South Park: Snow Day! Review

How best to follow up two surprisingly accomplished turn-based RPG games? South Park: The Stick of Truth and sequel The Fractured But Whole amply demonstrated what a fine fit the genre is for Trey Parker and Matt Stone's long-running and gleefully anarchic animated show, so where to go with the next game? The answer, according to THQ Nordic and developer Question, is to eschew the 2D visuals for 3D characters and environments, and bin the turn-based strategy for a shallow hack and slash experience with roguelike progression and some fairly disposable RPG shit (alongside actual shit) thrown in for good measure. The result? South Park: Snow Day! emerges as a fairly bland and forgettable experience. Balls.

Picking up with the 'New Kid' protagonist from Stick of Truth and its follow-up, Snow Day! sees South Park blasted by a devastating blizzard, half-burying the town in the white stuff, and as Cartman, Kyle, Stan, Princess Kenny, Butters, and the rest of the gang enjoy a day off from school, a sprawling battle is about to take place amid the deep snow. Built around four-player co-op (with bots filling in for other players when you're playing alone), South Park: Snow Day! takes you across various familiar snow-blanketed locations around the small town, although all five of the game's chapters unfold in largely the same way. Expect a lot of white.

For the most part, you'll solely be slicing your way through wave after wave of enemy kids in elven garb, clearing out an area until you're told you can pick a lock to the exit and move on. Often, this can feel pretty interminable, as you're left mashing the same single button to attack, deflecting arrows with your shield, or executing a dodge roll to escape. Fundamentally, there's little more to the combat than this, save for two powers that can be swapped in and out by visiting Tolkien (Token's fantasy alter-ego) before each chapter, via the game's hub in Kupa Keep. These start, predictably, with a 'Fart Escape' power that thrusts you into the air, leaving behind an area-of-effect that can make enemies lose their lunch.

Soon, you'll unlock powers like a Healing Totem that sprays life-giving Cheesy Poofs within its aura; a Gravity Bomb that launches a balloon, pulling enemies into its vortex; or a Cheesing power that temporarily turns enemies into allies. At certain junctures, Jimmy will also present you with cards of varying rarities that upgrade weapons, abilities, and attributes, and these can also be boosted using the game's 'TP' currency (toilet rolls that come spilling out of chests and defeated enemies) – so there's some depth at play here.

A selection of ranged weapons (a bow and arrow, wizard's staff, and flame-spewing wand) can also be equipped alongside your choice of twin daggers, sword and shield, or battle axe, but, ultimately, this doesn't serve to remedy the amount of button-mashing required to make it through a run. A lack of checkpoints also means that, once you've started a run, you're stuck with it until the bitter end, and if you're playing online there's obviously no way to pause and take a break. Furthermore, if you die during a run, you're sent back to the very beginning, with a restart requiring you sit through cards being randomly drawn each time. This can prove to be a real pain, especially if you're forced to restart several times over.

Cards also extend to a so-called 'Bullshit' card, allowing you to literally call bullshit and activate a table-turning power. The trouble here is that many of the Bullshit cards you're presented with are fairly ineffectual, and, almost all of the time, the enemy side will unleash all of the effective Bullshit cards, transforming your weapon into a foam noodle, turning theirs into laser swords, or dropping volleys of fiery projectiles onto your head. Conversely I found myself lumbered with a 'Moon Jump,' enabling a temporarily higher jump and dive attack, or a pretty useless 'Invisibility' card for ambushing foes. I'd often forget that Bullshit cards were even there, even though they can be used multiple times.

Dark cards from Henrietta are also thrown into the mix, but a glut of cards can't hide the fact that South Park: Snow Day! is a rather one-note affair – its five chapters play out across five very similar snowy locales, and a paltry selection of weapons means there's a dearth of variety and depth to the game's combat. Even the introduction of endgame 'Infernal Pact' cards from Nichole, designed to make your next run more challenging, fail to elicit much in the way of excitement. Despite a good few hours spending Dark Matter on upgrading my New Kid's abilities with Mister Hankey at Kupa Keep's toilet cubicle, it transpires that a single run through Snow Day! is more than enough. By the time I'd vanquished the final boss, I was done.

While there are some elements to be enjoyed here (especially if you're a fan of the show), such as the rampant toilet humour and various daft powers, South Park: Snow Day! can't help but feel like a pretty significant step back. Especially so for a series that's enjoyed previous success in combining an authentic South Park look with some fairly intricate RPG systems. This game casts all of that aside, and, despite rather generous budget pricing, it's likely that the appeal of this particular snow day will last about that long – a day.