But it is quite normal to doubt! The video game career, if it is useful to remember, is littered with gadins, 90% of the adaptations of the animated series having masterfully farted the mouth. So when a title stands out a little from the lot, if only by the benevolent presence of the sacrosanct progenitors of the show behind the development team, we immediately place great hopes in it. Which logically implies, at one time or another, a disappointment. So let's first go over what is obvious, namely the absence of a French version. Far from us the nationalocentrist delirium, it is not by laziness to read the subtitles that one type of the point on the table. We just find it particularly deplorable to deprive ourselves of a possibility of dubbing and localization of such quality when it exists. South Park is one of those few series whose VF is at least as good as the VO, and this in large part thanks to the work of adaptation and artistic direction of Thierry Wermuth and William Coryn, whose influence is felt well beyond dubbing. Throughout the game, we can not help wondering what it could have done with the French version. Beyond that, we can regret the forced use of subtitles for a series whose dialogues are so lively, especially when the translations are sometimes very random and dotted with spelling mistakes. And small. And yellow. If the finances of a dying THQ partially justified this choice, it is much less the case for Ubisoft. We had hoped. We crashed.TALK LIKE MEN, TASTE CRAB
All this is all the more unfortunate since South Park: The Stick of Truth is a real aesthetic success. For years, various studios have been going all out trying to bring the series to 3D or trying to give it a visual style different from its own. When all we asked for was a game visually consistent with the animated series. This is today done. South Park: The Stick of Truth is quite simply an interactive episode, and that's what makes it so hilarious. If you've always been hermetic to the cartoon's graphic style, that shouldn't change, but if you're a fan (and the game is mainly aimed at fans), then you'll be delighted if not downright hysterical. For the first time, you can freely discover South Park, whose exact geography has also been defined expressly for the needs of the game by Stone and Parker. Where is the elementary school in relation to Cartman's house? And Stark's pond? Are there other places in the city that never had their heyday on screen? For that alone, the game is worth it. So of course, we can always find fault with the mainly decorative role of most places and inhabitants, but the city is quite lively and large enough to be pleasant to visit without getting bored. And then we come back from so far... The only downside, the console versions are plagued by very nasty framerate drops when moving outdoors, properly inexplicable given the game's graphic style. A problem that sometimes even becomes very unpleasant , when it's coupled with an autosave and the game starts coughing like Stan's grandpa (who isn't part of the adventure, Billy, by the way).KEUUWAA?! YOU MEAN... REALLY?!
We're talking about visual fidelity and that's a good thing, but the same goes for the script, which draws mainly on the what the fuck side of the series. A bit of a shame, because we are depriving ourselves of the great satirical quality of South Park, even if the world of video games is being gently teased. The Stick of Truth sticks squarely in the mind, but its pitch doesn't rank among the best Trey Parker and Matt Stone have ever written. Based on the episode "The Return of the Fellowship of the Ring of the Two Towers", Obsidian's game puts you in the shoes of the New, a child who has just landed with his parents in the small town of Colorado. While trying to make new friends, you will fall into the middle of a gigantic role-playing game organized by primary school boys in order to grab the Stick of Truth (a rotten piece of wood, or a relic allowing to control the Universe according to the point of view). You will therefore take part, as a great hero, in a merciless struggle between the Humans of Cartman, Butters or Kenny and the Elves of Kyle, Stan and Jimmy. As often in South Park, the situation is going to take a lollipop, based on UFO crashes, secret government agencies and the invasion of Nazi zombies. As in the series, the game pushes the delirium very far and does not deprive itself, as long as a ridiculous European censorship does not get involved (the scenes of sodomy, no, but a character who impales a horse in his house, it doesn't seem to bother). The developers did not hesitate to make fun of the passages that were cut on console. And the game multiplies the references and the very, very strong nods by including all sorts of elements very well known to fans in the course of the story. Yes, South Park: The Stick of Truth is a huge piece of fan-service, there's no denying it. But not only.DON'T FORGET TO BRING A TOWEL
Below the big stamp (in Cherokee hair) "FAN SERVICE" is still solid foundations of gameplay. The Stick of Truth turns out to be an RPG all that is more classic but also all that is most effective. The only hero whose evolution you have to manage is your avatar, which gains levels and skills by completing quests and bursting enemies. Exploration and shops give you dozens of weapons and armor, more and more powerful as the adventure progresses, which strengthen your attack and your defense. As for the other playable characters, they are also unlockable over time, knowing that only one companion can help you in combat and that they get new abilities when your avatar reaches certain level levels. Even the fights are not really exceptional in their operation. Turn-by-turn, life and power bars to trigger skills (plus a mana gauge for your prouts), elemental affinities and status alterations, and even summons: everything is there and even if, on the bottom, the recipe is not really original, everything is coherent and pleasant to play. Unfortunately, it will be necessary to push the game to difficult to have a real challenge. The relative scarcity of regeneration abilities forces players to use its items, but seems to have pushed the developers to make them too effective. Especially since you can use one per turn without penalty. It is therefore the multiple opponents who are the toughest, insofar as your side only aligns two fighters. Special dedication to Vice-President Al Gore, who gave us a bit of a hard time, and the transition to numerous side quests, which really serve to advance the gameplay.The fights never leave the passive player behind their controller. The basic actions require a good dose of timing, whether for attack or defense, while most skills require performing a sometimes demanding QTE.
BUT (and it's a big but, you will have noticed), The Stick of Truth marks its difference first by the judicious use of the universe of South Park but also via a whole series of gameplay choices which make the player more involved. We're talking here about skills and magic (yeah, OK, prouts) that you can use outside of combat to open up new paths and discover hidden treasures, to gain the upper hand before engaging in combat or just to gut your opponents while taking advantage of the scenery. A lamp hanging from the ceiling? Shoot it, and watch the poor gugus hanging out below end up skewered. A little water on the ground? Look for an electrical cable to unhook from the wall. And as soon as you find a flame, do not hesitate to fart on it, the result overall is always worth the candle. Admittedly, this still facilitates the game seen from a certain angle, but these interactions are not mandatory and still require you to show a little judgment and a certain sense of observation. Similarly, fights never leave the passive player behind their controller. The basic actions require a good dose of timing, whether for attack or defense, while most skills require performing a sometimes demanding QTE. In addition, the management of weapons / equipment and their customization through patches and belts turns out to be more varied and more advanced than it seems for the resolution of fights.CHINPOKO EXTRAMON
Nah and then flute what. What is the most exciting in all this is still the adaptation of the South Park universe to video games. Everything is a find. The fun is collecting Chinpokomon (I FOUND SHOE!), hearing Nazi-zombies speak with recordings from World War II soundtracks. Here, no poison or silence in status alterations. Either one bleeds profusely, or one burns, or one sheaves of disgust after having received rotten eggs or even a beautiful turd in the face. The invocations are called Jesus, Mr. Slave or Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo, who plays Mickey in Fantasia, with huge waves of shit. We will highlight here again a problem of balance of difficulty, which makes these characters overpowered, but which makes them unusable against the Bosses! Worse: they can only be used once a day in the game (knowing that there are only three days) and each time you have to go find the summoning object from the character concerned. The junk items that you pick up right to left, meanwhile, are for nothing but resale, and we can frankly regret it, but we can't help but laugh when we find a jagon already sucked in a chest, Madame Cartman's collection of dildos in a drawer or even the hypnotic Mexican frog from southern Sri Lanka, hidden in a bag. And how not to mention these awesome levels: in the ass of Mr. Slave with the song of Lemmiwinks in the background, the trip to Canada in 8-bit mode or even these epic fights against Gnomes Stealing Underpants in the middle of the antics from your parents?
