A few years ago, there was this period when South Park games had managed to escape the image of crapiness created by Acclaim’s Nintendo 64 trilogy (even though I still think that Chef’s Luv Shack is great), all thanks to two RPGs published by Ubisoft: The Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole. They were giant playable episodes of the South Park TV show, complete with identical visuals, as well as neat turn-based mechanics and a crapton of hilarious humor. Sadly, Ubisoft does not hold the license to South Park games anymore. THQ Nordic does. And the first game to come out from said partnership, the first game to be released after The Fractured But Whole… is South Park: Snow Day…

I really wanted not to compared Snow Day to the RPG duology. I thought to myself, “this is not going to be related to them in any way, so judge Snow Day on its own merits”. It didn’t even take ten minutes for the game to actually announce itself as the sequel to The Fractured But Whole, as you are still playing as the mute New Kid, but with the kids now deciding to roleplay inside a roguelike in order to avoid letting the New Kid become so OP to the point of breaking the entire game. In essence, the game is almost justifying itself as to why it is so underwhelming. It’s because you were too good in its prequels. You gotta suffer a bit more this time around.

The iconic graphics were ditched in favor of a stale, realistic approach. To South Park. I know, it sounds odd, to say the least. Environments, which are always covered in snow, are somewhat realistic, with heavily detailed lighting effects and textures. Meanwhile, characters are still crappy-looking and polygonal. They constantly reminded me of the characters from the Nintendo 64 South Park game. You know, the Turok clone that was definitely not good. Ironically enough, that game was also set during winter. Coincidence, maybe? So think of that, but under a more realistic, Unreal-esque coat of paint. Almost like a student project. You can already sense how unpleasant to the eyes Snow Day is.

As for the gameplay, this is a pretty simplistic roguelite with a straightforward, but never exciting, button-bashing control scheme. You see a crapton of enemies coming towards you, and you gotta kill them all, without a lock-on mechanism to help you out, mind you. Even though there are some different weapons and classes at your disposal, the combat never felt smart or intuitive; it was just bashing enemies in front of you, or using an incredibly cumbersome ranged attack in order to defeat kids from afar. It might not be inherently broken, but it’s massively underwhelming.

There are stat afflictions, as well as power-ups you can obtain during each run. They range from just giving you passive buffs to upgrading you fart dash mechanism (well, you are still the New Kid from the previous games, so your farts are OP). They only last for the duration of the mission itself, so don’t grow too much attached to them. You can also equip a special card called a Bulls**t (no, really), which gives you some, well, bulls**t upgrades for a limited amount of time. Be aware that each enemy faction can summon their own Bulls**t during a mission as well. They never felt like a challenge, and more like a momentary hassle.

There is one saving grace, however. Given how Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the show, have worked closely with the developers of Snow Day, they have also provided full voice acting to all of the characters. The typical South Park charm we know and love is still present. If anything, I just kept playing in order to hear new one-liners and dialogue exchanges, especially between Cartman and Kyle. Even though Snow Day is nowhere near as absurdist or controversial as The Stick of Truth (no nazi fetuses this time around), it’s still pretty funny. Too bad the humor is attached to a boring game.

I tried not to compare South Park: Snow Day to The Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole, but considering it is still a sequel of sorts, it’s hard not to feel massively disappointed with this game. We went from gorgeous and hilarious RPGs to a bland, boring, uneventful action roguelike with baffling graphical design choices, underwhelming controls, and an overall gameplay loop you have experienced dozens of times before. The sense of humor alone is not worth the admission ticket. After being given some high quality wagyu from Obsidian Entertainment and Ubisoft San Francisco over the past years, it’s hard to go back to this spoiled truck stop beef jerky.

Graphics: 4.0 South Park: Snow Day reminds me of the Nintendo 64 South Park game in terms of its graphics. That is definitely not a good thing. The realistic environments and lighting effects clash horribly with the character models.	Gameplay: 5.0 Mindless combat, underwhelming collision detection, poor camera controls. It might not be inherently broken, but it’s incredibly underwhelming. The mission-based structure and roguelike elements do very little to make the gameplay loop stand out.
Sound: 9.0 Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s performances are the one thing that stands out massively, in a positive way, in this otherwise disappointing game.	Fun Factor: 5.0 It might not be the worst game in existence, but to go from The Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole to THIS… yeah man, it’s impossible not to feel massively disappointed with South Park: Snow Day.
Final Verdict: 5.0

South Park: Snow Day is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of South Park: Snow Day was provided by the publisher.