I’m goin’ down to South Park, gonna have myself a time.
Coon and Friends have a new member, that new kid farts like crazy
I’m goin’ down to South Park, gonna leave my woes behind.
Fight crime with super powers, anytime and anywhere
I’m headin’ on up to South Park, gonna see if I can’t unwind.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole, is out now for Nintendo Switch
So come on down to South Park, and read this review of mine… after the break!

South Park: The Fractured But Whole
Nintendo Switch
Developed by Ubisoft San Francisco
Published by Ubisoft
Released: 24th April 2018
Review copy provided by Ubisoft

It’s been a long while since a South Park game reared it’s head onto a Nintendo Platform, but it’s finally happened, The Stick of Truth’s sequel, South Park: The Fractured But Whole is now available for the Nintendo Switch. Haven’t played the original? Me neither, though the game takes place directly after The Stick of Truth, the plot veers off quite quickly, meaning you don’t need to know what the fuck was going on previously.

If you know anything about the South Park franchise, you may already know that it contains extremely mature content, and by association, so will this review, hence the Age Verification you had to complete earlier, and if you faked your date of birth, then you’re just a fucking fibber. Come over here everyone, we have a bloody fibber on NintyBuzz. I mean, who the hell tells fibs like that on the internet. First it starts at fibbing about your age, then you fib about your weight… whats next? Do you fib about being an ex-marine from Nigeria who has 69 days left to live from spontaneous combustion because you injured yourself which has caused you to never be able to fart and then you ask for bank details as you have $666 million you wish to give away? BULLSHIT! Damned fibbers. Anywho…

Crime has started to hit an all time high in the redneck, Colorado town of South Park, and it all started when a cat called Scrambles goes missing. Eric ‘The Coon’ Cartman conjures up a plan to find this cat and claim the $100 reward to help fund his Coon and Friends Franchise. Unfortunately due to a previous divide which has split the team into two opposing factions, Coon and Friends, and Freedom Pals, the franchise is in the middle of a civil war.

Not only do Coon and Friends have to worry about getting the reward before Freedom Pals, but there is also corruption in quiet mountain town to create a very ‘cheesy’ underground crime ring. You, the new kid (also known as The Amazing Butthole) may have been all that in the previous game, but now you’re playing superheroes, so you’l need to work to get on top again.

The Fractured But Whole places you into the shoes of the new kid, where you can explore the town of South Park, complete missions, and beat the shit out of strippers (we do not condone beating the shit out of strippers, or anyone for that matter… even if they steal your Cheesy Poofs… seriously, don’t be a dick). Your main priority is helping civilians out when needed, gaining followers to help the franchise by taking selfies with others on Coonstagram (the game’s social network), and generally make Coon and Friends more renowned. I mean sure, you could help uncover and stop the underground crime conspiracy, but no one really gives a crap about that now, do they.

When you first set up your super kewl super hero, you get to pick one of three classes: the speedster, brutalist, or blaster. Later on in the game you’ll unlock further classes, such as the gadgeteer or plantimancer, and you can even pick an additional class (which you can change at any time). What’s good about having two classes at once is that you can mix and match your attacks and other moves for battles. It would have been cool however if there were a way to level up your classes, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Other traits which you can choose at the beginning of the game include gender, race, ethnicity, and your kryptonite (I chose crab people). What’s interesting is that depending what race you pick will affect the ‘social’ difficulty of the game. It doesn’t make battles more difficult, rather NPCs will act slightly different towards you, you’ll also receive less reward money. This is definitely an interesting bit of social commentary, something South Park has never been afraid afraid to push.

Another neat thing is that there is actually an ‘other’ option for gender. However no matter which gender you choose, there will be very little gameplay difference other than a couple of social interactions (from what I have researched), even the redneck fight scene after choosing your gender will happened regardless of the gender you choose. As I’m not transgender myself, and I feel I do not have enough insight of the transgender community, I will not make any assumptions.

There may be times where you’ll need to cross paths with sixth graders, or royal piss off Raisins girls, so you best know how to fight. The battle mechanics are pretty simple to grasp, and are like any most low rate strategy RPGs. Every battle will take place in a gridded out environment for some turn based combat. You can choose to let up to three other allies you’ve met in the game to join you in battle, this is definitely something I’d recommend to think carefully about in later battles. Each character has three different moves.

Whenever you perform an attack, or defend against an attack, your ultimate meter (which is shared for all allies) fills up. Once you’ve filled this baby up, you can unleash one of your allies’ ultimate moves… assuming it’s their go of course. These moves deal pretty devastating damage. You can, of course, use items too, you can even use summons you unlock throughout the game, such as Moses who will heal all standing allies. Some battles will have additional objectives, such as getting to the other side of the battlefield or getting Towelie high to keep battles interesting.

One powerful technique is your Timefart Technique. The Amazing Butthole (that’s you, remember) got their name due to their powerful sphincter, which is able to produce amazing farts on command. These farts are even powerful enough to manipulate the fabric of time. You can use this to your advantage during battles, for example, you could use it to stop an enemy taking their turn, or even deal damage outside of your turn. Of course, with great OP powers comes great responsibilities… as well as limitations. Once you use a Timefart, you won’t be able to use it again for another full three turns.

To power up your character, you’ll need to attach artefacts to artefact slots. Each one will manipulate your stats in some form, and the more you level up, the more slots you unlock. You can either purchase new artefacts, find them, receive them from battles/missions, or even craft them with the games sweet little crafting system… you can also craft costumes and recovery items too!

While exploring South Park, there are a bunch of other things you can do outside the regular story missions. As I said before, you can help other civilians out through side missions. Some of these may include using your Timefarts to retrieve Big Gay Al’s lost cats before the sixth graders take ’em, or even collecting Tweek and Craig Yaoi art for a local collector. You can even use the Timefarts you unlock to reach areas you wouldn’t have been able to under regular circumstances. These include Timefart pause to bypass the security turrets at the Medicinal Fried Chicken dispensary, or even feeding Captain Diabetes farts to put him into diabetic rage… sorta like the Hulk! There’s definitely a lot to do in the redneck town of South Park.

Of course, the most important part of any South Park game is that it should feel like a south Park game. It’s ridiculously offensive, yet absurdly hilarious. No one is safe from being ridiculed in South Park, and The Fractured But Whole is no different. There are loads of hilarious and absurd lines and scenes in Fractured But Whole.

One part has you fighting sober Towelie, and the only way to calm him down is to let yourself get burned and set fire to piles of pot at the dispensary. Another, which goes a tad too far even for my standards, has you infiltrating a local strip joint and performing a lap dance for information… though this turns out to be more farting on the client to torture the information out of him. I know it wouldn’t be South Park without being a bit (or a lot) offensive, but it can cause issues towards those who may take this sort of content more seriously. Even if you choose to ignore it, it may still cause issues as unfortunately it can contribute to the hate towards different groups and it may encourage those who are… very impressionable, let’s say. I could go on, but that’s probably worth an article in itself.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole, like I said before, is ridiculously offensive and absurdly hilarious. Assuming you enjoy the humour of South Park, The Fractured But Whole is really enjoyable to play with some simple yet pretty neat battle mechanics, and a whole lot of butt humour (it’s even in the title). Other than the odd framerate dips in a small section of the game, and some long loading screens before battle, it’s definitely a fun game to play.

If you aren’t a fan of the south Park humour or RPGS, or if you are a young child or fairly impressionable, then I would definitely not recommend this game. However, if you are a fan of South Park or that type of humour, then I would definitely recommend South Park: The Fractured But Whole!

Final Rating – 4 out of 5

South Park: The Fractured But Whole is available now for the Nintendo Switch.

Leon Fletcher

I am a huge Nintendo fan, hence why NintyBuzz exists. I especially love all things Zelda and Metroid. NintyBuzz was started by me back in the Summer of 2014, it started out mainly as a hobby, though the site has gradually grown, and I hope it grows for many years to come!