I beat South Park: The Fractured But Whole last night (on my 31st birthday!) I really enjoyed my time with the game. I am a huge South Park fan and the type of fan service that both Stick of Truth and Fractured But Whole give to fans like me can’t be explained very well. Being able to be a kid in the town and have an adventure with the boys is truly a great experience and I’m so happy that Matt and Trey are interested in giving us more and more experiences that make South Park alive in 2017.
While I enjoyed Fractured, I couldn’t help but feel that Stick of Truth was just…more South Park.
South Park, to me, is one part crass humor, one part social commentary, and one part excellent narrative structure. Stick of Truth was a bit weaker in social commentary due to it’s extended development time. What it lacked in social commentary, it made up for in crass humor and over the top fan service. Randy getting anally drilled by aliens was one of the funniest scenes in gaming to date, and the finale featuring Morgan Freeman had me laughing the entire time. It was a bit rough in spots, but that roughness made it feel more like the 2004-2010 or so era South Park. It was crass while delivering some social commentary, and it had excellent plot lines and threads that all delivered.
Fractured But Whole is a bit of a different story. The game is a bit more contained (you’re not going to Canada) and focused on the kids and their superhero personas. That works very well, even if the super hero story lines aren’t your favorite thing (they aren’t mine). Much like the Stick of Truth, the finale is hilarious. It was less laughing my ass off and more “what the hell is this!!” kind of funny, and in the context of the story, characters, and South Park universe, it worked brilliantly. At the same time, the path the story takes to get to the climax lags in spots, especially early on. Some of this is for gameplay reasons, some is explained in the story at the end, and some of it is just poor pacing. Stick of Truth suffered from this a bit as well, but I think it had shock value that Fractured But Whole lacked. That shock value made the slow story sections feel significantly better.
When it comes to social commentary, Fractured But Whole is dripping with it, far more than than Stick of Truth did. In fact, parts of Fracture But Whole’s gameplay are bits of commentary themselves. When gameplay can also be commentary, you’re doing something right (see Spec Ops: The Line). Fractured was made in about 3 years, while Stick of Truth was done in 4 and change. Snow Drop, the engine used for Fractured But Whole, was able to use show assets directly. This meant that it was easy for rewrites and additions to be done to the script. I’m pretty sure this is why Fractured is so topical. With Stick of Truth, the lack of being as topical and eventual need to lock that script earlier than in Fractured But Whole might have been why there was more toilet humor and shock moments. It’s up to the player to decide what they liked more, but when you get to go into Mr. Slave’s ass…it’s hard to top.
When it comes to being a game, Fractured But Whole is easily the superior title. The gameplay is more strategic thanks to the tactics elements of movement that have been added to the battlefield. Fire, while still useful, isn’t 100% over powered. You might not be exploring as much, but you do get to explore a more dense and gentrified South Park thanks to season 19. Social Media serves as collectible, social commentary, and necessary part of gameplay. Farting also is expanded greatly here as well. It sounds like it wouldn’t be important, but in addition to all of the time mechanics it has, I beat Morgan Freeman because of farts (and some sort of gameplay logic bug I found with the lineup of Kyle, Kenny, and Stan. Seriously, use it and let Kenny be dead most of the time. It wigs out by the 3rd phase.)
In the end, Fractured But Whole is a great and hilarious game. I just wish it had a bit more of the classic crass, shock humor of old South Park. I might be getting older, but my sense of humor hasn’t aged a bit.
I’m all in on their DLC too. I think it’s going to be rad.
-Dan