The animated series South Park has always had an inexhaustible source of new ideas for making fun of American reality, and it had created another parody dimension entering the world of video games in 2014. Obsidian’s South Park: The Stick of Truth may not have been a top RPG game, but its sense of humor was so good that no other game surpassed it. When Ubisoft announced its takeover of the series and continuing it with The Fractured But Whole, I thought the news could not be better.

The theme of the story is quite current because the South Park kids are now playing superheroes. Of course, their world of heroism does not work on the basis of charity but by the capitalist franchise model – because what is a superhero without a movie or TV series? Cartman therefore gets the chance to make hundreds of dollars with his franchise by saving the missing cat from the ads, and with his team moving to purging South Park from crime.

In the franchise of the so-called Coon, there is also the “New kid” from the previous game, the main character that defines his real identity through the hero’s image. The decomposed authorities in South Park make it harder for him to determine gender, sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, and other identifying features. His family situation is also not very helpful because his parents are in conflict because of the secret they are hiding from him. As this is once again a character that does not tell anything, his personal story is still full of wonderfully stupid situations arising from misunderstandings and inconveniences. However, I would not say that The Fractured But Whole represents the highlight of South Park’s humor. The distinctive style of the parody is here and the game is still funny – just not as much as its precursor.

The Fractured But Whole had plenty of room for progress in the gameplay itself. The fight in the previous game was static and you could not move, the number of classes was minor, and the development of characters was limited by the level cap. In the sequel a good part of it seems improved at first glance. Up to four characters can now move around the square field and combine position-based blows. In addition to the three available classes, six more sub-classes are introduced, and there are also new fart powers that manipulate the flow of time. Each attack in the game, each special move and skill are brand new, but in total there are less of them than in the previous game.

The combat system is sufficient and has a certain strategic depth, although it takes a lot of time to make you use the novelties Ubisoft has put into it. You will only have alternative goals in later missions and position your characters in a targeted manner, usually in boss battles. Most of the time, however, you will only try to catch as many enemies with your attack or skip the movement by a long-range attack.

The equipment losing any significance in the fight is also not very helpful. In the previous game with special powers came different weapons. There are no weapons here; you can only choose the augmentation for your character and its effects are seen only in the numerical value. There are no dildos or golf clubs as weapons, and there are no costumes that could affect your stats. In the game, you still collect different costumes (caps, suits, gloves); moreover – you can “craft” them, but they are now only visual in nature so there is no difference if you are dressed as an Amazon woman or a cyborg.  As much as the introduction of the battlefield advancement has improved the fight in The Fractured But Whole, removing  the equipment has downgraded it and simplified it.

Outside the combat system, things did not change significantly. Instead of Facebook friends, you are now collecting Coonstagram followers, and the structure of environmental barriers is more or less identical to that of the previous game. Puzzles are the most simple and they are not a challenge, although you should not be bothered by it because your goal is to see the story and not solve Sudoku.

What could potentially bother you are the frequent QTE sequences which are repeated in the same model. The exception is the only fully-featured mini-game of going to the toilet.

Although running on a completely new starter, the game looks no better than the previous one. Fortunately, this is the point of the game in this case. Authentic visual style of TV series is faithfully transmitted and all the recognizable voices are present in the game. The only shift at the technical level is a smaller number of loads. Since most of the time you enter / exit the facilities, it is good news that the loads are minimal and short.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole was personally one of the most anticipated games this fall. South Park has the capacity for a fantastic satire and it was not unfair to hope for something in the rank of the Stick of Truth. However, The Fractured But Whole was not unforgettable. Despite that, I would recommend it to the South Park fans. After all, it’s enough to say that in the game, Morgan Freeman telepathically advises you to create a burrito which will make you fart so hard that you will shed the flow of time. If that is not the funniest thing you’ve heard today, you’ve got nothing to do with South Park.