South Park: The Fractured But Whole Reviews
The Fractured But Whole is more of the same. It's occasionally hilarious, but often misses. Not even an updated combat system and interesting new skills can disguise that fact that it is just The Stick of Truth in a different and less-interesting costume.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole" struggles to capture what's made the show endure for 20 years.
South Park, The Fractured but Whole is an uncreative game with a terrible plot filled with forced and unfunny jokes. The battle system from the original was demolished replacing it with a new shallow one. This game somehow ended up being much worse than its predecessor.
While The Stick of Truth felt like an extended, interactive, episode of South Park, The Fractured But Whole instead feels like an external story that just happens to be taking place in the show.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole on the Switch is a flawed game with bugs, small performance issues, and long loading times. While the game is a fun but weaker successor to The Stick of Truth, it doesn't look great in its current state. Even with its flaws, it's still an enjoyable journey, but it's not worth the high price tag until most of the performance issues are addressed in an upcoming patch.
South Park: The Fractured but Whole feels dated, shallow, and lacking in the purpose or self-awareness needed for a work of satire to hit its mark. It feels like it's trying too hard to recapture that edge. It is as if it believes that if it makes fun of black and queer people enough, it'll stir up those old headlines and controversies that made South Park feel like something more than another multi-million-dollar intellectual property pushed through a corporate conveyor belt.
The Stick of Truth managed to salvage my love of the series. Now, 3 years later, I feel that South Park: The Fractured but Whole has sought to destroy the bridges its predecessor rebuilt. The funny moments are sporadic, lost amongst a series of tired gags and namechecks, but the gameplay goes someway to saving the overall experience.
Though mechanically The Fractured but Whole can feel rather flat, it remains a genuine South Park production with all of the humor, farting and ridiculousness you would expect, and that should be enough to satisfy fans - even if it doesn't wow them.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole builds off its predecessor's excellent foundation, with deeper combat, a stronger story, and vulgar jokes galore.
With all that said I’m a firm believer that humor is subjective and I’d be willing to admit that you could have different tastes and find this game to be way more hilarious than I did. But I also thing that I’ve been a fan of South Park for a long, long time and played the crap out of Stick of Truth, so it’s not like I didn’t want this game to be good. So maybe you play it and you laugh and I’m totally cool with that. But for me, this feels like an unfinished symphony that could’ve used a few more punch ups before performance.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole is a good fit on Switch, though some noticeable technical issues highlight the sacrifices made in order to get it on the hybrid system. That said, what's here is a great South Park adventure — one fans of the show should certainly check out if they haven't already.
The Fractured But Whole is a solid game, but as a package doesn't improve greatly on The Stick Of Truth. Its combat has some added depth and there are more classes to choose from, but it doesn't feel as though it does a whole lot else that's new. Its unwavering preparedness to tackle tough social issues must always be commended and I know that'll never change with South Park. If you're a person with touchy sensibilities, know that this probably isn't for you. But if you're a South Park fan who wouldn't mind a fairly decent romp through a faux Marvel and DC face-off then you're probably onto a winner here.
The Fractured But Whole delivers exactly what you would expect from a South Park- game: ribald humor and numerous Easter eggs. Technical issues and repetitive mini-games dull the experience, however.
The saving grace is that the game is mechanically one of the best, most accessible RPGs crafted in a long time.
For fans, there are plenty of surprises to uncover and tons of references to even the most obscure episodes of the show. Thanks to a strong level of personalization coupled with South Park's distinct atmosphere, The Fractured But Whole makes wandering around the faithfully recreated and detailed map of the town a constant delight.
The longer South Park: The Fractured But Whole went on, the less I laughed. Exploring the mountain town, however, is a delight, and the battles are a marked improvement on the original's combat.
I enjoyed my time with The Fractured But Whole, and it's clear that a great deal of effort went into its development, but after this I'm not so sure that I'd want to revisit South Park a third time.
At the beginning of this review, I outed myself as someone who's not a huge South Park fan, but I've watched enough of the show to understand that this is its modus operandi. It foregrounds loud, over-the-top, “edgy” humor, and it backgrounds surprisingly thoughtful character arcs. South Park: The Fractured But Whole matches the show's strange mix of intentions; it is totally aligned in that way. And in that way, it provided the perfect reminder for why the show (and, to a lesser extent, this game) aren't for me.
A surprisingly deep and customisable role-player, wrapped in an enjoyable but unremarkable episode of South Park.