You’re Better Off Staying Inside From South Park: Snow Day
As a kid, I was one of those that watched South Park in secret. I only thought of it as just a cartoon. Obviously I could not understand essentially any of the jokes, I was just entranced by all the colors. Now I’m an adult and South Park is something I’ve grown to appreciate over the years watching damn near every episode and even playing a vast majority of the games. South Park’s videogame resume is very hit or miss; for every Stick of Truth there is a South Park Rally. Now we have a brand new entry in the form of a 3D action-adventure/beat ‘em up called South Park: Snow Day. It has an interesting premise and the potential for something greater, but ultimately I was left wanting more, and that puts it lightly. A lot of shortcomings could be overlooked given the game’s price of admission ($30), but it doesn’t change the fact that South Park: Snow Day is average at best.
The town of South Park is hit with an awful snowstorm. This is the worst storm the town has ever seen, even with reports of death. All Cartman cares about though is not having to go to school. Now the kids of the town can fulfill the game’s title by bringing back their fantasy characters and wage war once more. If you’re familiar with South Park’s most recent gaming entries, The Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole, Snow Day leans closer to the former. I personally enjoyed Stick of Truth more, as Fractured felt too bloated with every fight dragging on longer than it needed to. That’s the key to Snow Day: simplicity. It’s simple for better and for worse. The game does not waste time with any major exposition, or with a super complicated tutorial, it’s just “here’s what’s happening, here’s how you fight, go.” While it is good to get going immediately, here it foreshadows a lack of depth.
Easily the most striking part about this game is its presentation. This is what a lot of people comment on first and foremost and with good reason. It’s strange, and after playing the game I never felt like I got over commenting on how weird it is. Every character is easily recognizable from how they look and sound, but the character models have no shading to them, making the 3D models ironically look flatter given the fact that this is a 2024 videogame. When a character speaks with body language, the animations look to just be a 3D conversion of how they would move in the show, and at 120 frames per second on PC it just looks unnatural. Character faces move and react just as they would on TV, because their eyes and mouths are ironed onto their face shape. You are watching simple geometry with embroidered faces speak and that uneasy feeling never subsides. To add onto this, it is strange when you see characters like Randy Marsh with a layered hair style that clashes with the straightforward design choices for the characters. It’s essentially the construction paper cutouts from season one but with some Build-a-Bear stuffing. Maybe if there was some cell shading it could work to adapt South Park to the third dimension.
I wish I could say that character expressions were the flattest aspect of Snow Day but honestly the combat has so little impact that waiting your turn in The Stick of Truth felt more fulfilling. This is a melee focused game with a fixed point in the camera, similar to the most recent God of War games. However, the direction of the camera doesn’t automatically dictate where your character will swing, especially if you are physically facing one enemy in the middle of a fight. All actions in the game feel floaty, and that’s because there’s no real focus to it. There is no real strategy aside from just “whack a health bar” however you can. There is no lock-on system, and your character has no weight to them. The enemies you fight are uninteresting from the second you start to when the credits roll. All you fight are kindergarteners, occasionally 6th graders, and every time you kill them you have to listen to the same dialogue repeatedly. After you’ve defeated seven of them, you have pretty much heard every kindergartener’s death voice line. Sure, it can feel good to use a magic wand and destroy five of them at once, and the sound effects upon death are actually quite satisfying to hear. What differs from the cannon fodder are the bosses which are so unpleasant to fight against that I felt frostbite stemming from my controller. Their attacks range from stunlocking to area of effect and are just absolute units of health pools. Once you get your hands on the wand your best bet is to hold the left trigger and jump. There’s no satisfying strategy or gratification come victory, just relief that it’s finally over.
There are only three melee and ranged weapons to pick from, none of which feel satisfying to use. On top of your weaponry, you have your two powers from a list of eight to bring in. Although one of them is a healing totem so really it’s one out of seven choices. None of them feel impactful or really turn the tide of the fight, nor can you upgrade these weapons or powers individually. There are one of two upgrade systems in the form of collecting Dark Matter to get permanent buffs to your overall character, but until you reach far in the tree all the upgrades feel arbitrary. The reason for not being able to upgrade weapons is because of this game’s card system. Before the start of every level, cards are drawn to determine what buffs and upgrades both you and the enemy receive. Among those cards are what are (not kidding) Bullshit cards. Bullshit cards are going to be essentially your ultimate move whether that’s for support or damage. Of course you only get to pick one while the enemy gets to pick two. As the name suggests, they’re horrifically unbalanced. I get that that’s the point, it’s supposed to be absurd to the point where it’s funny. It just gets annoying in the midst of combat to have your weapon turn into a pool noodle. They use that noodle card so often that it loses any humor it may have once had. And if these thoughts about the game’s combat seem disjointed, well, that’s how it feels to play it.
