South Park: The Stick of Truth

South Park: The Stick of Truth is an RPG which is an adaptation of an extremely controversial and equally popular cartoon. The game was developed by Obsidian Entertainment, which specializes in RPGs, and the creators of the original series were also involved in the production.

The players assume the role of a child that moved recently to the town of South Park with his family. The main objective is to fit into a group of contemporaries and make as many friends as possible. On the way to achieving these ambitions, a large number of crazy adventures and challenges await him. The plot is made of absurd humor well-known from the TV series. What is interesting, this is the first game in production of which the actual creators of the series – Matt Stone and Trey Parker – took part. It is they who are responsible for the scenario, dialogues, and the dubbing of some characters.

The adventure begins with creating a character. There are four character classes: Sorcerer, Warrior, Thief, and Jew. The gameplay is about exploring the town, speaking with other characters, and performing the tasks given. The combat system is based on turn-based mechanics, reminiscent of the early Final Fantasy games. During the fights, the player character and one additional character face up to 6 enemies. We see the fight from the side.

In the game, there is a whole bunch of weapons that can be upgraded with special magical stickers. To heal a character, we drink soda, and the famous coffee that Tweek drinks is used to accelerate the character, which guarantees two attacks in one turn. With the progress of the campaign, our character advances to higher levels, which allows him to use the more powerful skills and equipment. The entire interface is modeled on Facebook – our friends post on our wall, we browse equipment and the collections there (in the game you can collect Chinpokomons, among others).

The story of South Park: The Stick of Truth begins with joining Cartman and his team to take part in a rather aggressive LARP, which is a role playing game session in which not only we play a character verbally, but also we dress like it, and take physical actions. Normally, the LARP rule is: do not touch, which means in a nutshell: If you attack someone, do not hit him on the head with a dummy sword. In South Park, this rule does not apply. In the LARP invented by the kids from the town, the player character assumes the role of a representative of the human race, while Stan and Kyle are elves who search for the very powerful eponymous artifact. What starts as a rather innocent war-game, turns quickly into something much more absurd and having far more serious consequences for the entire town.

In the Stick of Truth the immersion is almost complete. To outsiders it is difficult to tell at a fist glance if they are dealing with a game or another episode of South Park. The players themselves feel as if they are participating in one of the episodes of the series (the difference being that this episode takes over a dozen hours). The sound, the voices, humor, characteristic animation – it is all part of the game.

Last updated on 21 November 2014