rambling1

[rambling1]

South Park; Stick of Truth & Fractured but Whole: Not that funny but that’s okay.

South Park as a series I have had limited exposure to. The target audience seemed to be teenagers and when I was younger it and a few other shows were the ones that were off-limits. So by the time i had seen my first episode, I thought it to be just okay. Comedy is a subjective thing, What causes someone to laugh might cause someone else to roll their eyes. For me, it’s worth a chuckle or a sharp exhale out of my nose, but it never really left me rolling with laughter. The same seems to go for the games, but I don’t mean it as the damnation it sounds like. South Park seems to go for an absurdist-style of humor to make a statement about, well, everything. I overly empathize with well done characters, characters who’s decisions make sense and reactions are in-line with how the character and world are presented. I’m no literary professor or anything, so “what makes a good character” isn’t something I can just give off the top of my head. The world of South Park is absurd, but it’s absurd from the standpoint of the schmuck on the couch playing the game. My in-game avatar and the in-universe characters LIVE in that absurd world, so it isn’t absurd to them. There are some inconsistencies that I think drag it down; moments where I thought “wait is this functioning on this bizarre world’s rules or in the imagination of these kids” fighting other kids dressed in their version of “ye-olde” attire or superhero/heroine/villain clothes, sure, if i say that I have eye lasers or freezing powers pchew! pchewe! you’re now frozen, that’s fine. suspension of disbelief can be be extended to drunkards and druggies who are hopped up and “oh fuck, if this kid says I’m frozen and can’t move, maybe I am” fair. But wolves? Flippin’ NINJAS!? So I actually HAVE these superpowers?! Why the fuck are people acting like I’m some kid when I can travel at super speed!! But I digress.  Speaking of combat, the system is pretty good. TSOT is basic Paper Mario type combat;, my turn, your turn, different attacks do damage or inflict status effect or both, press the button at the right time to deal bonus damage to opponents and reduce damage from foes. Items and certain powers don’t take your turn, but the moment you throw a punch, turn over.Combat could be easily broken with the usage of speed potions, sacrificing your item use for two attacks, I rarely needed to use healing items. I also rarely used the “magic” fart powers, my mana gauge mostly being used to add bonus damage to my attacks except when needed for some specific fights. FBW shakes things up with a party system as opposed to just a singular ally, and grid based movement in combat. Status effects aren’t as busted and learning how to position so that an opponent has to waste a turn to reposition was something that felt rewarding to figure out. The farts are useful for extra actions and erasing opponents turns with fair cooldowns that prevented abuse. Overall,better and more balanced in the second game. The story isn’t extremely memorable or earth-shattering, but it’s not trying to be. Most of it is all stances or statements, mostly about consumable media. Believe it or not, from a seriousness perspective, the story is social commentary. .Again, I don’t watch South Park, so maybe the show is more about that than the shock humor I thought it was, but the games tackle a great deal of pop-culture and social issues. Not at all what I was expecting. Most of the humor I got out of it I had to think about to really smile, the absurdity of a bunch of kids, in their fantasy game, attacking meth heads or raiding a government base, that kind of  “wait, wtf did I just do outside the fantasy context” made it funny enough. I personally liked the silent protagonist approach in the first game but not as much in the second. In the first, the characters call you “Douchebag” and “Asshole” because if you are going to commit to the whole silent protag thing, then you won’t say anything about what we decide to call you, and you won’t say no if we tell you to do shit for us either. The punchline at the end where your character actually does speak and it’s just the show-classic line of “screw you guys, I’m going home” I thought was actually pretty funny. The line is iconic to the show and even as someone who has only seen approx. 6 episodes at most got it is a real testament to the series. But after that line, to play through as an even MORE silent protagonist with 0 spoken lines (as of posting I haven’t yet played the DLC for FBW so I could be wrong) I feel is a missed opportunity for better humor. The ability to tell some of the characters to “fuck off” when you’re asked to walk into danger only to be told “you’re the main character, jackass. Do it or there is no game” would have been a funny joke. There’s also more customization options in FBW. In TSOT, there would be sections where you need a certain costume to progress, your costume being your gear and armor and a source of some buffs means that certain fights are made more difficult due to you needing to use un-optimized gear. That is gone in FBW, you can wear any costume pieces that you’ve unlocked in any combination and buffs come from a separate gear type. You can customize your character’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, superhero weakness, economic status, religion, and alignment during various sidequests, after almost all of those you fight a group of rednecks who attack you based on those things, with the last one having a joke about dialogue trees. I opted for a female character, and immediate notice was drawn with how the protagonist from the first game was a male character or so they thought, and from that point, some passing things are said about “you have soft skin for a guy” or “you’re kinda cute for a guy...” I thought there was going to be a joke at the end, another “screw you guys I’m goin home” with a  female voice actor and a “wait, the new guy is a chick!?” cut to credits, but nothing.  All in all, tl;dr, etc. the South Park RPGs are solid games with decent mechanics that are full of social commentary. I wasn’t constantly laughing but they did make me think which is good in my book.

#south park #south park fbw #south park tsot #rpg #video games #game review #video game review #long post