Developer: Question
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Platform: PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X/S
Tested on: PC
South Park: Snow Day! – Review
After massive hits like The Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole, we were eagerly awaiting the next South Park installment. We loved the previous two titles in the series, not only because of their authentic South Park story value but also thanks to the great RPG gameplay. Now, the next installment in the series has been released, albeit with a different gameplay structure and a multiplayer focus. Even though this title had its moments, we would rather spend a snow day with one of the previous games.
Story
When a blizzard strikes in South Park, Cartman hopes for nothing more than the school to be closed the next day. Even though several people die because of the huge snowfall, Cartman is only concerned about whether schools will be shut the next day or not. When he finally gets the good news in the morning, he decides to continue playing with his friends after the events of the first two South Park games. You, the New Kid, get restricted this time around, to prevent you from becoming overpowered once again. When the kids learn that the blizzard isn’t a natural occurrence but perhaps the result of dark magic, they set out on an epic snow day adventure.
All in all, the story is decent, albeit short. You’ll be treated to a few short cutscenes with fully voiced dialogues that move the story forward. Overall, the narrative stays true to the source material and is a fairly enjoyable South Park experience.
Graphics
Graphically, South Park: Snow Day! ditches the 2D graphical style of the previous two games and opts for a 3D-rendered game. The transition to 3D isn’t too bad, and the game looks quite appealing for the most part. We did notice a lot of reused assets, and the enemy variety was also extremely limited. Snow Day! also doesn’t do too much in terms of character customization, and most outfits are quite simplistic when it comes to their overall design. Even so, the levels are still fun to explore, even if the game only has a total of five playable story stages and a few arenas for the horde mode. We did notice quite a few clipping errors and the animations are fairly limited. Even though we still liked most of what we saw, the game reminded us somewhat of an upscaled retro title rather than a new release.
Sound
As the original voice actors bring all their respective characters to life, we can definitely say you’re in for a treat. The dialogue would feel right at home in an actual South Park episode, and our only regret is that there isn’t more dialogue present in the game. When playing through the levels, the enemies also have a few one-liners and it remains satisfying to hear your slain opponents simply stating they are dead in the driest way possible. The supporting soundtrack is quite epic actually, and it did set the atmosphere from the very beginning of the game. The SFX are decent, albeit nothing to write home about.
Gameplay
South Park: Snow Day! steps away from the masterfully crafted RPG formula we saw in The Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole and opts for a third-person multiplayer experience instead. Both aforementioned games were very much the perfect South Park gaming experience, and they fleshed out a great storyline, introduced interesting mechanics, and provided hours upon hours of fun. Snow Day!, however, opts for a toned-down simplistic formula in which you play through short stages just beating every enemy in sight, working your way up until the boss battle at the end of said stage. It’s a very basic format, which does offer a bit of amusement, but it’s a format we found more fitting for a free-to-play title or a premium mobile game.
The offset is quite simple, as you just go through a very limited character creation segment at the beginning, to then just start playing through the game’s five levels online or solo. In the case of the latter, your party will be supplemented by bots, which don’t do a too bad job at helping you out in combat. These AI characters only spawn the moment you initiate combat, which prevents them from getting stuck when you decide to explore the small, linear levels. It’s all very basic stuff, as you just beat up enemies, collect some materials, rinse and repeat. To spice things up, the game does have a system that revolves around cards, where certain cards provide you with upgrades for the level you’re in, and others grant you so-called Bullshit powers. These Bullshit cards allow you to cast a very strong ability a few times in each stage. Regular cards and upgrades for cards you own will be presented to you at regular intervals or by finding hidden chests. At the end of each level, you lose your collected cards. It’s essentially a basic twist on the roguelite formula.
We blasted through Snow Day! in roughly three hours, which is quite disappointing when looking at how much content the previous two games had. You can upgrade your character a bit by collecting Dark Matter, which allows you to unlock passive boosts, and you can also unlock new weapons and abilities. The passive boosts help you out a bit, but you’ll never feel overpowered. You’ll also need to grind the limited content too much to unlock most of the upgrades, and we reckon players will have given up by then. There is simply too little content to keep playing. The melee weapon variety is also extremely disappointing, as you only have three options, and the game eventually always boils down to button-mashing anyway. The ranged weapons are also just as limited as the melee ones. The controls are quite wonky, and the game lacks basic features such as a proper lock-on system.
Conclusion
South Park: Snow Day! has its enjoyable moments but almost no content, wonky controls, and a too simplistic formula which is a far cry from the great RPG titles that Ubisoft published. Developer Question clearly had some new ideas in mind for Snow Day! but they end up falling flat, making the game feel like a mobile game port or an upscaled retro multiplayer title. Of course, not everything is bad, as the short story is still enjoyable, the co-op gameplay is still amusing, and it’s still satisfying to beat up iconic South Park characters. If this one’s on your wishlist, you could do worse, but even then, we’d still suggest waiting for a hefty discount.
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