I wasn't expecting to review another game so soon, but I hit the end of South Park: The Fractured But Whole quite by surprise. I got through a deliberately frustrating battle, which leads into a cut scene. Within a few minutes, Butters' dad is reminding the rest of the townspeople they can go buy clean drugs and alcohol from the next town and boom! Credits roll. It's Chaos!
Abrupt end aside, what do we got? This is a sequel to Stick of Truth, which I reviewed, oh god, almost nine years ago?! Or maybe it's a prequel, because the kids have abandoned superheroes to return to playing Tolkeinesque fantasy after disagreements about franchising their cinematic universe caused a split of the heroes into rival camps. Coon and Friends versus the Freedom Pals.
You're the New Kid (or ButtLord), whose look can be customized about as much as is possible within the confines on what South Park characters look like. You get involved when Cartman pulls his team together to find a missing cat with a $100 reward that could boost the franchise, but quickly learn the whole thing goes much deeper than just missing cats.
There are missions related to that plot, which is ridiculous enough on its own, and has you fighting cops, the homeless, strippers, and Lovecraftian horrors, not to mention Professor Chaos (until he makes a face turn.) Then you have the occasional mission helping out one of the other heroes. Like Mosquito needing to get back his dad's credit card from the Raisins' girls, or attending couples' therapy with Craig and Tweek.Or keeping Stan's dad from driving drunk. There's also smaller fetch-it quests like finding all of Big Gay Al's cats, or getting people to follow you on "Coonstagram".
Some of the stuff in this game is the dumbest shit imaginable, but it cracked me up more times than I could count. I'm sitting there trying to play and bent over double laughing at what I'm asked to do. The battle against Butters' dad, where you prove impossible to ground, to the amazement of adult and child alike.
The combat is largely the same turn-based, grid battleground approach as Stick of Truth, but with superpowers instead of medieval magic and swords. You start out as only one class of hero, but as you improve (and your origin gets more convoluted) you unlock more options for types of powers you can mix-and-match. So you can probably find something that fits your preferred style. Likewise, which other heroes are available to work with you varies, but you can usually find a trio that'll help get you through.
I feel as though I took more advantage of the status effects attacks could do to enemies here than in the earlier game, but this game also tends to have those as add-ons to an attack. You use something that hurts the enemy, but then also causes Bleeding damage, or Gross Out, after their next turn. You can stack those, where someone might have 3 status effects on them at once. Not so fun when it happens to you, but how often does someone reap what they sow, really?
Stick of Truth had elements of "fart magic", but I don't remember using it, except when the game required it. Fractured But Whole makes it a much bigger mechanic. Much of the plot hinges on the incredible powers your butt can unlock. Presenting obstacles or puzzles that require you to combine your flatulence with the other characters' powers. Lava (barriers of red lego blocks) that you clear by hooking Toolshed's dad's sandblaster up to your butt. Or temporarily stopping time so you can cross a hazard and turn off the power to the security system. Things like that.
Fortunately, the controls to use them aren't that complicated, so I never reached the level of frustration with that stuff the way I did occasionally in the first game. The frustrating parts were later boss fights, with too many enemies on the field, or you had to do something very specific to win. In one, you have to knock the henchmen in range of the monster, so it'll eat them and get sick. Which means you need characters in your team with Knockback attacks. So if you didn't put them in the line-up, or select powers for your character that do that, it's kind of a pain in the ass.
But for the most part, the battles that are frustrating are, as I mentioned up top, by design. Because these are kids playing a game, so some of them (read: Cartman) are going to cheat or make-up rules to help themselves win. So it's at least character appropriate irritation. Which makes it OK. I guess. Mostly.
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