South Park definitely hasn’t had the strongest history of video game tie-ins. During the show’s heyday back when it first premiered around the late 90s, people were pretty quick to try and cash in on the hit show through various kinds of merchandise; this, of course, includes video games, with two games based on the series getting released for 5th Generation consoles. While I haven’t played them myself, reviews were mixed at best, and Matt Stone and Trey Parker had hardly any involvement in their production and would even end up voicing their disdain for the products years down the line. Aside from that, years down the line after the show had cemented its place in TV history, some small indie titles for the series were released as a tie-in to the series; while they weren’t quite as much of a hastily thrown together experience like the games in the late 90s, they still weren't a completely fleshed-out South Park experience in video game format.
Luckily, being avid video game fans themselves, Matt and Trey sought out Obsidian Entertainment in order to try and rectify the franchise’s lackluster history in the medium. And the resulting product from this collaboration was South Park: The Stick of Truth. And I really don’t have to hesitate when saying that this is bar none the best South Park game available to date. It’s not only a beautifully crafted love letter to long-time fans of the series but also a great entryway into both the TV show itself and the RPG genre for newcomers to each. What everyone involved in the making of this game managed to accomplish with the material that they were given was nothing short of delightful.
Now to provide a small summary of the game's premise. At the start of the game you’re placed in the role of the new kid, who has just moved in to the town of South Park and is tasked by his parents to go out and make friends. Soon afterwards, you become acquainted with Cartman and several of the other boys who are playing a roleplaying game involving humans and elves, with Cartman being the leader of the group of humans known as “Kupa Keep”. After realizing the vast potential that the new kid has to make friends with nearly anyone faster than anyone else, he tasks you to go around and recruit more kids to their side so they can overthrow the opposing group of kids that make up the elven kingdom. The general plot of the game is a relatively simple concept that, like most things in South Park, escalates out of control in a bizarre and over-the-top fashion fairly quickly. And for the sake of those who have yet to expose themselves to much of the game's story, I want to avoid disclosing any more information in order for the game to be as much of a surprise as possible.
As you have probably gathered from the description of the story, the basis of the gameplay is similar to that of a standard RPG; in fact, a lot of the game is practically a spiritual successor to the first two Paper Mario games with a wonderful South Park coat of paint. For starters, you play as your avatar character and are able keep one of six partner characters that make up the main cast of the series. Each partner has unique abilities and attacks that can be used both outside and inside of battle, and on top of that, unique dialogue was recorded for each character for whenever you interact with objects and characters in the environment. Battles are turn-based, but with timed prompts to increase damage that you inflict or decrease the damage that enemies inflict upon you. And hell, the game is made to look exactly like the show, so you can count the fact that it’s animated to look like paper cut-outs as well, with the camera being at a fixed angle as you traverse the town of South Park and its outskirts.
Without a doubt, the biggest strength of the game is the impeccable writing. Simply saying that The Stick of Truth is “like playing an episode of South Park” is an understatement; the game practically crams the entire series-worth of content into a single game disc. Matt, Trey and the developers at Obsidian spared absolutely no time in stuffing the game full of as many references and injokes to the series as possible. However, before I continue, let me clarify something about that statement first: the term “reference”, especially when referring to comedy, has a tendency of giving off a negative connotation due to how poorly other shows and games have utilized them for the sake of pulling off a comedic moment rooted solely in nostalgia. In The Stick of Truth’s case, however, the references don’t ever interrupt the flow of the game just to say “Remember when THIS happened in the show?” to the player.
Instead, the references are just a part of the universe, and they’re scattered around the game in bits and pieces for people who are attentive enough to look for them all. For example, if you choose to go in to the town’s movie theater, you’ll hear all a various amount of Trey’s “Rob Schneider” trailer narrations playing in the background. And if you go looking in the personal quarters of certain characters, you’ll find miscellaneous items from their past lying around; with Cartman, for example, you can find his AWESOM-O outfit stuffed in his closet and the Antonio Bandereas Life-Sized Blow Up Doll sitting inside the headquarters located in his backyard. Essentially, if you can think of a certain character or moment from the show, no matter how minor, you can most likely find it. It’s the ultimate South Park treasure trove in nearly every conceivable way, and Matt and Trey seemed to know exactly how to take advantage of putting their long-running franchise into this new medium.
It’s the exact opposite of something like, say, The Simpsons Game, which had writing that solely centered around the characters being aware that they’re in a video game and running the joke into the ground before you’re even halfway into it. The Stick of Truth never does that; since the story itself is essentially a self-contained, interactive episode of the show, not once do they pull the self-referential “we’re in a video game” joke. The closest that we ever get to that kind of a joke is in a couple tutorials, but even then the characters never go out of their way to completely break the fourth wall and usually provide comedic excuses for the way the game works; for instance, when Clyde complains about the fact that the battles are turn-based, Cartman justifies it by saying that it’s how “the people in the middle ages did it”. It’s a simple joke that fits the character well and doesn’t destroy the illusion of the world that the game has built for us.
The layout of the town is something else that I have to admire. According to Matt and Trey themselves, before working on this game they really had no idea how the arrangement of South Park worked, since all they had to do in the show was cut to whatever location in which a scene needed to take place. So playing this game is pretty much the first time that you’ll learn the geography of every memorable location or landmark in the town. Certain locations of note from my experience with the game include Kenny’s dirt-poor house being blatantly segregated from the rest of the town by a set of train tracks, and the fact that the entire region of Canada can be reached just by traveling north through the woods. Speaking of Canada, the way that they went about “adapting” the country so to speak works so well that I wish I could actually share more about it, but I feel like it’s more worth it to discover it yourself by playing the game.
The difficulty of the game is something that I haven’t truly experimented with, to be completely honest. I had a relatively easy time completing the game, but to my recollection this is because I ran through the game on a normal difficulty setting. Throughout the game you’re free to either increase or decrease the difficulty in order to fit your gameplay skill, which is convenient for people who have either found their groove quickly or need more practice. With that said, even when you stay on a consistent difficulty path, the game has a tendency to have an ambiguous difficulty curve. Often times the game was relatively easy for me to progress through, but at certain points, including both side missions and the main story, would go up against certain bosses that would mop the floor with me.
When it comes to criticisms that I have for the game, for the most part they're pretty minor. While not being extremely difficult could be a turn-off to some people wanting to try the game, I feel like it's not objective enough to really include among some of the lesser aspects of the game. Something in particular that comes to mind when it comes to what could be improved is that the game is prone to lag and framerate issues at random times. I found that kind of strange given how simple the graphics are, but since I only experienced this occasionally whie traversing the town, it didn't detract from much. And keep in mind that I played the PS3 version, so other versions of the game may not have this problem.
Another small issue that I had with the game is the way “junk” is implemented. As you go through the game you can rummage through other peoples’ belongings; you’ll either find new weapons, armor, elemental attributes, or miscellaneous junk. Since the junk serves no real purpose other than possibly being a fun easter egg, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ll end up selling all the junk you find for more money. While this sounds fine, the fact that you can find an abundance of junk everywhere means that money will never be an issue for you. You’ll pretty much be able to purchase any high level weapon that you please by the time that you’re a high enough level to equip it, which removes the possibility of having to really think about the way you play. I guess on the plus side, the fact that you can get so much money so quickly is good in order to unlock the single best feature of the game:
Yes, for over 200 in-game dollars, you can pay the fine plastic surgeons at Tom’s Rhinoplasty to give you Mr. Garrison’s “Hasselhoff” makeover. And your character will be shown like this through all gameplay and cutscenes. There was really no way for the game to get any better after unearthing this incredible feature.
In summary, there are many ways for me to recommend this game to others. For anyone who is a fan of a show in even the slightest way, this game is for you. For anyone less fond of RPGs and would like a good jump-in point to get their feet wet, this game is a great place to get your feet wet. For people who aren’t fond of the show, I’m not sure if this game will be able to change your mind. Even so, it makes me happy to see South Park finally get a game that wasn’t thrown together as some sort of soulless cash grab. Matt and Trey truly wanted to give fans of their show the definitive South Park video game experience, and The Stick of Truth delivers that in spades.