South Park The Stick of Truth can be summed up as what happens when a South Park-based fever dream becomes reality. Ubisoft has managed to bring us a game (once held by the now-defunct THQ) that is the closest anyone has ever come to making the player feel like they were in the show. If you are a fan of the South Park television show then Stick of Truth will go above and beyond any of your expectations.
Stick of Truth was developed by Obsidian Entertainment a studio well known for mostly handling sequels to many major RPG based games including, Fallout New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2.
Obsidian has taken their knowledge from their varied works to craft a very solid RPG adventure set firmly in the world of the South Park television show. Funny, irreverent and crude, South Park The Stick of Truth will have you laughing out loud at almost every turn. The story follows you, the new kid in town, on a quest to retrieve the titular Stick of Truth from those who stole it from Kupa Keep (Cartman’s backyard).
We get little bits and pieces along the way letting us know that your family moved to South Park to start over after some major event that surrounded you. We are also quickly recruited by Butters to join in Cartman’s imaginary medieval adventure. The Stick of Truth isn’t stingy when it comes to the cameos from past characters and events in the series, calling back all the way to season one of the show. Exploring the town is a rewarding experience that will net fans of the show a treasure trove of fan service.
The gameplay is broken down into a fairly simplified form of RPG combat. Unlike say a Final Fantasy, here you can clearly see all enemy encounters before they happen and choose to avoid them, if possible. When a battle does occur we are presented with a battle screen that pits your team of heroes, you get one companion in battle, against a variety of baddies from the show’s history.
Most everything is done in an imagined medieval setting and the combat system feels appropriate. Your options in combat are presented in a wheel around each character with options ranging from RPG standards such as Attack, Special Ability, Use Item, Summon and an option to use your secondary weapon in combat (every character has a main weapon and a secondary projectile weapon).
While the combat system is basic it isn’t as easy as it initially looks to be. Enemy units have a number of options available to them to not only combat you but to protect themselves as well. They can set their status to repost or dodge, use shields that negate most attacks, use status effects and some of the larger enemies can even resist certain attacks forcing you to use some strategy in dealing with them.
Generally, you are allowed two actions per turn when in combat. You can use an item and attack which makes the game a little easier than many die-hard RPG fans would like. Also, while you do only get one companion in battle they can be swapped out at any time, even during a battle, with any other character in your party. The combat works and although it doesn’t do anything special the number of special abilities and weapons make for a really good time.
If someone were to walk in on you playing The Stick of Truth they could easily be forgiven for thinking you were watching an episode of the show. The graphics are spectacular in just how they manage to capture the look and feel of the South Park universe. Not only is The Stick of Truth a gorgeous game to behold it is by far one of, if not the best-licensed game to ever come out.
Every little bit of the town of South Park is modeled with the same care that is taken in the show and characters move, look and sound exactly like they would in the show. You could pull almost any screen from the game and people would think that it’s a shoot straight from the show.
More often than not everything works like butter, but from time to time you will encounter some odd visual glitches. On several occasions I had companions stop walking and instead slide around behind me, in battle, I had special moves glitch out and their animations stay on screen while the march continued making everything invisible. These glitches never lead to the game crashing and always resolved themselves on their own but were still a pain at times.
The Stick of Truth also manages to capture the sound perfectly. The entire cast is voiced wonderfully with a copious amount of in-game dialogue. Even the enemies are voiced with loads of comments and responses. I don’t think there was ever a time when I even read a text box while playing; a most impressive feat for any RPG game.
The sound effects are all show appropriate and the music has the medieval styling permeating the game that helps suck you into the imaginary world the kids are creating. A funny thing that I noticed was the use of a piece of music that sounded eerily like the Sherlock Holmes movie theme that kept playing over and over during the game. I’m not sure if it was intentional or just a tune that sounds similar, but every time it came up I kept thinking of those films, but then again I’m weird like that.
South Park The Stick of Truth not only easily knocks every other prior South Park game out of the water, but is also a fantastic game in its own right. Between the beautiful animations and witty dialogue, Stick of Truth knocks it out of the park, the South Park (I apologize for that). While there are a few bugs here and there and I personally also felt the inclusion of the alien-related bits took a little away from the magic that is the medieval setting the game worked so hard to build, it’s still a great game and a must-own for all South Park fans.
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