By Justin Moore
I laughed out loud. Not just a few guffaws, nor giggles, nor snorts, but full on laughter. This game made laugh out loud like a little man child. This is a great South Park game, and I mean that in the sense that it is actually funny. This game -unlike any other South Park game I’ve ever played before- actually brings you into the show.
You are the new kid, kicked out of the house by your parents to “go make friends!” and not a moment later you are recruited to take part in a town wide fantasy role playing adventure. You meet with Cartman, a wizard and the leader of the humans, and he promptly informs you of his battle with the Elves over The Stick of Truth. Cartman quickly recognizes your power and ask you to join his army, but first you must pick a class, warrior, mage, thief or jew.
The game, like an episode of South Park, plays off of the kids childhood innocence. Its very much grounded in the fantasy game that the kids are playing. You take a look at the weapons they are using: a basketball, a football helmet as their weapons and armor. The game leans on this and lets you know that the kids will take any and all real world things and incorporate them into the game.
The mechanics of the game play out like a costume quest turn based battle system. You and one other companion battle your enemies by choosing melee, ranged or magic attacks. The attacks ask that you time button presses with flashes of light on your weapon to do more damage. The same strategy goes for blocking. When they attack, time your button presses to take less damage. This system seems very simple and it is, but thats what makes it fun. It takes the mechanics of timing button presses and carefully choosing targets, and they make it fun. You collect loot from around the town to beef up your character like most RPG’s, but the items in this game are a lot of the fun. I liked that the basketball was a legitimate weapon for me to use. You will find all sorts of mundane and fantastical objects around South Park to make your character shine.
The game is also not without its faults; I felt that some of the battle animations were a little too long to not be able to skip. Every battle, when I used Butters’ summon spell, it irritated the shit out of me. Yes it’s cute and funny the first time but good god could I please skip it at the hundredth. The magic (farting) in the game was a little infuriating to control at points and I never felt like there was anything telling me it was wrong. By the way, I’m not afraid to say that I will laugh at a fart joke, but having to use your magic over and over the farting became a little stale.
The Stick of Truth is a crude crude game and I love it for that. It takes lovely RPG style game play and weaves it into a comfortable and playable twelve hour episode of the show. If it were any longer I would have feared some of the jokes becoming old and overwrought. But I loved this game for what it was an extremely funny and light RPG. The Stick of Truth nails it for me.
B+
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