Perhaps revealing my age here, but what can you say about South Park that hasn’t already been said over these 25+ years it’s been airing? Well, South Park: The Stick of Truth is most definitely a valiant effort to marry that signature offensive humor and RPG mechanics with a single question hanging in the air – did it work?

Assuming you know nothing about South Park at large, game starts with Cartman narrating events surrounding the epic war between humans and elves fighting over the eponymous Stick of Truth. Wielding the artifact bestows ultimate power in the kids’ game of play pretend. With that context we create our protagonist, nicknamed the New Kid, and following some shady backstory by his maybe parents as to why they had to secretly move to South Park we come across another fellow from Cartman’s group. This kid is Butters and he proudly proclaims he’s a Paladin before taking you to KKK. That is, Kingdom of Kupa Keep where Cartman, resident Grand Wizard, and others now dub you “Douchebag” and think you can conveniently tip the war in humans’ favor. After all, you seem to have an uncanny knack for making Facebook friends...

What the Stick of Truth is at its core, embodying both a major selling point and valid deterrent against trying the game, is being South Park: the Game. Coming across as dozen episodes crammed into arc-based narrative vehicle, what we get is all the vulgar humor and shock value you could ask for. I don’t think the license ever came this close to letting you play IN South Park and having that original character only adds to the experience. Sure, this leads to lack of coherency as one minute you’re busting out your LARP group’s best warrior out of school detention and some hours later you’re dealing with Nazi Zombies, and yet such absurdity not only works in the context of South Park but is also enabled by kids letting their imagination run wild. On the flip-side there’s the unavoidable inequality of content. This tends to be the case when you have arc-based stories, but not even being self-referential gets them out of jail. Enlisting the Girls faction was both excruciating busy work and funny, though.

Bonkers scenarios and general absurdity carry a lot of the game and yet it’s those familiar character who seal the deal. I won’t summarize in detail beyond saying they’re replicated accurately, but sociopath Cartman who fancies himself the mastermind manipulator ends up being the mover and shaker for most of the game when he’s not teaching you, well, fart magic. By all accounts the Elven Kingdom lead by Kyle are the better adjusted ones in this game of “who gets to control the wooden stick” with the New Kid simply ending up with KKK by happenstance. Your Companions are filled by series’ main cast, from sensible Stan to now cross-dressing Kenny, who even beyond critical story points get to chime in with their comments. Game being written by creators’ themselves makes it crystal clear there is no distinction to be made here.

Before I start yammering on about, you know, all the GAMEPLAY stuff, one point bears repeating – this is South Park. It’s offensive to the extreme, and if you’re unfamiliar it might take you aback before tickling you with a purple dildo. I don’t mean just that you can choose a Jew as your class, but there’s also a lot of touchy subjects being broached here with all the nuance and sensibility you can expect from a show that has a singing turd living in the sewers.

If the first half South Park: The Stick of Truth happens to be authenticity befitting the license, as provided by two creators themselves being heavily involved, then the other half has to be the RPG one as delivered by Obsidian Entertainment. Already known for developing buggy, but cult classic titles this one came out of the left field for many players. Why? Two reasons, really – drawing from JRPG traditions of Super Mario RPG title(s) and releasing in a polished state hitherto unseen from their studio. Hmmm, makes you think.

Latter I can’t say much about beyond congratulating on a job well done, but former I can and should discuss about for a bit.

You do get to fiddle around with equipment and skills more than you usually do in JRPGs, but this IS one wearing the guise of an established property. Turn-based combat featuring the New Kid + another companion on a separate battle screen with fixed positions attests to that. If you have any further doubts the protagonist can optionally acquire Summon-equivalents for massive damage. Why did I bring up Super Mario RPG earlier, though? Because almost everything you do in combat, short of using items as far as I can remember, requires some sort of action input. Yes, you’re not going to sit back and watch pretty animations play out passively. From pushing a button when objects highlight, mash buttons to deliver fire farts, give directional inputs for your assassin brothers to strike from the shadows or simply time shields correctly to block damage. This is non-negotiable as game doesn’t treat it as something optional. If there’s a silver lining here it’s that actions themselves are not too difficult or involved. What few I failed I did so because the element of surprise got me. Since we’re on the combat there’s a surprisingly amount of variety here from both damage types to enemy types. Mana is your farts energy used to cast “spells”, btw. Similar to equipment you’ll get your grubby paws on, it all seems overwhelming at first, but you don’t have to engage with the systems on some intimate level to advance.

You’re not just doing combat, though. You have to run into those enemies first and you’ll be doing that on interconnected screens in a somewhat condensed town of South Park. 2D nature of the game still allows some foreground and background action as you slip between the two to find all the chests and collectibles tucked away. It’s actually impressive they managed to cram just enough out-of-combat abilities for a 12-15 hour game so you want to re-visit locations to explore them fully. Handy fast travel, map and CHEST MARKERS also help. On top of typical leveling you’ll get perks based on how many people you’ve befriended on totally-not-Facebook. Add equipment to the mix, of which weapon damage is the hard determinant you want to go for and armor is entirely up to you, with some add-on modifiers and there’s just enough elements to engage with on every level of the game. If you want your Douchebag to looks a specific way there are customization slots like hair styles and accessories. Provided you don’t there’s a way too many armor sets which lead me to go through unsortable inventory after major milestones. One thing this game sorely misses.

Visually I think I’ve said everything already in that it’s really obvious – this game is South Park presentation-wise. Art style is attentively recreated down to there not being any jarring moments when you see 3D intruding. VA cast is here to bring characters to life and even their fantasy LARP re-designs all look great. I wish the four farts you get masquerading as spells were more distinct visually, but hey. There’s a surprising amount of achievements related to farts if you’re going for those.

Final Thoughts and Rating?

Effectively a turn-based JRPG with action commands doing tremendous fan service to the license it’s based on, South Park: The Stick of Truth is exactly what it says on the tin. Creating a protagonist and choosing a class, going with Jew gets some extra interactions, lands you in a South Park LARP scene as humans lead by Cartman are facing off against elves for the eponymous stick. In good old tradition of the show you can expect absolutely bizarre scenarios like raiding the Unplanned Parenthood clinic, vulgar humor taking no hostages and even the New Kid’s own sordid backstory. In all ways that matter you already know if you’re going to like this game or steer clear. As far as my opinion goes: it’s an amusing JRPG with just enough elements to be engaging, not overstay its welcome and SPARKLE.