South Park: The Fractured But Whole review
Farting on command… with superpowers!
The highly, highly controversial South Park: The Stick of Truth thrust series fans and newcomers alike into a crude but hilarious role-playing game that parodied countless more serious role-playing titles before; it was more than reasonable for players to expect something similar from the highly-anticipated sequel, and that’s exactly what we’ve been given. South Park: The Fractured But Whole shifts the parodic focus over to superhero films and video games, and it more than meets gamers’ expectations in terms of combat, crudeness, humour and flatulence on its way to being one of the most hilarious role-playing game in recent memory.
In The Fractured But Whole, the children of South Park have decided to stop fighting for the Stick of Truth and move on to playing superheroes with outrageous superpowers battling for their own superhero franchise. Cartman leads as The Coon, enlisting a cast of his friends — including Kyle as the Human Kite and Stan as Tool Shed — to investigate and battle a sudden rise in feline disappearances within South Park, and finding that these small-time crimes are part of a much bigger problem that they must battle together. The writing quality is still up to scratch from the last installment, with spot-on animation and voice acting heightening the South Park humour throughout the town; even walking down the streets of South Park is hilarious enough, with the city’s residents always equipped with something funny or insulting to say when the player gets close enough to hear it.
Players are once again cast into the shoes of the New Kid, exploring and battling enemies with their ability to command and control farts and use them as weapons. Players join Coon and Friends, with Cartman acting as a guide to the superhero character sheet that they must explore and complete quests in order to fill. Much like one would find in Dungeons and Dragons, the superhero character sheet contains everything the New Kid and his friends need to know about the hero: a tragic backstory, their worst fears, and of course, their weakness (players can select either scary ninjas, sixth graders, and smelly old people). The tremendous range of abilities is awesome, with plenty of classes to choose from throughout the game, each providing players with three more abilities and an ultimate ability that they can mix and match as they unlock each specific class. Players are given the opportunity to select their abilities before each battle, lending a strategic element to the game, and to change the New Kid’s appearance, costume, gender and ethnicity at any point during the game.
Although the game’s character creation system has improved against its predecessor’s, it still has very little impact on the overall game. The notable exception to that rule, however, is that the character’s skin colour is directly tied to the game’s difficulty level; the darker their skin colour, the more difficult the game (this change doesn’t affect combat, though — just “every other aspect of your whole life” according to Cartman). Although this is an expression of South Park’s crude, irreverent humour, it’s really quite a pointless and insensitive feature that the game could just as easily have done without.
The Fractured But Whole’s combat system is majorly improved from its predecessor’s as well, introducing a grid-based movement system that allows players to move around and position themselves for their next attack, and quick-time events that — if successfully completed — can reduce damage and fill up the player’s super meter on the path to unleashing their ultimate ability on their foes. This new combat system is more approachable and easier to understand, providing a fun and challenging battle experience by allowing players to think strategically about how to act in order to deal the most possible damage to their foes. This strategic element comes in especially handy during the game’s zany boss fights — against such bosses as Professor Chaos or Jared the Sandwich Guy and his Aides — where the path to victory is not as straightforward as simply damaging the boss on every turn.
While The Fractured But Whole does live up to the expectations its predecessor has generated, it is not without flaws, the most significant being the repetitive nature of the enemies stalking around South Park. While The Stick of Truth spoiled players with Nazi zombies, ginger kids and more, The Fractured But Whole’s offering is somewhat stripped down; players are almost certain to grow tired of facing the same old Raisins girls and sixth-graders in every side quest. Fortunately, these battles are pretty easy to avoid, and that’s encouraged for anyone who isn’t a grinder.
The game has also developed on its predecessor’s use of social media, with Coonstagram — its version of Instagram — allowing the player to take selfies with the people of South Park in order to gain more followers. Unfortunately, this task also becomes annoyingly repetitive, forcing players to stop and change their focus whenever they happen across a character they haven’t encountered before just for the sake of taking a selfie and gaining a follower.
Early on in the game, the puzzles show some promise by providing players with minor challenges for rewards, but their difficulty doesn’t scale with the player’s power and range of abilities, leaving them quite cumbersome and easy. The player can also enlist their friends’ aid in traversing certain obstacles, able to fart in the angry Captain Diabetes’ face in order to trigger his temper and get him to move heavy obstacles, or throw Professor Chaos’ guinea pigs at power cables to open security doors, just for instance. Although these are hilarious ways to solve puzzles, they once again suffer from the same repetition as the rest of the game, with even the fart jokes that South Park has become so famous for becoming quite stale by the end. As annoying as they can be, though, these repetitive aspects of the game can be avoided or mitigated, and South Park: The Fractured But Whole is a worthy enough successor to The Stick of Truth, good for many hours of entertainment and laughter.
Our Verdict:
South Park: The Fractured But Whole picks up where its predecessor left off in terms of humour and general crudeness while improving its combat system to create a very fun role-playing experience. Although it can become quite repetitive in the later stages, this does not detract from the fun, and this game comes highly recommended for fans of the series and newcomers alike.
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