The best day in a child's life
By Paul Hunter
26 seasons and 328 episodes later, South Park is as popular as ever. The animated series has a long history with video games, starting with the Nintendo 64 South Park game in 1998, followed by a racing game, a tower defence game and then the incredible RPGs The Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole. Now the kid squad of Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan are back with South Park: Snow Day!, an action-adventure roguelike game published by THQ Nordic and developed by Question Games.
Snow Day was developed with the oversight of South Park Digital Studios, the same team that brought us The Stick of Truth, The Fractured but Whole, and South Park: Phone Destroyer. What this means is South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were closely involved with the project and everything from the writing to the voice acting to the music feels on brand for South Park.
Snow Day naturally begins with a massive blizzard hitting central Colorado and residents have already locked themselves inside for shelter. While the rest of the town is in a panic, Eric Cartman is over the moon since the weather will inevitably result in a school snow day, the greatest day in a kid's life.
Once the school closure confirmation rolls in, Cartman gets dressed in his iconic wizard outfit and heads out to rally his friends, including the New Kid who you control. There's a nifty character creator, similar to the previous RPG games from Ubisoft, where you can choose your kid's clothing, eyewear and more.
It's pretty cool that South Park: Snow Day! sneakily references the previous two games with Cartman saying that some kids have become overpowered and so the rules need to change. This means RPG elements are out, and new beat 'em up rules are in. Soon after that, you're whisked away to a tutorial where you'll battle and explore on 3D maps all to bring glorious victory to your team, well, technically Cartman's team since he's your commanding officer throughout the game.
There's actually a surprisingly small amount of content in this game, as it consists of five levels each with three or four sub-maps before you end up facing off in a boss battle against a central a central character of the South Park children's group, be it Kyle, Kenny and others. There is replayability though as there are three difficulty settings (easy, normal, hard) and the individual levels have randomized elements much like a roguelite. Some objectives are hard-coded into levels, while others may change the next time you go to battle and the enemies you face will switch up too.
I will say that after several 2D South Park titles, the switch to 3D maps is a refreshing change and the 3D characters also look great and are just as expressive as they are in the TV show. Following each level, you'll head back to a modest-size hub zone where you can interact with South Park characters, buy weapons and items, equip magic spells and upgrade your abilities in a rather robust skill tree.
From a technical perspective, South Park: Snow Day! plays smoothly on the Xbox Series X. It runs at 4K with 60 frames per second and I didn't notice any frame drops even when more than a dozen kids were hacking and slashing each other on screen. The environments look nice and are authentic to South Park's visual style, although I do wish there was a greater variety of environments because aside from a few indoor sections, the majority of the game takes place in snowy white outdoor settings.
The gameplay is simple, yet effective, revolving around attacking, dodging and jumping. There are a few different weapons you can choose for your loadout, like twin daggers, a sword and shield, and a few magic wands that can strike enemies from a distance. I like the fire wand, but you have to be careful because if you accidentally set yourself on fire the best solution is to jump into snow to extinguish the flames.
The maps are fairly basic, mostly being open spaces with some high ground you can go for safety to have an attack advantage. Sometimes you'll have silly objectives, like this one map where I had to find three used condoms to repair a slingshot to fling me over to the next area. And yes, in case you were wondering the humour in this game is signature South Park.
Along with your melee and range weapons, you can also equip two abilities to aid you in battle. Abilities are effective, yet incredibly silly, like one that lets you fart to do a high jump or another one where you use cat urine to trick enemies into switching sides.
Leaning into its roguelite gameplay you can acquire ability cards before the start of each encounter that switches up the gameplay in big ways. For instance, there's a 75% damage buff to your flame wand but at the risk of burning yourself, or you could add a 6HP heal buff to bull charge attack. There are dozens of ability cards in all and you'll need to choose your favourite from the three offered to you. Or, you can bribe the Goth kid with toilet paper to reroll your options or spend some TP to upgrade a card from Common to Rare to upgrade its buffs.
There's also a gameplay system called Bullshit! that's basically just that. Your opponents can play their Bullshit cards at any time during battle to gain unfair advantages like turning into vampires, swapping their melee weapons for lightsabers or even growing into giant kids and dealing extra damage. You can also bring Bullshit cards into battle, but it always seems like your enemy gets the better cards, has more Bullshit cards than you, and their cards deal more damage than your own. While these cards are a bit aggravating, at least they additional humour or an already funny combat system.
South Park: Snow Day! is fundamentally designed around four-person multiplayer, and there is online play to get paired up with others. There is the option to backfill allies with AI-controlled teammates, but I don't recommend it since the AI often doesn't do what you'd like and they can also be slow to revive you when downed. The AI also attack rather mechanically and don't make good use of their powers, so all around it's not a good choice to wage war with NPC helpers.
The good news is finding real players is not difficult as you join others at any time or wait for slots to fill in your own game. When you get a full squad of four players you're generally a much more effective team as you can coordinate your attacks more thoughtfully, better utilize your skills to help the team and quickly revive teammates when needed.
After your squad is victorious in battle, you'll get a variety of rewards ranging from new weapons, new magic spells or abilities, and various currency used to upgrade your skill tree, buy cosmetic items or purchase items. The one unfortunate thing is any ability cards you acquired get wiped when a mission ends so you'll start each mission with a clean slate of cards.
All in all, South Park: Snow Day! does a fantastic job of channelling the series' spirit into all facets, from the superb writing and catchy music all the way to the silly yet fun beat 'em up gameplay. Best of all, the edgy humour remains intact and all of the gang members are faithful to their animated series counterparts.
Final Score: 7.5/10 - Good
Developer: Question Games, South Park Digital Studios
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Genre: Action Adventure, Beat 'Em Up, Roguelite
Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
A key was provided by the publisher.
By Paul Hunter
26 seasons and 328 episodes later, South Park is as popular as ever. The animated series has a long history with video games, starting with the Nintendo 64 South Park game in 1998, followed by a racing game, a tower defence game and then the incredible RPGs The Stick of Truth and The Fractured but Whole. Now the kid squad of Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan are back with South Park: Snow Day!, an action-adventure roguelike game published by THQ Nordic and developed by Question Games.
Snow Day was developed with the oversight of South Park Digital Studios, the same team that brought us The Stick of Truth, The Fractured but Whole, and South Park: Phone Destroyer. What this means is South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were closely involved with the project and everything from the writing to the voice acting to the music feels on brand for South Park.
Snow Day naturally begins with a massive blizzard hitting central Colorado and residents have already locked themselves inside for shelter. While the rest of the town is in a panic, Eric Cartman is over the moon since the weather will inevitably result in a school snow day, the greatest day in a kid's life.
Once the school closure confirmation rolls in, Cartman gets dressed in his iconic wizard outfit and heads out to rally his friends, including the New Kid who you control. There's a nifty character creator, similar to the previous RPG games from Ubisoft, where you can choose your kid's clothing, eyewear and more.
It's pretty cool that South Park: Snow Day! sneakily references the previous two games with Cartman saying that some kids have become overpowered and so the rules need to change. This means RPG elements are out, and new beat 'em up rules are in. Soon after that, you're whisked away to a tutorial where you'll battle and explore on 3D maps all to bring glorious victory to your team, well, technically Cartman's team since he's your commanding officer throughout the game.
There's actually a surprisingly small amount of content in this game, as it consists of five levels each with three or four sub-maps before you end up facing off in a boss battle against a central a central character of the South Park children's group, be it Kyle, Kenny and others. There is replayability though as there are three difficulty settings (easy, normal, hard) and the individual levels have randomized elements much like a roguelite. Some objectives are hard-coded into levels, while others may change the next time you go to battle and the enemies you face will switch up too.
I will say that after several 2D South Park titles, the switch to 3D maps is a refreshing change and the 3D characters also look great and are just as expressive as they are in the TV show. Following each level, you'll head back to a modest-size hub zone where you can interact with South Park characters, buy weapons and items, equip magic spells and upgrade your abilities in a rather robust skill tree.
From a technical perspective, South Park: Snow Day! plays smoothly on the Xbox Series X. It runs at 4K with 60 frames per second and I didn't notice any frame drops even when more than a dozen kids were hacking and slashing each other on screen. The environments look nice and are authentic to South Park's visual style, although I do wish there was a greater variety of environments because aside from a few indoor sections, the majority of the game takes place in snowy white outdoor settings.
The gameplay is simple, yet effective, revolving around attacking, dodging and jumping. There are a few different weapons you can choose for your loadout, like twin daggers, a sword and shield, and a few magic wands that can strike enemies from a distance. I like the fire wand, but you have to be careful because if you accidentally set yourself on fire the best solution is to jump into snow to extinguish the flames.
The maps are fairly basic, mostly being open spaces with some high ground you can go for safety to have an attack advantage. Sometimes you'll have silly objectives, like this one map where I had to find three used condoms to repair a slingshot to fling me over to the next area. And yes, in case you were wondering the humour in this game is signature South Park.
Along with your melee and range weapons, you can also equip two abilities to aid you in battle. Abilities are effective, yet incredibly silly, like one that lets you fart to do a high jump or another one where you use cat urine to trick enemies into switching sides.
Leaning into its roguelite gameplay you can acquire ability cards before the start of each encounter that switches up the gameplay in big ways. For instance, there's a 75% damage buff to your flame wand but at the risk of burning yourself, or you could add a 6HP heal buff to bull charge attack. There are dozens of ability cards in all and you'll need to choose your favourite from the three offered to you. Or, you can bribe the Goth kid with toilet paper to reroll your options or spend some TP to upgrade a card from Common to Rare to upgrade its buffs.
There's also a gameplay system called Bullshit! that's basically just that. Your opponents can play their Bullshit cards at any time during battle to gain unfair advantages like turning into vampires, swapping their melee weapons for lightsabers or even growing into giant kids and dealing extra damage. You can also bring Bullshit cards into battle, but it always seems like your enemy gets the better cards, has more Bullshit cards than you, and their cards deal more damage than your own. While these cards are a bit aggravating, at least they additional humour or an already funny combat system.
South Park: Snow Day! is fundamentally designed around four-person multiplayer, and there is online play to get paired up with others. There is the option to backfill allies with AI-controlled teammates, but I don't recommend it since the AI often doesn't do what you'd like and they can also be slow to revive you when downed. The AI also attack rather mechanically and don't make good use of their powers, so all around it's not a good choice to wage war with NPC helpers.
The good news is finding real players is not difficult as you join others at any time or wait for slots to fill in your own game. When you get a full squad of four players you're generally a much more effective team as you can coordinate your attacks more thoughtfully, better utilize your skills to help the team and quickly revive teammates when needed.
After your squad is victorious in battle, you'll get a variety of rewards ranging from new weapons, new magic spells or abilities, and various currency used to upgrade your skill tree, buy cosmetic items or purchase items. The one unfortunate thing is any ability cards you acquired get wiped when a mission ends so you'll start each mission with a clean slate of cards.
All in all, South Park: Snow Day! does a fantastic job of channelling the series' spirit into all facets, from the superb writing and catchy music all the way to the silly yet fun beat 'em up gameplay. Best of all, the edgy humour remains intact and all of the gang members are faithful to their animated series counterparts.
The Verdict
South Park: Snow Day! offers authentic writing, voice acting and gameplay that's sure to please diehard fans of the series. It's not a huge game content-wise, but that's reflected in its value pricing. The game really shines when you go online with four-player co-op and work together to outwit your opponent in a battle of silly skills and magical weapons.Final Score: 7.5/10 - Good
South Park: Snow Day! details
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PCDeveloper: Question Games, South Park Digital Studios
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Genre: Action Adventure, Beat 'Em Up, Roguelite
Modes: Single-player, Multiplayer
ESRB Rating: M (Mature)
A key was provided by the publisher.