South Park: The Fractured but Whole

I dont get why so many people are saying that this is a stepdown from stick of truth,dont get me wrong,i love that game is a 8/10 for me,but,this is a step up on every single aspect.The combat is way better and is more strategic,the story is way funnier,it has way more content,has better side missions and the final 5 hours from this game is probably top 5 ending parts from any piece of entertainment ever,i was on litteral shock when the final battle happened and the final cutscene appear.

This game no joke is one of my all time favorites.This is perfect,i have so much to say about every single aspect of this game but if i keep writing i probably be 5 hours here and i dont have that much time.In conclusion one of the most perfect games i ever played and probably the most underrated one.

The sequel to "South Park: The Stick of Truth" is just as good, but won't offer anything new other than the revamped battle system. I understand that it is hard to innovate when bound to the same setting, but I am sure they could have tried a bit harder. The South Park map only got a few minor changes, and you get to walk around and look for collectibles, solve idiot-proof "puzzles" and battle enemies like in "The Stick of Truth".

The "The Stick of Truth" gameplay worked because it was supposed to be a parody of role-playing games. "Fractured But Whole" is meant to be a parody of Superhero franchises, but unfortunately it keeps the exact same RPG structure for no reason. Obsidian is mostly known for making RPG's, and I guess that turning the whole gameplay upside down could have been overwhelming and even a bit too risky if we consider the success of "The Stick of Truth".

I wouldn't call this a must-play, but it's definitely worth checking out if you are a South Park fan. The plot is not the strongest so far but has its highlights.

The previous game, The Stick of Truth was well received, finally giving South Park fans a decent game based on the licence. Everything about the game made you feel like you are watching an episode of South Park; with the crude humour and controversial aspects. The Fractured But Whole is more of the same, although I do feel that there are far fewer controversial aspects this time.

The story of the first game was partially based on their fantasy role play; Humans versus Elves. This time, it follows their Super Hero groups in their battle for the biggest franchise; Coon and Friends versus Freedom Pals.

You begin by creating a character and class. You can choose a race, hairstyle and clothes. Throughout the game, you end up finding all kinds of make-up, hairstyles and glasses. This time, there is no incentive to change your appearance; in the previous game the equipment gave you different armour benefits. You can change your appearance purely for cosmetic reasons. In order to boost your stats, you just equip Runes and these have no visual impact. You choose between three classes: Speedster, Brawler, and Blaster. At certain points in the game, you add extra classes (from a much larger selection), each giving you access to new attack moves.

Once again, you play as a silent protagonist known as “New Kid”; a continuation from the first game, although there's no feature to carry over your character's look; so you can completely change their race and gender. The New Kid is skilled in controlling his farts and uses them to manipulate time. You join Eric Cartman's Coon & Friends and are initially sent out on quests in order to flesh our your character. Coon & Friends are on the search for a missing cat which comes with a $100 reward which would help fund their superhero franchise. On their search, they find out that many cats have been stolen and they need to work together to fight the mysterious criminal mastermind behind the whole operation.

Everyone seems obsessed with their phones, and you try to get many followers on the Instagram parody “Coonstagram”. Some people let you take a selfie with them straight away, sometimes you have to reach a certain level of popularity, or sometimes you need to complete a simple side-quest. This selfie functionality soon grows old.

The battle system is different from the first game. Previously, it was a turn-based battle system like the Mario & Luigi/Paper Mario series where you time your button presses for successful attacks/blocks. In this game, the battles are turn-based but you can move your character within a grid. Each of your attacks has a different range and effect. Many attacks can only be used forwards or backwards but not to the sides which makes you consider your character's position.

I think the battle system could have been developed more. Some battles early on have obstacles that are in your way, and you can smash them, or knock your enemies into them for extra damage. This idea didn't seem to be used in the majority of battles though; it seemed to be quickly forgotten.

In the boss battles, there may be different ideas to shake up the formula. You may have to focus on the boss and ignore the respawning minions, you may have to flee to a certain area, or push enemies into a certain area.

The choice of characters to join you in battle changes depending on the story mission, but there are plenty of characters over the course of the game.

You initiate battles by walking into enemies, but punching them gives you the first attack. In the first game, you could sometimes take advantage of the environment to skip the battles such as shooting a weak-point to drop an object on enemies heads. I only saw a couple of instances of this in Fractured But Whole, so this seemed another idea that was forgotten.

The town of South Park is pretty much arranged in a grid, so the navigation is very straightforward. There's many quick-travel points around the map too, which makes use of Jimmy's Flash-like speed. Since I played the first game a few months ago, walking around South Park felt a bit boring because it lost its original charm. There are a couple of areas that are different, but the majority of the town looks the same. Many areas such as the school are cut-down areas.

In the first game, meeting each character put a smile on my face, but since I played the first game recently, seeing returning characters has also lost its charm. There are some new characters and references which did make me smile though. I was overjoyed when I encountered the Member Berries who always cracked me up on the show. “Remember collecting all 120 stars in Super Mario 64? Oh yeah! Remember Chun-Li's thighs? Ooooh yeah! I really remember them.”

I felt the first game would still be enjoyable to someone not familiar with the show. However, I'm not fully convinced that is true with this game. Sure, there are plenty of things they would find funny, but I think some aspects require knowledge of the episodes to either make sense, or fully flesh out the characters.

I think the game really suffers with its pacing. In the first several hours, not much has happened, and it only starts picking up once you find who the criminal mastermind is. When you reach what you think is the final part of the game, there's a lot of interesting plot points, and the final section ends up lasting a few hours. It took me an extra 7 hours to complete compared to the first game, and it's hard to justify why, because it feels like the first game had more content.

Just like the first game, it is a great recreation of South Park. Even though they tweaked the battle system, I felt like more could be done with it.

As a fan of the first game, I found Fractured to be a step down. I'll admit, I was excited to see a new South Park game, especially since the past few seasons of the show have been so disappointing, so I thought maybe this would be a step up, and for the most part it is, just because the past 2 seasons of South Park have been incredibly bad and among the worst seasons in the series.

Fractured tries to stand its own ground, I like that they used the super heroes since the LOTR stuff would have gotten stale and this game does have a lot of funny moments. The best moments of this game are in the first half, you meet all the characters and get to play around with the different team members, and you run into some old references and even see a few characters who haven't appeared on the show in a while. The combat in this game is a bit different, its a grid system and you have multiple classes you can choose between to combine powers. I'll admit, the combat in this isn't bad, but I did prefer the first game's system, even if this system requires a bit more strategy and is a little more complex.

Fractured has an okay story, but it just goes downhill in the final act. I feel like the game just tried to have multiple twists and the game ends very disappointing. I felt like the ending of this game is just rushed and sort of just ends abruptly with no epic boss fight or anything. I felt the first game had way better closure. Outside the story, the humor in this game was mostly a mixed bag. Sure the first game did rely heavily on references and old jokes that were recycled from the show, but this game on the other hand brings in some things from the newer episodes, some which are funny, others which aren't so much. The humor in this game is really hit or miss, where the first game was mostly funny, this game is really only funny half the time, if not a little less. Also the boss fights in this game weren't really as good as the ones from the first game either, the boss fights in this first game weren't the greatest, but the ones in this game just felt a bit redundant and bland.

The other thing is there is really nothing unique or a lot of exploration you can do, the same areas are in this as the first game, and the game has really no new areas to explore, so I felt it was just a lot of the same old as the first game. Same shops, same locations, most of the same characters with their same quirks, same hidden collectible type side quests. This just feels in ways like Stick of Truth 1.5 just with super heroes and a revamped combat system. The reason South Park the show managed to stay fresh for over 20 seasons is the fact that it covers such a wide variety of events and parodies everything under the sun, where these games have to have a main focus and have to have enough content to warrant a full retail price. If the show has a mediocre episode, then its no big deal, only 20 minutes were wasted and there's always next week and the week after that for better episodes. In this game, you don't really get that, once you've seen all there is and beaten the first few quests, the game just sort of goes on autopilot and doesn't really offer much the first game didn't. Yeah you have a new combat system and new powers with your team, and there are characters in this who weren't in the first game or didn't play a big role in the first game, but also I feel this game ignored a lot of characters too. Why the hell was Kyle's dad just a summon, where was Garrison (I know the whole he's president know and not in South Park) but he was just such a big role in the past 2 seasons and the game completely ignores him and doesn't even make a single reference to him or cameo, City Wok Guy is just a vendor in this, Barbrady is just a guy sitting down at a table who has nothing important to say, no Mint Berry Crunch or even a reference to him despite him being once the funniest parts about the original Coon trilogy. Hell, even Randy only plays a somewhat minor role in this game, only appearing as a drunk boss fight.

Its just Fractured but Whole missed a ton of opportunities and instead recycled old jokes and didn't change enough from the first game. It just felt like a bit of a letdown and after the first half, it went a bit downhill for me, especially the final few missions, which just felt a bit rushed. There were some really funny moments as well, the Jared boss fight and getting to chose your gender were both hilarious and compare to the funniest moments in the first game. However, there were just way less memorable or funny moments in this and it just feels unnecessary almost if you've already played Stick of Truth. Sure it is mildly amusing at times, but I just felt it didn't stand its own to well and I just don't remember as much from this game as I do from the first one.

So, so close to being even more magical, Fractured But Whole takes the basic idea of a South Park game from Stick Of Truth, revamps the gameplay to make it so much more satisfying, cleans up some egregious elements of the humour to make a generally (but not entirely) sharper script and tweaks the story to be built more around the medium and the unique possibilities it has for delivering humour. The way the game blurs the line between fantasy and reality is inspired, and the atmosphere becomes surprisingly gripping as a result.

My only complaints are really that it doesn't go far enough. A bit less leniency on the offensive humour (it's closer to the supposed ideal of Saints Row 4 but isn't there yet), a tighter difficulty curve and some cut fat would make it even more engaging. As it stands, still a surprise hit of 2017.

Fractured But Whole picks up the story immediatly after Stick of Truth ends, and this time Cartman is fed up with the medieval fantasy setting and switches things up to superheroes. There is a rivalry in the game that mimicks the one of marvel vs DC, which is implicitly statement, and that is used essencially to move the plot along.

Now the game is really similar to the first one, and i would argue that its biggest flaws. The map layout is practically the same except the outskirts, the movement animation and sort of humour as well. Unfortunatly, while occasionally funny, this one didnt make me laugh as much as Stick of Truth. Jokes kind of lack that gratuitous and perverse South Park feeling to them, there is nothing here like the alien probe or the abortion clinic mission. It feels tamer, and i already got sick of the fart humour from the first game. Side missions are not as interesting as the main quest, and many tend to be dull fetch quests.

There have been some additions, like the crafting system which is ok, and the combat system has been revamped to play like Fire Emblem. Unfortunatly, it is still a bit too shallow and easy to really get your strategy brains working. The character growth doesnt really translate that well to the battlefield as i was hoping it would, and the world tends to level up alongside you, which makes this even worst.

Its still a cool game, with some funny jokes, shallow but enjoyable tactical gameplay and needless rpg gimmicks. Not nearly as fresh as the first one though.