South Park: Snow Day

The town of South Park is once again in chaos in Snow Day, the latest video game adaptation of the animated series, which has been developed by Question Games. Straying from the more traditional RPG roots of predecessors Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole, Snow Day is a roguelike brawler that can be played with up to four players. It's also noteworthy as being the first 3D South Park game to be released in the last two decades.

Snow Day picks up directly after the events of the previous two South Park RPGs. Here a violent snowstorm has engulfed the titular town, causing school to be cancelled and its residents to enter a toilet roll buying frenzy. With school being out, the boys return to their Dungeon and Dragons-inspired antics, but they are forced to play another fantasy game after the new kid (the player) became op once again. The story takes a back-to-basics approach with it being focused on the children's fantasies and not political satire.

Whilst I absolutely adored the way the developers blended together the show's visuals and Snow Day's 3D presentation, I found the story to feel pretty paper-thin and uninspired. Cutscenes are minimal during story chapters and things take an incredibly predictable turn in the latter half that didn't feel clever or funny. This is something even the game pokes fun at itself as you unlock a trophy/achievement called Inevitable Betrayal.

That said, whilst the story is pretty weak, there were a few occasional moments that did make me crack a smile as a huge fan of the show. Moments like Stan's dad Randy backing him up in his boss fight to defend his toilet paper supply or the boys reinventing the rules of the game as they went along were hilarious, but these moments were few and far between.

As mentioned previously, Snow Day is a cooperative brawler that can be played with up to four players. Luckily for those playing alone, the AI is pretty competent when fighting by your side and helping you recover after falling in battle. There's also the option to join random players (or randos) in online co-op, but curiously, local co-op is unavailable, which feels like a real missed opportunity, given that playing as a group is essential.

When it comes to combat, you are given a melee weapon, a ranged weapon, and two special powers that can be used once your Pissed Off meter is full. These powers include many fun references to the show and offer players both defensive and offensive advantages. The cheesing power, for example, makes enemies temporarily turn on each other and the fart escape can be used so that you can hilariously fly to safety if things become too much.

Helping to set Snow Day apart from typical brawlers is a card-based system that adds a sense of variety. Throughout your run, you'll be offered cards that can improve the potency of your attacks and special abilities and these can be upgraded using toilet rolls that you obtain. There are also special bullshit cards that grant you and your opponent special limited powers, but these can only be used a handful of times. My go-to bullshit cards were ones that allowed me to shoot lasers from my eyes and another that transformed me into a giant.

There are some interesting ideas with the card-based mechanics, but overall I found combat to be a dull slog. You spend the majority of the time hacking and slashing your way through the same group of first graders by spamming the square button over and over again. You don't earn XP from beating waves of foes and they don't drop anything like new weapons or equippable perks, so the repetitive grind of bashing them over the head never feels fulfilling.

The game also does very little to vary up the action during its pitifully short five-chapter story campaign. The bulk of your playthrough is spent walking from one area to the next clearing out waves of respawning enemies until you can finally progress. Snow Day does occasionally try to spice things up with you having to defend a certain area during an ambush or gather a random selection of items, but these are sadly rare occurrences.

With creators Matt and Trey taking the reins on projects such as Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole, it seemed that the dark age of South Park games was behind us, but unfortunately, Snow Day marks a significant step back for the series. Its five-chapter story feels much longer than it should due to its uninspired script and its tedious and repetitive gameplay. With this in mind, it makes the game a tough recommendation to even the most hardcore of fans.