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Description
Due to time constraints, the comic is shorter than I planned. Also, the Asian joke is something Panda would do.

SOUTH PARK: THE FRACTURED BUT WHOLE.
(With a partital mention to The Stick of Truth)
Developed and Published by: Ubisoft.
In collaboration with: South Park Studios.
Genre: RPG.
Rated: 18 (It's South Park.)

Edited by
Do support him by following him on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/BloatedBeard/

Super Hero Movies at this point are like unwanted relatives around Christmas Time. We're unfortunately stuck with them, despite how many subtle hints you drop for them to just shut up and go away! While most of you already creamed your jeans at the title reveal for "Avengers 3: The Search for more Money" I'm left wondering when this horse shit is finally going to be flushed down the proverbial toilet. Do we seriously need roughly 5-6 Super Hero Films every fucking year? Are you not tired of this yet?

Thankfully, South Park devoted a video game to this frustration with South Park: The Fractured But Whole, a sequel to 2014's The Stick of Truth. This time we're swapping out the lampooning of RPGs and Tolkien for Super Hero costumes and Cinematic Universe mockery! In fact, FBW comes with a free copy of SOT which I spent the day speeding through. I didn't properly review SOT, but it's a solid beginner's guide to RPGs and worth a look if you either like South Park or want an RPG to start out with if you've never played them before. Because it came free with FBW, I will constantly bring up SOT as a form of comparison. In terms of length, Stick of Truth lasted about as long as Noxous arguing with Ben Shaprio... Or ya know, anyone. Fractured But Whole's length is more favourable but it's only due to the fact it pads out the run time with mandatory side quests, more cutscenes and tedious repetition. Seeing how I haven't watched the show in a long time, I didn't really find myself laughing whenever it made a callback to a recent episode. I only seemed to smile when they acknowledged jokes from the first 3 seasons, such as Jimbo & Ned's mantra of "it's coming right for us!" or an instrumental rendition of Kyle's Mum's a bitch!

SOT left me wondering "Who the hell is Scott Malkinson?" beyond an obvious crack at diabetic people. Yet now with FBW, I'm left wondering "Who is Kyle's Cousin? Why is Craig X Tweek a thing and what the fuck is a Raisins Girl?" I can see things have seriously changed since Season 3. Now the natural counter argument you could make to many of my critiques in this review is "WELL IF YOU KEPT WATCHING THE SHOW...." but since I haven't don't expect me to jump for joy whenever "SEAMAN" or Crab People popped up. Once again you take on the role of "NewKid" in South Park (for the purpose of this review it's Dom) who has an uncanny ability to make friends across social media. I decked Dom out in a top hat and a mostly pink suit and cape. Considering I spent time grinding for new levels by attacking the Raisins Girls, I began to pretend I was playing as a rather fruity version of Jack the Ripper! NewKid still doesn't say a word which hinders the story in places, for a few of the games issues could be resolved by the kid saying something. They established at the end of SOT he COULD speak afterall. Relying on the silent protagonist trope at this point is meaningless.

The game begins in familair territory if you played SOT. Seeing the world of Zaron one last time was nice but things quickly shift into the super hero mockery that was advertised. The Coon & Friends (who proclaim they're Marvel yet have a Superman parody on the team?) are trying to gain a Billion Dollar Movie Franchise before their rivals, The Freedom Pals, can establish a Netflix series. Yet in typical South Park fashion, things go from zero to retarded very quickly when Cartman/Mitch Conner plans to run for Mayor to make every day Christmas, clone the NewKid for some reason, flood South Park with crime and that's where my brain gave up on trying to understand this fucking mess! Stick of Truth tried to remain coherent with the storytelling, while Fractured But Whole just splurges all over the place without a basic sense of direction. One minute we're parodying Civil War, to fighting a giant Lovecraftian monster who feeds on Black People provided by Racist Cops high on Cat Piss after taking on Jared Fogle.... I wish I was making this up! I'm not going to devote too much time talking about the "humour" in Fractured But Whole, because critiquing a comedy game is kind of pointless since it's not meant to be taken seriously. More to the point, it's South Park! You're either going to piss yourself with laughter or write a Tumblr blog about being "triggered!"

That's where the humour tends to fall flat - the Identity Politics pandering. I understand they're taking the piss out of Tumblr, Liberals and Social Justice Warriors, but the "what gender are you?" conversations with Mr.Mackey (followed by the Redneck bossfights) and "cops aren't racist" speeches really came off more obnoxious than funny. That's not South Park's fault by any means for their social commentary is pretty on point most of the time, but after constantly being subjected to this nonsense by Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr, Marvel Comics, Bioware and Hollywood, I think I've just about had it up to nine feet above my head with that complete and utter bollocks! Though if I must critique, South Park tends to drag jokes on for far too long that it eventually stops being funny... Before going on even longer just to be insufferable. In Stick of Truth it was the Gentlemen's Oath of "never fart on another mans balls" and here it's a forced joke about "your dad fucked your mum" that even the game itself calls out for being stupid.

It also doesn't help when the game makes INCREDIBLY DATED pop culture references. Who the hell is still talking about Flappy Bird or making Kayne West "I'm a let you finish" memes? But of course what tired pop culture reference would be complete without a a parody of President Troy.... Cus we haven't seen that a million times now have we? Now to be fair the game only makes occasional PCRs that make up 5% of the overall plot. I'm just grateful this isn't Family Guy: The Fractured But Whole, because it would be a million times worse! I found myself grinning when it just focused on making fun of Super Hero Movies. Mainly Timmy's uncanny impression of Professor X of the X-Men and the desperate need to establish a Cinematic Universe, which in itself seems more like a jab at the sinking ship that is Hollywood more than anything else.

I was more interested in the parents subplot, even if the eventual payoff was disappointing. Their relationship kept getting progressively worse that when I left my room near the end of the game to see blood everywhere, I was just curious to see where they were going with this instead of the game focusing on yet another "Cartman is being evil!" plot. I will say out of the two games so far, South Park: The Fractured But Whole only managed to raise a few smiles out of me instead of full blown laughter. Stick of Truth felt more focused and kept the jokes somewhat fresh, even if some of them failed to stick the landing.

At least Stick of Truth had an ending. Fractured But Whole just kinda gives up and rolls the credits after a pretty stupid Final Boss.

Driving away from plot-town, Fractured But Whole makes some welcome additions to the battle system, while removing some decent feautures from Stick of Truth's design. While it is still a turn based RPG in the vain of Paper Mario, it's now throwing in elements from XCOM, Mega Man X: Command Mission and other games. I'm greatful for having up to 5 party members on screen, but I don't like how you can no longer use a healing item and attack in the same turn anymore. The inclusion of more party members, going from the original games 6 to 12 gives the player a lot of variety which could be great for the game's replayability. Instead of picking a single class at the start FBW lets you utilise 4 different classes which all come with different attacks and supers. Farting is something I wish South Park would just move the fuck on from already, but it's back once again as a major game mechanic. This time you can use the NewKid's farts to either glitch, pause, rewind time or change the time of day. I found the glitch ability to the most useful out of the 4 because it denies the enemy a turn in battle. Summons also return and you can thankfully use them more than once per day. The game neuters the fuck out of super moves by only giving your buddies 1 and you're only allowed 1 of your classes during battle. Beyond that, the game plays out roughly the same way. Bleeding Damage is your best friend in this game and is a decent RPG for begininers.

I remember saying near the begining "Man, Fractured But Whole is tough. Maybe if I changed up these artifacts Aaaaand there goes the difficulty!" New to the game are artifacts you can attatch to your character to change stats and improve your overall attacks. I would have just prefered leveling up and adding stat buffs to weapons personally. Yet upon changing a few artifacts to increase your power level, the game effectively surrendered and I found little to no resistance from that point on. Which is a shame because after SOT's insultingly easy difficulty this would be something FBW would improve upon but alas no. It also has a stronger emphasis on puzzle solving. While still relying on farting on something, some do rely on utilising your buddies that unlike SOT it actually feels like its mandatory for progression and can provide the only real challenge in the entire game. I found myself generally stumped for a few minutes by some of them so kudos to FBW for forcing me to think outside the box. Yet the one thing I truly don't like about South Park: The Fractured But Whole is an utterly pointless crafting system. Just because it worked in Minecraft doesn't mean it needs to be in EVERY video game these days! Rather than just going to an item shop to buy items to restore health or even buy new costumes, you have to literally craft the items yourself via the aftermentioned crafting system. Granted you can find vending machines and get items that way, but I feel the game is throwing in this mechanic for no good reason beyond MARKETING.... Which brings me to the main thing I hate about this game.

What brings my piss to boil is that both games are associated with...... (shudders) Ubisoft. The irony alone on that floors me, considering Ubisoft devoted its E3 2017 confrence to virtue signal about how women and minorities truly matter, then releases a game that makes it it's mission to offend every single one of those women and minorities Ubisoft pretends to care about. Let's be completely straight with one another, I fucking HATE Ubisoft and I'm only playing this cus I used to watch South Park. NOT because I endorse what those cheese eating pricks consider "fun." Even at the start of SOT, they tried pestering me yet again to sign up for their bloody UPlay Service. You remember, that thing they insisted I had to sign up for while holding The Division hostage and I outright refused.

Good times.

Yet when you boot up FBW, you're greeted with Season Passes, DLC, UPlay and a banner that literaly translates to "1800-BUY-OUR-CRAP!" All of which were not pressent in SOT yet you really feel like Ubisoft's sticky fingers are all over FBW with this kind of shit. Speaking of which, like any good Ubisoft product, the game is full of more glitches, holes, bugs and flaws than a Theresea May speech. The game bugged out and froze on me a few times. Cartman used a super move where he jumps into the air, but he never came down. I'd walk into my bathroom and the game froze on a loading screen. When I drained my enemies HP to 0, they stood there for a full minute before doing their death animation and the game really bugged out when performing Kyle's buddy mechanic. None of these issues were present with SOT as well so it's funny how a game can be delayed for as long as it was and produce a seriously unfininshed or tested product like this... But then again, this is Ubisoft! I couldn't help but notice the game wasn't developed by the previous team and was strictly a Ubisoft endevour this time. No wonder this game has some many issues with it. Also there is an Assassin's Creed costume..... Locked behind a glorified paywall. And that's why I'm not reviewing Origins this year. Fuck you and your bullshit, Ubisoft!

In conclusion - Fractured But Whole takes one step forward and two steps back! It has its moments but it's ultimately not as memorable as The Stick of Truth! It's like an edgy 14 year old throwing all the swear words he knows at you. You think it's cute at first but you eventually want to punch him in the face for being an insufferable little sod! I'd recomend Stick of Truth over this this game to be perfectly honest with you. The game is solid (when it isn't bugging out) but the overall story is a complete mess... But then again, it's South Park!

Description
Due to time constraints, the comic is shorter than I planned. Also, the Asian joke is something Panda would do.

SOUTH PARK: THE FRACTURED BUT WHOLE.
(With a partital mention to The Stick of Truth)
Developed and Published by: Ubisoft.
In collaboration with: South Park Studios.
Genre: RPG.
Rated: 18 (It's South Park.)

Edited by
Do support him by following him on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/BloatedBeard/

Super Hero Movies at this point are like unwanted relatives around Christmas Time. We're unfortunately stuck with them, despite how many subtle hints you drop for them to just shut up and go away! While most of you already creamed your jeans at the title reveal for "Avengers 3: The Search for more Money" I'm left wondering when this horse shit is finally going to be flushed down the proverbial toilet. Do we seriously need roughly 5-6 Super Hero Films every fucking year? Are you not tired of this yet?

Thankfully, South Park devoted a video game to this frustration with South Park: The Fractured But Whole, a sequel to 2014's The Stick of Truth. This time we're swapping out the lampooning of RPGs and Tolkien for Super Hero costumes and Cinematic Universe mockery! In fact, FBW comes with a free copy of SOT which I spent the day speeding through. I didn't properly review SOT, but it's a solid beginner's guide to RPGs and worth a look if you either like South Park or want an RPG to start out with if you've never played them before. Because it came free with FBW, I will constantly bring up SOT as a form of comparison. In terms of length, Stick of Truth lasted about as long as Noxous arguing with Ben Shaprio... Or ya know, anyone. Fractured But Whole's length is more favourable but it's only due to the fact it pads out the run time with mandatory side quests, more cutscenes and tedious repetition. Seeing how I haven't watched the show in a long time, I didn't really find myself laughing whenever it made a callback to a recent episode. I only seemed to smile when they acknowledged jokes from the first 3 seasons, such as Jimbo & Ned's mantra of "it's coming right for us!" or an instrumental rendition of Kyle's Mum's a bitch!

SOT left me wondering "Who the hell is Scott Malkinson?" beyond an obvious crack at diabetic people. Yet now with FBW, I'm left wondering "Who is Kyle's Cousin? Why is Craig X Tweek a thing and what the fuck is a Raisins Girl?" I can see things have seriously changed since Season 3. Now the natural counter argument you could make to many of my critiques in this review is "WELL IF YOU KEPT WATCHING THE SHOW...." but since I haven't don't expect me to jump for joy whenever "SEAMAN" or Crab People popped up. Once again you take on the role of "NewKid" in South Park (for the purpose of this review it's Dom) who has an uncanny ability to make friends across social media. I decked Dom out in a top hat and a mostly pink suit and cape. Considering I spent time grinding for new levels by attacking the Raisins Girls, I began to pretend I was playing as a rather fruity version of Jack the Ripper! NewKid still doesn't say a word which hinders the story in places, for a few of the games issues could be resolved by the kid saying something. They established at the end of SOT he COULD speak afterall. Relying on the silent protagonist trope at this point is meaningless.

The game begins in familair territory if you played SOT. Seeing the world of Zaron one last time was nice but things quickly shift into the super hero mockery that was advertised. The Coon & Friends (who proclaim they're Marvel yet have a Superman parody on the team?) are trying to gain a Billion Dollar Movie Franchise before their rivals, The Freedom Pals, can establish a Netflix series. Yet in typical South Park fashion, things go from zero to retarded very quickly when Cartman/Mitch Conner plans to run for Mayor to make every day Christmas, clone the NewKid for some reason, flood South Park with crime and that's where my brain gave up on trying to understand this fucking mess! Stick of Truth tried to remain coherent with the storytelling, while Fractured But Whole just splurges all over the place without a basic sense of direction. One minute we're parodying Civil War, to fighting a giant Lovecraftian monster who feeds on Black People provided by Racist Cops high on Cat Piss after taking on Jared Fogle.... I wish I was making this up! I'm not going to devote too much time talking about the "humour" in Fractured But Whole, because critiquing a comedy game is kind of pointless since it's not meant to be taken seriously. More to the point, it's South Park! You're either going to piss yourself with laughter or write a Tumblr blog about being "triggered!"

That's where the humour tends to fall flat - the Identity Politics pandering. I understand they're taking the piss out of Tumblr, Liberals and Social Justice Warriors, but the "what gender are you?" conversations with Mr.Mackey (followed by the Redneck bossfights) and "cops aren't racist" speeches really came off more obnoxious than funny. That's not South Park's fault by any means for their social commentary is pretty on point most of the time, but after constantly being subjected to this nonsense by Facebook, Youtube, Tumblr, Marvel Comics, Bioware and Hollywood, I think I've just about had it up to nine feet above my head with that complete and utter bollocks! Though if I must critique, South Park tends to drag jokes on for far too long that it eventually stops being funny... Before going on even longer just to be insufferable. In Stick of Truth it was the Gentlemen's Oath of "never fart on another mans balls" and here it's a forced joke about "your dad fucked your mum" that even the game itself calls out for being stupid.

It also doesn't help when the game makes INCREDIBLY DATED pop culture references. Who the hell is still talking about Flappy Bird or making Kayne West "I'm a let you finish" memes? But of course what tired pop culture reference would be complete without a a parody of President Troy.... Cus we haven't seen that a million times now have we? Now to be fair the game only makes occasional PCRs that make up 5% of the overall plot. I'm just grateful this isn't Family Guy: The Fractured But Whole, because it would be a million times worse! I found myself grinning when it just focused on making fun of Super Hero Movies. Mainly Timmy's uncanny impression of Professor X of the X-Men and the desperate need to establish a Cinematic Universe, which in itself seems more like a jab at the sinking ship that is Hollywood more than anything else.

I was more interested in the parents subplot, even if the eventual payoff was disappointing. Their relationship kept getting progressively worse that when I left my room near the end of the game to see blood everywhere, I was just curious to see where they were going with this instead of the game focusing on yet another "Cartman is being evil!" plot. I will say out of the two games so far, South Park: The Fractured But Whole only managed to raise a few smiles out of me instead of full blown laughter. Stick of Truth felt more focused and kept the jokes somewhat fresh, even if some of them failed to stick the landing.

At least Stick of Truth had an ending. Fractured But Whole just kinda gives up and rolls the credits after a pretty stupid Final Boss.

Driving away from plot-town, Fractured But Whole makes some welcome additions to the battle system, while removing some decent feautures from Stick of Truth's design. While it is still a turn based RPG in the vain of Paper Mario, it's now throwing in elements from XCOM, Mega Man X: Command Mission and other games. I'm greatful for having up to 5 party members on screen, but I don't like how you can no longer use a healing item and attack in the same turn anymore. The inclusion of more party members, going from the original games 6 to 12 gives the player a lot of variety which could be great for the game's replayability. Instead of picking a single class at the start FBW lets you utilise 4 different classes which all come with different attacks and supers. Farting is something I wish South Park would just move the fuck on from already, but it's back once again as a major game mechanic. This time you can use the NewKid's farts to either glitch, pause, rewind time or change the time of day. I found the glitch ability to the most useful out of the 4 because it denies the enemy a turn in battle. Summons also return and you can thankfully use them more than once per day. The game neuters the fuck out of super moves by only giving your buddies 1 and you're only allowed 1 of your classes during battle. Beyond that, the game plays out roughly the same way. Bleeding Damage is your best friend in this game and is a decent RPG for begininers.

I remember saying near the begining "Man, Fractured But Whole is tough. Maybe if I changed up these artifacts Aaaaand there goes the difficulty!" New to the game are artifacts you can attatch to your character to change stats and improve your overall attacks. I would have just prefered leveling up and adding stat buffs to weapons personally. Yet upon changing a few artifacts to increase your power level, the game effectively surrendered and I found little to no resistance from that point on. Which is a shame because after SOT's insultingly easy difficulty this would be something FBW would improve upon but alas no. It also has a stronger emphasis on puzzle solving. While still relying on farting on something, some do rely on utilising your buddies that unlike SOT it actually feels like its mandatory for progression and can provide the only real challenge in the entire game. I found myself generally stumped for a few minutes by some of them so kudos to FBW for forcing me to think outside the box. Yet the one thing I truly don't like about South Park: The Fractured But Whole is an utterly pointless crafting system. Just because it worked in Minecraft doesn't mean it needs to be in EVERY video game these days! Rather than just going to an item shop to buy items to restore health or even buy new costumes, you have to literally craft the items yourself via the aftermentioned crafting system. Granted you can find vending machines and get items that way, but I feel the game is throwing in this mechanic for no good reason beyond MARKETING.... Which brings me to the main thing I hate about this game.

What brings my piss to boil is that both games are associated with...... (shudders) Ubisoft. The irony alone on that floors me, considering Ubisoft devoted its E3 2017 confrence to virtue signal about how women and minorities truly matter, then releases a game that makes it it's mission to offend every single one of those women and minorities Ubisoft pretends to care about. Let's be completely straight with one another, I fucking HATE Ubisoft and I'm only playing this cus I used to watch South Park. NOT because I endorse what those cheese eating pricks consider "fun." Even at the start of SOT, they tried pestering me yet again to sign up for their bloody UPlay Service. You remember, that thing they insisted I had to sign up for while holding The Division hostage and I outright refused.

Good times.

Yet when you boot up FBW, you're greeted with Season Passes, DLC, UPlay and a banner that literaly translates to "1800-BUY-OUR-CRAP!" All of which were not pressent in SOT yet you really feel like Ubisoft's sticky fingers are all over FBW with this kind of shit. Speaking of which, like any good Ubisoft product, the game is full of more glitches, holes, bugs and flaws than a Theresea May speech. The game bugged out and froze on me a few times. Cartman used a super move where he jumps into the air, but he never came down. I'd walk into my bathroom and the game froze on a loading screen. When I drained my enemies HP to 0, they stood there for a full minute before doing their death animation and the game really bugged out when performing Kyle's buddy mechanic. None of these issues were present with SOT as well so it's funny how a game can be delayed for as long as it was and produce a seriously unfininshed or tested product like this... But then again, this is Ubisoft! I couldn't help but notice the game wasn't developed by the previous team and was strictly a Ubisoft endevour this time. No wonder this game has some many issues with it. Also there is an Assassin's Creed costume..... Locked behind a glorified paywall. And that's why I'm not reviewing Origins this year. Fuck you and your bullshit, Ubisoft!

In conclusion - Fractured But Whole takes one step forward and two steps back! It has its moments but it's ultimately not as memorable as The Stick of Truth! It's like an edgy 14 year old throwing all the swear words he knows at you. You think it's cute at first but you eventually want to punch him in the face for being an insufferable little sod! I'd recomend Stick of Truth over this this game to be perfectly honest with you. The game is solid (when it isn't bugging out) but the overall story is a complete mess... But then again, it's South Park!