"Rated M" Month: South Park: The Stick of Truth (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

By definition, satire is the type of comedy that stings the most. Its mission is to point and laugh at the flaws of the world, so even as you laugh you remember that it’s calling out something that’s actually going on. For that reason, it’s a popular type of comedy for movies and TV shows, especially those geared towards an older audience – it’s also why so many adult animated sitcoms use it.

Somehow, that sign's gonna kill Kenny someday.

And while South Park is well-known for its use of satire, it’s most infamous for its extensive use of gross-out, offensive, puerile, offensive and line-crossing humor. Did I mention offensive? Video games are mentioned quite frequently in the show, with the characters playing/wanting various systems, playing karaoke on Rock Band… oh, and that entire episode the kids spend playing World of Warcraft. However, the franchise didn’t have a major presence as video games until the 2010s. There were projects before, but nothing that Matt Stone and Trey Parker felt represented the show accurately. Today’s game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, had a long and complex development story, but ultimately came out in part thanks to Ubisoft. And it DOES represent South Park accurately… to the fans’ delight and the moral guardians’ utter horror.

It’s a world of talking shit, anal-probing aliens, jackasses across the board, people fucking, children getting fucked up – and I’m gonna be as vulgar as the game allows me to be! And it’s South Park, so… pretty fuckin’ vulgar.

New Kid in Town

I like how I covered The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, cutting the story into its main missions, so I’ll do that again here. By the way, a fun fact about Skyrim: Bethesda held a very special contest promising free game keys to their entire backlog and future titles to a mother who would name her child, born the day of Skyrim’s release (Nov. 11th, 2011), Dovahkiin. At least one mother took them up on that offer and won. Why do I mention that? I’m not sure; it’s a tidbit of trivia I forgot to give in my original review of Skyrim. Just to say, some people get kinda crazy about RPGs.

Dressed all in green? Hm... Too Irish.

Every adventure has to start somewhere, right?

Like the kids of South Park. The game begins after character creation, in which you can even choose the player character’s skin color. The child and his family have just arrived, settling into their new house on the same street as the Marshs, the Broflovskis, the Cartmans, the Stotches and the McCormicks. The New Kid’s parents hope that this fresh start does some good to their son, whom they promptly shove out of the house so he can make some friends. The neighborhood kids are in the middle of a detailed LARP where they enact a war between humans and elves. The first we meet is Butters, playing a human paladin. After the New Kid “rescues” Butters, he is invited to join the game, by rallying to the human faction represented by the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Kupa Keep, whose quarters are in Eric Cartman’s backyard.

Kingdom of Kupa Keep… KKK… That’s a good start! Oh, and Eric Cartman’s role in the LARP is the self-appointed title of “Grand Wizard”. I fucking hope I don’t have to explain that one. For bonus points, that was also the name of The Stick of Truth’s collector’s version: Grand Wizard Edition. I wonder how many heads that joke flew over.

Pretty good craftsmanship for a bunch of
elementary school kids.

Hey, at least nobody's being openly racist in
a Facebook timeline for once.

As early as the first minutes, the series’ brand and humor pierce through. You can use any toilet in the game to drop a shit, which takes some button-mashing; then, the Kid can actually pick up said shit (yuck) and later throw it at an opponent in battle to gross them out. In comparison, the Kid’s ability of farting on command is almost wholesome. The game also incorporates social media, by having various folks befriend the Kid IRL first, then on social media, sometimes after a side-quest. These new friends may drop messages in the Facebook timeline.

*laughs in "South Park: Post Covid" special*

The New Kid meets the others at Kupa Keep, including Princess Kenny. Not making that up, Kenny, the orange parka kid who dies all the time, has taken on the role of the Princess. Sure, it’s mostly for gags, but it’s sorta wholesome how devoted to the role the “poor kid of South Park” turns out to be. You’re prompted to enter a name, but whatever you pick doesn’t matter; everyone will call the kid Douchebag. Then, you pick the player’s class: Fighter, Mage, Thief… or Jew. Yes, really. Don’t diss the Jew class, either; it can kick more ass than the other three combined. Each class has its own set of special attacks.

The boring aside on gameplay mechanics

Most attacks have a signal like a flash to
indicate when to click/respond.

You’re taught how to equip weapons and armor, then learn to fight. Battles in The Stick of Truth aren't like the passive “choose your actions then let the turn play out” formula from old RPGs; it instead favors action-reaction, with every attack having its own button combination or requirement, with much greater damage on a successful timed hit. It’s to the point where failing the timing will inflict laughably small damage in some cases. And though you always defend from attacks the same way (on PC, right-click when a defense circle appears), timing is yet again vital to take much less damage.

There are so many intricacies to the system that I can’t cover them all, but here’s a few. Melee weapons can only hit an opponent at the front, whereas a ranged weapon can hit any target. Enemies may take stances to either Riposte (strike back against melee attacks) or Reflect (which will throw ranged attacks back to sender). Some characters may have layers of shield, which must be depleted before they're damaged; and others have increased Defense, taking less damage unless that Defense is decreased or you use attacks that ignore it.

Yes, the Gross Out status effect will also
cause the one afflicted to puke every turn.

There’s a plethora of status conditions that can be inflicted, but this being South Park, they differ from the usuals. Grossed Out, as an example, causes HP loss at the end of every turn, but also prevents the character inflicted from using items to heal, having to be cured of the status beforehand. Bleeding causes HP loss as well, but it can stack and cause greater HP losswith each extra Bleeding onto one target. Then there’s Burning, which also causes HP loss and makes enemies receive more damage from your next magic attack… which, in this game, is the New Kid’s farts. There are several more, I can't cover them all.

You get experience from beating enemies and completing quests. At every level, you gain an upgrade point that can be used to improve an attack you’ve unlocked. Of note, the cap in this game is VERY low, at Level 15; you WILL reach said cap before the end of the game even if you stick to the main story missions. However, enemies scale alongside you to keep some level of difficulty even late in the game.

Strap-Ons come in all shapes and sizes, are
fitted for anybody to use, and will most
certainly lead to some enjoyable times... Pfff~

All of the weapons and pieces of equipment have an associated level, and you cannot equip them until you’ve reached said level. On top of that, all of these items can be further upgraded using patches of effects, which are called Strap-Ons, because of course they are. These Strap-Ons can add a wide variety of effects to your stuff – want armor that gives back HP on a Perfect hit? Sure! Want a sword that can inflict both Gross Out AND Burning at the same time? That shit carried me through the first day of the game easily. However, seeing as enemies scale with your level, you’re strongly encouraged to equip the stronger items and Strap-Ons as you find them. At least, this allows for a near-endless number of combinations.

New Kid in Town (continued)

Cartman takes the New Kid into the cardboard KKK castle… This review is just gonna be a long list of sentences I never thought I’d write on the blog, huh? …and shows him the Stick of Truth. However, drow elves attack, forcing the kid into his first battles. The castle is defended and the elves are defeated, but Clyde (who got the shit kicked out of him by the New Kid during the battle tutorial) arrives to say that the Stick has gone missing. The elves stole it. In retribution, Cartman “banishes Clyde from space and time”, a fancy child way of saying “you’re out of the fucking game!”

Call the Banners

To retrieve the Stick of Truth, Cartman declares that he needs the entire human army by his side. He thus tasks Douchebag with gathering the missing members: Tweek Tweak, Tolkien Black and Craig Tucker. To help you, Butters joins your team.

…what? No, I didn’t misspell a kid’s name. There’s been a retcon in this year's Season 25. Tolkien Black is the correct way to spell it. The game predates said retcon, so it still refers to the Black kid as Token, but I can use the new (and actual) name, so I will. Not like it'll come up anywhere else anyway... Anyhow, this opens a few quests.

In the game of Rock Paper Scissors of life,
gas mask beats mace. And foot beats balls.

Hot Coffee: To recruit Tweek, you need to get him out of his job at the family coffee shop by getting ingredients for his dad. Such ingredients are cooked up in the McCormicks’ garage, using choice local materials- it’s goddamn meth. We have to beat up the meth heads to get the package, then return to Tweek Bros. with it.

Gate Crasher: Tolkien’s family is rich and the front gate is protected by a guard who’ll pepper mace Douchebag, so we need to buy a gas mask at Jimbo’s gun shop in order to proceed. Even then, the guard won’t go down without a fight, but it's early in the game so it's an easy one. Of note, this also opens Jimbo’s side-quest where he provides the Kid with bait and asks him to kill six peculiar enemies around South Park.

Kenny playing the Princess Zelda role with
a side of Sheik to the fullest.

Detention Sentence: Craig isn’t home; he’s in detention. The members of Kupa Keep have to break him out, defeating the ginger hall monitors in order to do so. The New Kid is taught his first “magic”, Dragonshout, which is only a powered-up fart… which we then test on Kenny, because Cartman is an asshole. He does warn the player, however: Never fart on a man’s balls.

From this point on, we get a second ally in Kenny, and we can swap allies freely, each ally having their own set of moves and abilities, in and out of battle. Kenny’s special ability is to come back to life after death; the corpse will be dragged off by rats and therefore you can’t use an item to revive the Princess, but Kenny will return a couple turns later like nothing happened.

Dragonshout: When "silent but deadly"
just won't cut it.

Though we’re only a short way into the plot, we’ve opened most of the map for exploration already, with several other quests available – most of which I won't cover because the main quest is long to talk about. The school is the first proper dungeon, and this is where you get to use your abilities outside of battles: Ranged weapon to shoot at things and create reactions that can incapacitate enemies, and Dragonshout on open flames to blow shit up. Damn, what’s in Douchebag’s diet? Butters’ ability to heal people and Kenny’s ability to… er… flash his prepubescent boy nipples at other kids both see use.

A more pressing question: Did a redhead piss in Stone and Parker’s cereals when they were kids? Anyway, after getting the required key and beating the hall monitor boss, Douchebag opens the detention room and the kids are freed. Nice! With this done, the human army regroups at Kupa Keep and starts planning the next step.

The Bard

The Grand Wizard has learned that the Stick of Truth is currently in the hands of the Bard, a Level 10 drow elf. He will be found at the Giggling Donkey, but first, Cartman teaches Douchebag to use a ranged magic attack – literally cupping his fart and throwing it at the target. Hey, as long as he doesn’t aim at a man’s balls, it’s all good.

"I have a nice lance that she sat upon... The
maiden from Stonebury who was also your mom!"

The human army heads into the Inn of the Giggling Donkey. Playing their parts, Cartman hears from the barman that the bard is in the cellar. The group heads down there and, predictably, it’s a trap. They do meet him down there – and it’s none other than Jimmy, the second best kid in South Park! Don’t let his stutter fool you; he’s a force to be seen. And his song, topped off by a solid “your mom” joke, is to be heard, too. He sics some elves onto the party and enhances them with his support song, then flees to his room when the elves are defeated. Sure helps that the Giggling Donkey is located inside his house.

Destroy everything in your way - 
in and out of battle.

As classy as always, South Park.

On the ground floor, the New Kid finds a “wounded” Grand Wizard who asks him to catch the Bard, who went upstairs. Jimmy claims that since he has the Stick, he “controls the universe” (or, in simpler terms, he can make up new rules for their LARP as he pleases). We finally reach and battle the Bard, who has a special attack that causes the New Kid’s mana to overflow. Or, more precisely, it’ll cause the Kid to shit his pants. Classy. In spite of that, the Bard is defeated and the human recover the Stick.

The mythical item is returned to the KKK… sigh… just in time for nightfall. The New Kid has to go back home, with his parents showing up to take him home (angrily) if he takes too long. Shortest quest ever! However…

Alien abduction

…wha-wha-whaaaat??!? Wait, what kind of turn is this game fucking taking?

A turn that's awkward as fuck, is what it is.

Shortly afterwards, the New Kid is lying in bed, and a bright blue light shines. Aliens show up, kidnap the Kid, and bring him to their spaceship where they – of course – hook him to a probing machine with a tool the size of an XL Bad Dragon dildo attached to it. Y’know, I prefer the Simpsons’ take on that joke; you’d think the aliens would have reached the limits of what anal probing could teach them. At this point, it's just sadism.

These aliens should recycle into proctology.

The New Kid isn’t the only one; several other citizens of South Park are hooked and probed. Including Randy Marsh, Stan’s dad. Thankfully, the Kid has such amazing controls over his sphincter and other ass-muscles that he breaks the probe machines (yes… plural), with one’s tip retracting into his ass. He can use this new, ahem, “gadget” to interface with alien machines scattered around and teleport over short distances. You have to change your option (using the F key by default on PC) to “Alien Probe” to do so.

Randy asks the New Kid to get him free, and this quest will require this new ability. The aliens have no intention of making this easy, however, and will attack on sight. And yes, in this quest, you WILL get Randy repeatedly fucked in the ass by the machine.

Grinding nuts is a perfectly acceptable hobby.

Just a quick aside, while I think about it: My favorite ability as a fighter is Roshambo, where the Kid plays rock-paper-scissors, then kicks the enemy in the balls. Most enemies are affected by it, including aliens. Apparently, those have testicles too! It will work against almost every target. And Roshambo, improved to the maximum by spending 4 skill points, is massively powerful and always, ALWAYS satisfying. As the description states, it WILL “resolve a surprising number of disputes”. And that’s just one ability for the fighter class – I imagine that every ability of every class has the potential to become this powerful, depending how you build your character.

A Chinpokomon so rare, only aliens have it.

As a different side-note, however, is the game’s progression: You’ll frequently happen upon places and situations that won’t be available again later down the line, which makes a few of the side-quests difficult to complete, especially those of the collection type. If you don’t grab everything in an area, you might never be able to finish those. As an example, there are 30 Chinpokomon around South Park to be collected; there’s one in this very spaceship, which the New Kid will crash and never be able to come back to. Those quests are… annoying, to say the least, and it’s a shame that the game, for everything it’s thought to include, doesn’t add ways to mitigate those instances of permanently-missed content, for quest items in particular.

Sci-fi crap? In my fantasy game?
It's more likely than you think.

I'm sure that's gonna have no impact on the
LARP whatsoever.

Warping between floors of the UFO and battling aliens, the New Kid eventually goes through the steps to free Randy from his own ass-torturing device, and then steps into the cockpit to battle the pilots. With these bosses defeated, the ship crashes onto the large shopping mall in South Park, with UFO debris landing everywhere and a mysterious green goo leaking into the sewers. Far away, a “Big Bad Government Guy” (it’s not a moral judgment, it’s literally what the subtitles call him) gets an urgent call about the situation…

And yet, despite all that, the Kid wakes up in bed, like nothing happened. It’s a new day in South Park…

…and I’ll cover it in Part 2.