South Park: The Stick of Truth - Review

Title: South Park: The Stick of Truth

Format: Steam download, Windows PC DVD, Xbox 360, PS3

Release Date: March 4, 2014 (NA), March 6 (AU) March 7 (EU)

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Obsidian Entertainment, South Park Digital Studios

Original MSRP: $59.99

MSRB Rating: M

For this review, I’ll be playing the 360 version of the game

The highly-anticipated South Park game has finally come out after several years in production. Does it pay homage to the South Park that we have come to know and love, or foes this fantasy RPG fall apart worse than a D&D character sheet soaked from water balloons thrown by the jocks? Here’s my review:

The Grand Wizard himself

Story: The Stick of Truth’s opening cut scenes present practically the entire story within the first five minutes. The humans, led by the Grand Wizard (Cartman), are in a struggle with the Drow Elves (led by Kyle) over the relic known only as The Stick of Truth. Whomever controls the Stick, controls the game.


You play as the new kid who has just moved into town for a reason that is not explained until much later in the game. Your parents suggest you head out and explore the town and make some new friends. After which, you meet Butters, who is being attacked by a Drow Elf minion. Once you save Butters, he takes you to the house of the Grand Wizard where Cartman runs you through the opening tutorial of the game. I won’t go into too much detail about the main story because half of the fun is getting to experience the game on your own. I will say that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are at their best in this game.

You can create your ideal "you" with several hundred
custom items. 

Game play: If you’re familiar with an Obsidian game (Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: KOTOR 2, Alpha Protocol), you already have an idea what you’re getting into: a deep RPG with a solid amount of inventory management, status ailments, and status-dealing special attacks. If you’re not familiar with what to expect: TSOT is a turn-based Role-Playing Game that is a callback to older RPGs like Final Fantasy 2, Super Mario RPG, and Earthbound. Each turn, before you attack, you have the option to heal with an item or summon an ally to your side. Your partner can do the same on his turn but, instead of summoning, they have a special attack that can either buff your team or inhibit the enemy.

Each attack has two separate strengths: a regular attack that works against shielded/non-armored

Butters is, by far, my favorite character in this game

enemies, and a power attack which works well on your enemies counterparts. Weapons can have stickers placed on them, allowing different buffs such as: negating enemy armor, extra fire damage, increasing your armor/HP/magic, and several others. The amount of detail that went into the RPG elements of this game is impressive and fans of older RPGs will appreciate Obsidian’s work. Another classic trope Obsidian uses is the concept of “first strike”. In the over world, if you see an enemy, you can use your bow to stun your enemy and get in an extra strike before your foes have a chance to counterattack.

It's like Gauntlet, only more vulgar and racist

One downside to the game is that your maximum level only goes up to 15 so you miss out on some of the stronger versions of your special attacks. Each special attack is custom to each class in the game: Fighter, Mage, Thief, and Jew. For my first run through the game, I chose Fighter. I later checked out Thief and the first few levels of Mage and Jew. Each character feels about the same, but their specials can really make the difference in battle. When upgraded enough, you can deal large area of effect damage to all opponents, making it easier to clear lots of enemies reasonably quick. 

There are several side-quests within the game, which lead to several sub-bosses that can be harder than the final boss if you don't have the right character. Despite their toughness, they are incredibly fun. Something about lighting Cartman's farts on fire and taking out Al Gore and his Secret Service minions is highly rewarding. 

Unfortunately, there's no Kurt Russel to be found

All together the game, including sidequests, will take you around 10-15 hours to complete. The default setting is on normal mode, with a hard mode that increases its replay value. I ran through about the first 1/3 of the game on hard and didn't see any noticeable differences to the game, other than damage dealt/received and a few different pieces of loot. There is no New Game+, so you'll be starting from scratch once again.  

Visuals: The entire game plays out as if you are watching an episode of South Park. Characters move as if you would expect them to: with minimal leg movement and bouncing around to move. Environments are rendered relatively quickly, however loading times can be longer than normal. With Obsidian games, this is kind of expected, but the times are much shorter than Fallout: New Vegas's load screens. The time's aren't too terribly long but with basic environments and textures beg the question: why? 

The most visual action that takes place is within the battle system. Animations are fluid with little to no latency issues (I was playing on an older 360 and it struggles for a few seconds, but nothing too obnoxious to turn me away from the game), and the status effects that are placed on enemies are relevant to their reactions: enemies on fire will bounce around and scream, frozen/slowed enemies will shiver and say "brrrrr", bleeding enemies will grab their side and a pool of blood will appear underneath them. I could find no screen tearing anywhere in the game. I did have a moment where my underwear was being stolen by the Underwear Gnomes and although my character was supposed to be looking at them in amazement, he was nowhere to be found. That was on a second play through so it didn't bother me much. 

What happens after this scene was censored in several
other countries. There's a good reason, but man, I was
laughing more than I thought I would have.

Environments are, to say the least, entertaining. Places such as the Underwear Gnomes' Secret Hideout, Mr. Slave, an alien spaceship, an abortion clinic, and others are all in-game locations that you get to visit. Each location has its own unique charm, whether it be incredibly disgusting or amusing. However, make sure to get everything in an area, as most places you can not go back to. If you forgot to get that last Chinpokomon before exiting the spaceship: too bad. 

Audio: The audio in TSOT is rather good. The over world has two or three (?) songs that play as you explore South Park with your companion. Couple that with the sound effects and music from the show that you have come to know and you have a fantastic soundtrack that compliments the game terrifically. The Gothic-style music of Skyrim with the catchy shanties from Assassin's Creed and you have a spectacular vibe that can quickly immerse the player into this unusually serious world that blurs the lines between comedy and drama. 

Online/Multiplayer: No online/multiplayer currently exists for TSOT. 

Pros: 15 hour game is just the right length; writing is spot-on and translates well from the show to the game; callback to previous RPGs done well; solid inventory management; ability to skip over encounters with enemies; more weapons/power-ups than you can shake a stick at (sorry...)

Cons: If you're not a fan of South Park or RPGs, you probably won't enjoy this game; map is somewhat clunky, as is the inventory management system; no way to compare attachments that are currently on your weapon to the ones that are in your inventory (it's a small gripe, but I feel that it would help the item management aspect ten-fold); enough visual bugs to temporarily take you out of the atmosphere of the game

Final Score: 8.0/10 - Great game, but a little more polish is needed

Agree/Disagree with the score? Have a suggestion for a game? Questions about the ratings system, or anything in general? Ask me on Twitter @AdHocMan, or on Google+ at +Zac Hockin

This Thursday: Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes for multi-plat

Review Written by Zachary Hockin