South Park: The Stick of Truth

Cover created with http://www.sp-studio.de/

Before we begin, I need to say one thing, THIS IS THE BEST TV LICENSE GAME EVER! I AM NOT FUCKING WITH YOU!

STORY
You are the new kid in town and become involved with the game the boys in town are all playing, basically larps. The two sides, the humans led by Cartman who you side with at first, you get a choice later on, and Kyle and his Jew-Elves. However this is South Park so nothing is ever that simple as the plot becomes full of aliens, government agents, Al Gore and Nazi Zombies and all this started over a stick.

Main Characters
The new kid has virtually no personality as he says absolutely nothing as he is you. The usual kids are here Stan the knight and Kyle lead the elves with Jimmy the bard, while Cartman the wizard, Butters the Paladin and Princess Kenny...

Okay that's from the show... but it does appear in the game and no I don't know why he's a princess.

Artwork

The art style is 100% South Park in every single way, crappy looking on purpose, though you'll eventually see Canada and trust me it's brilliant in a retro kinda way.

Gameplay
Despite all the potty mouth humour, there is a excellent RPG hidden within. Weapon choices to use which are all silly, like a vibrator sword or bouncy ball for long range for example which can be customised by attaching patches to them which vary from adding status effects to attacks, increasing defense or recovering health each turn or hit. You have a choice between four roles, Fighter which I played, who is your classical knight role with attacks like Roshambo, you don't know what Roshambo is, well...

The other roles are Mage, Thief which are both what you expect and Jew. Well this is South Park, and the Jew is basically the monk role who learns Jew-Jitsu.

Anyway the rpg style battles are pretty solid, you have a two man party which includes you and a sidekick of choice. You have two goes per turn, the first is used for potions or side effect moves and the second turn for attacking which if you attack first cancels your second turn giving you only the attack, so if you need to heal do it first. All the attacks involve pressing buttons at the right time, such as Roshambo which requires you to click the left mouse button when your hands meet and then click the button again if you get it perfectly for a second hit, and oh yeah, I'm playing the PC version. During combat you'll notice 3 meters, one is health, one is PP, which powers your special attacks and the third is Mana which powers your 'magic' attacks.

Of course when I say magic, I of course mean...

Yeah that... anyway these come in four forms, the straight forward blast, Dragonshout, the aimable blast Cup A Spell, the distraction based Sneaky Squeaker and the earthquake creating Nagasaki and oh yeah all of these can be used in the open world without using Mana.

Of course the enemies aren't defenseless in battle, they can stake stances as well as attack or even heal themselves, though the stances come in two forms, impervious to melee weapons and impervious to ranged, though only one at a time. The enemies are yourself have access to armour which protects from both kinds of attacks, though power strikes can break the armour down. A power strike is when you attack with a regular attack, inside of left clicking, you right click which increases the power for one powerful strike.

You also have access to abilities that work in the open world, for one you have access to Facebook which allows contact with the characters in the game who will message you information and friends are the most important part of the game as the more sidequests you complete, the more friends you make and the more perks you can unlock such as reducing damage, increasing your own, recovering a small amount of health each turn, it's your choice.

Other things you can pick aid in your quest such as your long range item which you can use in the open world to help you pass barriers or find Chinpokomon which are little collectibles for no reason than collectibles are cool.

Yeah the references for South Park episodes are quite literally everywhere, I won't spoil them for you, but the one in the bank, don't deposit anything...

Of course I forgot the summonings, basically beat their sidequests to unlock, Mr Hankey, Mr Slave, Jesus and the City Wok guy to fight your battles for you, but can only be used once a day and they won't fight bosses because they're scary.

So is South Park: Stick of Truth worth your time, well if you are a South Park fan, yes, if you're an Rpg fan, yes, if none of the above or an easily annoyed Canadian jewish person, not really.

That's what I've been going with.