REVIEW

South Park: The Fractured But Whole Review

by Jake Stewart, October 28th, 2017

If you played any of the older South Park games around the Nintendo 64 era, you’d still have a bad taste left in your mouth from the thought of South Park video games. No South Park game made any waves, until The Stick of Truth. Not only was the Stick of Truth a fantastic RPG, it was the truest form of a South Park game we’d ever seen. The Fractured But Whole had giant shoes to fill in order to exceed the expectations left behind from The Stick of Truth. After experiencing The Fractured But Whole, I can safely say that it is a fantastic sequel to a fantastic game.

The game opens right after the Stick of Truth, from the start this creates a feeling of being part of this bigger story. While the story of the original doesn’t carry over much, it’s nice to see thought put into the continuity of the two games. The boys have grown tired of playing fantasy and have donned their crime-fighting uniforms in this new adventure. Seeing all the characters come back but reprise different roles helps The Fractured But Whole feel like its own experience, and not just more of the original.

The Stick of Truth recreated the world of South Park down to a tee, and The Fractured But Whole does not disappoint in its faithfulness to the source material. The entire game feels exactly like a South Park episode, the humor, the characters, the world has all been recreated with obvious love to the series. The Stick of Truth perfected this and while The Fractured But Whole doesn’t add much new to this experience, there was almost nothing left to improve upon the original in terms of likeness to the show. Matt Stone and Trey Parker clearly have so much love for this world they have created, and being able to walk through it again is amazing. As a huge fan of the show, I loved being able to return to the world of South Park.

On the same front, the main draw of this game is the South Park aspects. Chances are that if you are not a fan of the show, the RPG aspects are not enough to overcome this. The Fractured But Whole won’t do anything to change your mind on South Park as a series, but if you’re a fan then you are set for an absolutely brilliant experience.

The crude factor has obviously been ramped up compared to a regular episode in order to have an over-the-top South Park experience. Whether it be assisting the local police department arrest someone whose crime is clearly only the color of their skin. Or having your elementary school student main character perform a lap-dance minigame to extort information from business men. The Fractured But Whole never ceases to try and offend literally every type of person, and it’s pretty damn hilarious.

Sometimes the humor can attempt to be over-the-top and fall flat, however. I understand that the characters are primarily children but man does the poop jokes REALLY start to wear off. A big part of the collectibles is a pooping minigame, and it really wasn’t even funny the first time. The game opens on this moment of your character on the toilet, and forces you to play the minigame. This same minigame is repeated 15-20 more times around town as you use each toilet. On the same end, a lot of the player characters special abilities are controlled by farts like in the original. While most of the humor is fairly clever, these parts just feel over-done and childish. This is no major flaw to the game as a whole, but a few less fart jokes would be appreciated.

In the improvements category, the combat is roughly 100x cooler than it was in the original. Rather than a turn based RPG in the same vein as older Final Fantasy’s, the battle now allows movement across a grid. Attacking must be more tactical now, as your placement on the grid heavily affects who can be targeted. Instead of simply picking an attack and hitting whoever is nearby, each attack has a different direction, range, and effect. Some attack may hit everyone in a diagonal line from your position, or a ranged attack could attack whoever is three squares away from you horizontally. Each character’s turn has to be thoroughly considered, as you must take into account their position currently, the direction of your attacks, and where they will be when their turn ends. This re-imagining of The Stick of Truth’s combat is a major upgrade, and keeps the combat from becoming tiresome.

Unlike the previous entry, your abilities are not diced up between a standard melee attack and your other abilities. Your abilities are tied to your class, and in some cases, you may not have any melee attack at all. Each ability has different effects and direction, causing an extra level of strategy when you are deciding which abilities to equip. Being constantly on the move, having to account for both party and enemy position, and choosing which abilities will make the most impact based on the current situation make the combat a much more engaging experience.

In The Stick of Truth, you could only have one of the cast by your side as a buddy in combat. This number is increased to 3 in The Fractured But Whole, and allows much more control over party composition. Making decisions as who to appoint for healing, ranged, or special effect abilities is imperative once the difficulty starts setting in the late game. Another bonus to having the extra characters is the interactions between party members. Characters have a great amount of dialogue to share among each other as the battles progress. From harassment, praise, and general chatter, every combination of characters has something to discuss during combat. These bits of dialogue were some of my favorite parts, and I found myself cracking up during combat from some of the horribly rude remarks made between team members.

During the world exploration, there are plenty of secrets to be found from new gear, consumables, and mission items. The game constantly rewards exploration by placing chests in out of the way areas. Sometimes these chests require an ability you have yet to unlock, encouraging the player to retrace their steps to access things in the later game that they could not previously. Some frustrations can be found with getting hung up on the objects in the environment. As the world is in a 2D space, you may frequently find yourself grinding up against an object trying to find the way around. Chests behind bushes and other world decor can be a hassle to get to, with a lack of indication which areas could be passed through and which cannot.

Crafting is a new addition in the game, but ultimately feels somewhat unnecessary. If you’re even spending a little time exploring the environment, you will end up with more crafting materials than could ever be needed. It is nice to get to save your currency and craft items instead of purchasing them, but I rarely ever had to seek out any materials, so every item was at my disposal. Sometimes you can craft an artifact that will help boost your Might level, but often enough the craftable artifacts become outdated by the ones you simply find during play. The main use of the crafting system is to make consumable items. While these are very useful, the abundance of crafting materials just makes it seem unnecessary.

With a fantastic campaign, a slew of great side missions, and a majorly improved combat system, The Fractured But Whole is a must play for any South Park fan. Playing through this game is like being a part of an actual South Park episode, and may be even more convincing than the original in that regard. This game is a hilarious experience, and doesn’t skimp on the engaging story in the slightest. Improving nearly in every way from its predecessor, there are very few things to dislike about this title.