Backwards Comparability: South Park: The Stick of Truth

Backwards Comparability Welcome to yet another tested serial post: Backwards Comparability, one I think I’ll be keeping for a while, since it’s got the best marketing potential of any I’ve come up with in the recent past. Basically, once a month, I’ll be bringing you a random old-school medium review. Whether it be technology, video games, or even an old television show from the past, I’ll be doing a very special post, reviewing it as if it were still relevant, r better yet, explain why it’s no longer relevant. Sure many nostalgia individuals out there have done this billions of times over, but what makes it different is that I’ll be reviewing such thing as though from a first-time perspective. I want to talk about South Park: The Stick of Truth. Not just because this game has a very, very anticipated sequel coming out later some time in 2016, early 2017 at the very latest. It’s also because this is the first time I’ve played through the game, and I was mildly amused, and rather impressed at the in-depth fighting system, although the options for the PS3 were varied, I felt they could’ve went further, and the game was still relatively shorter than most RPGs. However, the story was broad enough to be as in-depth as any game like Elder Scrolls, or Fallout, and it played like homage to such titles as Final Fantasy II, and Homebound. The game itself was made b the creators of the game, and there is nearly twenty years of mythology jam-packed into the game, along with a great deal of in-bound sarcasm that only fans of the series will get. Of course, I’m a bit biased, having loved South Park since its inception onto Comedy Central’s network in 1997. I can even remember the first promo commercials where it shows the four original boys (Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny) standing at a stop sign, and a tree falls on Kenny. I appreciate the game for being so true to itself, that I tend to feel obligated to say this was one of the best-designed, best incepted games ever made, and really, I wouldn’t be wrong. It breaks the fourth-wall, it insults every one from the Kardashians to Christ, and it even has Morgan Freeman. I can appreciate the game, and I love how disconnected the actual story is, because it really is pissing on everything an RPG stands for, and yet, it is inherently one of the best RPGs I’ve played. The alien abduction sequence was perhaps the best part of the game, especially the nod at the uselessness of audio logs, which many have found to be one of the most blatantly useless excuses to give more jobs to voice-actors. The story kind of placates off of the special trilogy episode of South Park, where the Xbox One and Playstation 4 are pitted against each other in a sort of Game of Thrones style storyline. The three episodes were of course one giant promotion for the Stick of Truth, which surprisingly had not much story, not nearly as much depth as I’ve come to expect from most episodes of South Park. However, it does feel like a South Park episode. It’s a strange feeling I have towards this game, I feel it does the South Park Shock too much, simply because it can get away with nearly anything with the ESRB rating system, rather than the standard television ratings system. Obviously the swearing is amped up, in-fact, it’s prevalent for one of Cartman’s special moves. The swearing is far from the most offensive aspect of the game, but it’s South Park, and it’s done well-enough to not upset you more than make you grossly laugh at the aspect of excellent writing. The story is simple: whoever controls the Stick of Truth controls the Universe. The game is modeled after the video-game trilogy in aspects of who plays who, and it still feels relatively fresh well-over a year after release. The game itself is fun to play, as is the purpose of a game, and although it can be too-much a blend into the background, I found most of the time I wasn’t forced to, or obligated to use most of the stuff I was taught, and Mana was rather useless in combat. The point is most of what the game presents is optional, and other than leveling up, you could probably play the game minimally, and defeat most confrontations. Other than bosses, most combat has alternatives, and is easily avoidable. The hardest level of the game does increase the challenge, and does change a bit of the gameplay, but I found running through the game once was enough to grasp the whole experience. You can also play side missions, which like a great deal of most games of similar genre, seem more fun, and add much more depth than the main quest. Yes, the game is fun, and yes, you can definitely find replay value within the side quests, but what sells me most is the in-game engine of turn=based strategy that is well layered. Games could take notes from The Stick of Truth, because I absolutely cannot stand games like Final Fantasy, or other turn-based RPGs; in-fact, other than say Elder Scrolls, I really wouldn’t be much a fan of most RPGs. This game was fun, it was perhaps my favorite game based on other media, excluding the Batman: Arkham games. I found it rather easy to traverse the game, the puzzles were more ludicrous than ridiculous in execution, so the skill level was mediocre. The Stick of Truth was a blatantly offensive game, and I loved it for being so, and the gameplay pushes the boundaries of decency. I’m just so glad that the fart jokes and sex stuff didn’t pollute the solid gameplay, and as I’ve stated, other games could learn from such skill. I’d be lying if I was to say that I was not excited for the sequel, and I’m certainly going to be preordering it once that becomes applicable. Ubisoft has always claimed to make such great games, but this is itself, a great game.