, I sat down and played through the whole game in the span of two days [Note: This review was delayed due to the reviews of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection]. Would I consider all of that effort to catch up worth it in the end? Yes.

The original box art from when THQ was to publish the game.
It also would have had Kinect functionality so you could berate Cartman.

The New Kid (You) has just moved into South Park and is tasked by his parents, especially his dad, to go out and make friends. Soon after he leaves the house, he is greeted by Butters Stotch, who leads him to Eric Cartman’s house to join the Kingdom of Kupa Keep. When the New Kid successfully joins Cartman’s group, he ends up being roped into a city-wide Live-Action Roleplay (LARP) campaign revolving around an object known as The Stick of Truth. The Stick has great power, as whoever holds the stick controls the universe. Things go south when a rival faction, the Drow Elves of Larnion, successfully steals the stick. Cartman orders the New Kid to go and retrieve the Stick and, during his quest to become cool, what begins as a simple game escalates to a level that no one could ever have anticipated.

The Kingdom of Kupa Keep.

Through the course of the game, the plot plays out exactly how an episode of the show would. Over the course of three days, the New Kid experiences one strange event after another, culminating in one of the biggest, funniest and most ridiculous plot twists I have ever experienced in a video game. I really enjoyed the escalating antics of the story, as it really helped the immersion and the feeling that this really is an episode of South Park. Every single person in the game is completely in-character, with nothing about them out of place. The story is tightly written and I really can’t find any flaws with it.

One of the highlights of the script is its comedy. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have become two of my favorite comedians, though I’ll admit that not every episode of South Park can be a winner, and The Stick of Truth does not disappoint. Just about every single line, in some way, is funny. Almost everything the characters say is funny, the NPC reactions are funny, even one-off lines, sound clips or descriptions of items can be funny. Simply put, it is one of the most humorous video games I have ever played and I seriously could not stop laughing at times, especially when I had someone else in the room to laugh with. This is in part due to all of the references made to the show, all of which I understood due to my one-and-a-half years of binge viewing the series in my free time. However, if I had to find one flaw it would be that there isn’t enough dialogue during fights or within the world, such as during a specific mini-game. Eventually you begin to hear the same things being said repetitively, which dulls the sensation a bit until it gradually just ceases to have any humor value. In most cases the dialogue is varied enough that recycling through them can still lead to some great gems, but I think some work was needed in other areas.

Because of all the LARPing in the game, it’s only natural that The Stick of Truth would be a full-blown RPG. It has everything, from quests and collectibles to shops and item management. It all begins when you first enter character customization. The customization isn’t as deep as one would find in other games, mostly due to the art style of South Park, but there is still enough to make the New Kid resemble you if you’d like. When you join the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, you also pick a class, with a choice between Fighter, Mage, Thief and Jew (a “high risk high reward” class where the damage increases the lower your HP is); I chose Fighter because I like to focus on attack power in an RPG. Upon selecting your class, you are given a set of armor and weapons matching your class, but throughout the game you’re allowed to customize your character further by swapping out your weaker equipment for more powerful sets. Some pieces of equipment can even have items like stickers attached to them to grant additional effects, such as higher damage or siphoning an amount of health from a Bleeding enemy. The initial customization may be impressive, but the depth added over time during actual gameplay definitely is.

Combat in The Stick of Truth is turn-based, using mechanics which, from my experience, are similar to Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. Apart from a Health meter, the player, and their buddy (a selected South Park character), also has PP and Mana meters. PP is used to pull of special attacks, with different attacks costing a different amount of PP to activate. These attacks range from a rain of arrows to a buffing/debuffing blow horn or even Butters in his Professor Chaos persona inflicting a random effect determined by a spinning wheel. The Mana meter is used for casting magic, which in this context is how you manipulate your farts (believe it or not, farts are very important to the game). When used right, magic can be very useful and powerful, but unlike Health and PP it doesn’t regenerate after battle, so consuming mana potions (gassy food) is the only way to replenish what you’ve lost. All attacks, like in Barkley, require the completion of a short mini-game or timed button presses to determine how successful the attack is and how much damage it inflicts on a target. Summons, including Mr. Slave and Jesus, are also available once per in-game day, except against bosses, by completing a sidequest; afterwards you just need to talk to the character to regain their summon item. This system works well and the controller-friendly approach to it helps it be as smooth as possible.

What combat generally looks like.

While I do like the gameplay systems in general, I do have a few complaints. Sometimes while I’m fighting, the frame rate will dip for a second or the game will lag, causing me to miss important attack or block timing; sometimes the command wouldn’t register at all. I’ve also had the background music for fighting completely disappear, necessitating a reboot or a reload of my progress. In addition, the game in general is a bit easy overall thanks to the dynamic difficulty, where the game’s enemies level up with you. The most challenge it ever got was from a specific boss fight, and even then it was an optional one reached through a sidequest. That is not to say the final bosses weren’t challenging, but they weren’t on the same level as the optional boss. There’s also the collectible aspect, which is actually perfectly fine save for the fact that some are missable, such as six of the Chinpokomon. I missed two of them, so if I wanted to have them all, I’d need to restart the game from scratch. Some might also complain about the short length of the game, about 12-15 hours depending on how much you do, but personally I feel that the game doesn’t overstay its welcome and if you wanted to replay the game as another class, or to get every collectible object, it won’t take terribly long to do so.

Also, this area from the THQ version no longer happens.

The most notable thing about Stick of Truth however is how involved creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were during the process. Disappointed by the quality of the South Park games on the market, the duo were actually more hands-on with the game Oblivion was trying to make by providing assets from the show’s entire run as well as offering advice on how to help the game stay true to the spirit of South Park. Oblivion even went so far as to modify the engine so that production of the game could be similar to an episode of the show, including the ability to change the look of a single object across the entire game with minimal effort. Fittingly, an engine normally used for 3D games, the Dungeon Siege III engine, was used to perfectly capture the 2D cutout look of the show. Parker and Stone also provided completely original voicework and wrote the script for the game, allegedly starting out at 850 pages before being trimmed down for production; there’s even a lot of original songs and music from the show used as background music, including the distinct banjo chords that open most episodes. As a result, the game feels exactly like an episode of the show, at times even feeling like you’re watching South Park before the time comes to remember that it’s a game. This is The Stick of Truth’s greatest feat, which I think will be very hard for future video game adaptations of TV shows to accomplish.

South Park: The Stick of Truth is not only one of the funniest games I have played this year, but also an early gem for this year. The turn-based combat, though simple, is fun and I felt totally immersed by the world presented. There are a few flaws here and there, including the sometimes inconsistent frame rate, but these are forgivable in light of how perfectly the source material is translated to video game form. Due to all of the references and callbacks the game makes to the show, I can only really recommend this to already existing fans of the show, as the uninitiated may be confused by these same references that can be important to the story. It may be possible to enjoy the game solely based on the mechanics, but it is most definitely made to cater to those who are already familiar with the show. In either case, I’d recommend watching the Black Friday Trilogy right before giving it a go; it’ll transition well into the plot and will get you into the right mindset to play.