#also i played through the entire sot game in 2 days so there might be some of that

[chaoticautvmn-old]

guess what motherfuckers when i come back from being grounded i’ve got some shit planned

[samtheflamingomain]

the fractured but decent

I just finished the new South Park game, The Fractured But Whole, so naturally, I want to pick apart every detail and review it in disgusting depth.

It might seem unfair to compare it to Stick of Truth, but I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of that.

Obviously, I'm a huge SP fanboy, and had been following the release of the game months beforehand. I watched an interview with Matt and Trey, and they gave a lot of insight into the game, how it would be different from SoT, and how it would be similar. That too will play into my analysis.

Obviously, spoilers ahead.

Let's divide this up for clarity. I'll go through general gameplay, plot, side quests and collectibles, mechanics/UI, and general thoughts, in that order.

Gameplay is a vague term so let's subdivide that: combat, powers, effects and exploration.

Combat is decent. I prefer the system set up in SoT, but the new system has its pros. I like the grid, moving around, and how your stats effect where you can move on the battleground. For example, Clyde has such a high "movement" stat that he can move almost anywhere on the grid.

But it can also get frustrating and confusing. Sometimes there's so many players on the board that moving becomes impossible. Sometimes you're stuck with combat buddies that can't attack, and sometimes it's unclear as to what the board will look like after your turn. For example, knockbacks and moves that change your location aren't always obvious as to how they’ll play out.

Finally, "inspection mode". It's meant to be used to get details on your friends and foes in battle, like their class, their health, and, most confusingly, their status effects and durations thereof. I never used it, and I think it just served to make combat more confusing.

Powers, I'll admit, kinda suck. Once you reach a point in the game where, for some back-assward reason, you unlock ALL POSSIBLE POWERS, it becomes a game of making a goddamn spreadsheet to weigh the pros and cons of more than 15 powers to decide which 4 you can have active in combat. Now, they give us a bit of help by allowing you to switch powers and buddies before a battle, but taking 20 minutes to pick your best powers beforehand is tedious, but also, unfortunately, necessary.

Also, they aren't very interesting or varied. Most powers involve a punch or hit, but there's like 8 of them that are basically the same. A lot don't make sense for their class, while others are completely useless. Finally, fuck all the healing powers. If you've got Kyle on your team, he's 50% a healer, so you have 2 (very weak) moves to use to deal damage. The healing items are much more effective, at least in my opinion.

Effects. What I mean by that is "Might", stats, and "artifacts". This is a lot of convoluted spreadsheet math again. There's hundreds of items that you can stick in your stats to improve your "Might". This is very hard to explain and even harder to balance.

Say you have six slots. There's more than 100 things that can go in those slots. Some of them improve your health stat, but eliminate your ability to move. Some of them downgrade your buddies' health while increasing your damage dealt. There's a total of (I think) 12 stats that can be affected by these "artifacts". Each one is assigned a number, and adding up all these numbers gives you your "Might" - which I still don't understand what, if anything, this means.

Exploration. Very little has changed since SoT in this department except there's fewer fast-travel locations, a slightly bigger map, and more (and better) puzzles throughout the world. One of my gripes would be the uselessness of many locations - a good 50% of the buildings or locations are only relevant once, and there's no need to revisit them later. (Canada, Mephesto's, the strip club, the Italian restaurant, City Wok, and U-Stor-It just to name a few).

But like I said, the puzzles are quite good, and actually challenging at times. Sometimes it involves spotting something a buddy can knock over, or noticing a little pinwheel that can get you on top of buildings. With the addition of the fart powers (reverse, pause, summon self and shift night/day), these puzzles are more complex and often have multiple steps involved.

Alright, onto the plot. I think it's much better than SoT. It starts out similar, with one faction of kids against the other, then brought together to fight a bigger foe. But they did this in a better, funnier, and ultimately more effective way, in my opinion.

For example, what seems like a silly side-quest leads to Stan (from the other faction) helping your faction, which then leads to both groups joining once they discover something bigger going on.

Now, this "bigger thing" is pretty confusing, especially at first. There's a lot of parts that don't seem to match up. The mayor is apparently failing the city, the cops are working for a racist slime monster (literally), and the sixth-graders are hoarding cats. It eventually comes together: the town is falling apart due to the main foe putting cat urine into the city's drugs and alcohol in order to cause chaos to usurp the mayor's seat. A lot of random groups get involved, like the sixth graders and Butters, to try and capitalize on the situation.

Which brings me to the second half of the game, where, in my opinion, a lot of comedic gold is made without it relying too much on nostalgia and throwbacks to the show. Mitch Conner, the main bad guy, is a joke I've never found particularly funny in the show, but in the game, it was easily one of the smartest moves they made.

"Mitch" (Cartman's hand puppet) kidnaps your parents in order to get you to help him win the mayoral race. As soon as this is revealed, all the characters react as they should: by blaming Cartman. No matter how much he insists "Mitch" is acting on his own, independent of himself, everyone turns on Cartman and he goes into hiding.

This, to me, is a much better way of bringing the plot together than in SoT, where the main villain's (Clyde’s) motivation is not very clear or believable. When we see "Mitch's" motivation for becoming mayor (to make every day Christmas), it's so absurd and Cartman-like that it works incredibly well.

And probably the funniest part of the game, right at the end, is when suddenly Mitch Conner takes over Kyle's hand. It makes no sense, but after the entire problem being blamed on Cartman, it takes a hilarious turn, suggesting that maybe Cartman really wasn't really behind everything after all.

And finally, the last battle. There's a bit of bullshit about going forward and back in time, but it ultimately leads to a hilarious battle where the characters fight themselves from the past - when they were still "playing" Stick of Truth. SuperCraig fights Thief Craig, Human Kite Kyle fights High Jew Elf Kyle and et cetera. There was also a great throwaway line from Wendy: "Hey, now I finally get to play Stick of Truth!"

Onto side quests and collectibles. I've stuck these together because they're pretty much the same. There's only maybe 8 side quests, and almost all of them are just "collect X and return to character Y". There's a lot to be desired in that department, in my opinion, but there is some good stuff in the "filling out your character sheet" plotline. Like the farting-flying-unicorn minigame where you help Kanye West's mother reach heaven so you can meet Jesus and choose your religion. Or when you have to learn about microagressions from PC Principal to choose your race.

As for the collectibles themselves, they're a bit much. Collect Yaoi, toilets, artifacts, costumes, Memberberries, Coonstagram followers, character sheets, cats. But that's up to you to care which achievements you pursue.

Now, mechanics and UI. This is the one category I will unapologetically shit on till the cows come home, with the exception of the phone menu, which is actually a very smart way to organize the massive amount of UI in place.

The artifact menu is a mess. It's confusing and frustrating. Same with the powers menu. Very hard to navigate intelligently. Props to the crafting menu, which is rather straightforward. But outside of the phone, the simple act of pulling up the map, seeing your quests and seeing your progress on those quests is very much lacking.

It gets even worse when we get into combat UI. When it's your turn, you get to choose between your three powers and healing items. It's actually somewhat trial-and-error when you go for an attack. Which power is most effective, and from which position on the board? It's a good thing it's turn-based and not timed, because I often found myself spending a good minute or two testing out every possible move.

And I'd be amiss if I didn't talk buddies. There's waaaay too many, and it's pretty easy to see the best ones and never change them: Wendy, Tweek, Cartman and Clyde were my team for the entire game, because nearly all the others have massive, gaping flaws in their combat abilities. For example, Stan only has two good moves, and they're very situation-dependent. They only help if he's in a specific spot and the enemies are lined up perfectly. He, along with Kyle, Kenny and Jimmy, are pretty useless.

Finally, general thoughts. Obviously, no matter my gripes, it's a great game. It's got enough from the last game and enough from the show to make it work. I found it much funnier than the last game, but, and here's one of my biggest problems with it: it was very short.

This brings me back to when I watched Matt and Trey talk about the game pre-release. They specifically said that this game would be longer. It only took me 20 hours to finish the main plotline AND all the side quests and collectibles. The last game took me nearly 30 hours just to finish the main quest. 

Also, they said the combat would be harder. It’s definitely more confusing and convoluted, but overall, it was pretty damn easy, (and I played on the hardest setting), and I only died maybe three times.

Two of the three fart powers (summon self and switch night/day) are pretty useless; I would've liked more interesting uses for these powers, or, even better, different ones. Reverse time and pause time have great applications in nearly every aspect of gameplay, whereas the other two only get used once or twice in very specific circumstances.

Again, I only gripe because I love the show and the games; I wouldn't put this much thought into it if I didn't. There was a lot that I feel like they missed out on, but there was definitely a lot that they got right. Every building has something to offer, unlike SoT, and there's a lot more in the way of puzzles, characters and overall comedy.

I do hope there'll be another game, but I don't know how that would really happen. If they're going to stick to the RPG genre, well, the kids have only ever played Game of Thrones and superheroes in the show. I don't know that there's another way to do this sort of game.

But hey, as we all know, Matt and Trey are full of surprises.

Stay Greater.