South Park: The Stick of Truth Reviews
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a fantastic game, which perfectly captures the essence of its inspiration. A lot of hard work went into crafting this passion project of an RPG, and it shows.
Its RPG elements may be a little superficial, and it relies on fetch-questing too much, but faithful production and a laugh-a-minute script means South Park: The Stick of Truth is a true diamond in the licensed game rough.
South Park: The Stick of Truth is more than just a faithful adaptation of a cult TV series. It's a benchmark for translating a favourite property into a video game format, something that other licensed properties could learn from. And it's also the funniest game on the market.
South Park: The Stick of Truth feels like it's been 16 years in the making, drawing on the high points from 17 seasons of lewd hilarity. Kenny dies a lot, and those immortal lines are uttered; Jimmy takes five minutes to spit out a sentence, requiring players to press a button to skip it; and Canada is a weird place containing dire bears, farting comedy duos and queefing women - it's all there. This is South Park, and Obsidian's RPG design at their very best.
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a filthy, disgusting, offensive mess. A really good filthy, disgusting,offensive mess.
The lesson to be learned from it is for anyone making this kind of game to find the beauty in simplicity. Also, to never, ever fart on another man's balls.
It would've been nice to have trickier combat or more real RPG bits and bobs, but as an interactive South Park title, this hits pretty much every mark. The Stick of Truth is puerile, authentic, and constantly hilarious.
South Park: The Stick of Truth could stand alone as an extended episode of the show. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends on how funny you think Trey Parker and Matt Stone are. For fans of the show, this is a seriously impressive game.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker have a video game to be proud of, even if it's not perfect.
If you've not gathered it thus far, the house that brought you Fallout: New Vegas, Dungeon Siege III, Alpha Protocol, Neverwinter Nights 2, and Knights of the Old Republic 2 have struck gold once again. An epic RPG, a licensed game that somehow transcends its source material, and the culmination of everything South Park has come together to create the funniest game I've played in a decade. Stuffed with fan service, South Park: The Stick of Truth is better than any episode of the show, and it's so much better than any of us could have anticipated.
South Park: The Stick of Truth defies the odds simply by doing the brand justice, but also sets a standard that future South Park games (or DLC) can aspire to. It's not perfect, but it is the game South Park fans have waited for, beyond a doubt.
It is at once the South Park game we've been waiting for since the series started 17 years ago, and a cluster of stupid mistakes and bad balancing that we'd hoped Obsidian had put behind them.
The newest South Park game is bigger, faster, funnier, and definitely NSFW.
The Stick of Truth is surprising. Not only is it a great South Park game, but it's a fantastic RPG in its own right. The plot has enough ridiculous twists to keep you engaged, and the battle system offers enough variety to keep encounters from growing stale and tiresome. Meanwhile, fans of the show can get lost just exploring the town and searching for references to their favorite episodes.
The humor is the star of the show, so long as your content with passable gameplay being your only roadblock to the next joke or collectible to reminisce over. Seventeen years in, we probably won't see a better South Park game ever made.
Price and censorship aside, South Park: The Stick of Truth on Switch is still a great RPG after four years and (perhaps even more than the sequel) the best South Park game we could wish for.
Review in Italian | Read full review
South Park: The Stick of Truth suffers from overly simplistic RPG mechanics, some iffy design choices, and some major bugs. In spite of all of that, the story nails everything that make Trey Parker and Matt Stone's television series such a joy, making this an ideal choice for South Park fans... and likely South Park fans only.