The transition between media types has always been a struggle for franchises. Back in the early days of home consoles, pretty much every popular movie or TV show tried to make a video game. Sometimes this led to greatness, like Spider-man for the PS1, but often it resulted in mediocrity or a complete disaster. ET is the shining example of one of the biggest pieces of shit to come out of Hollywood’s attempts at capitalizing on name brand recognition, and to this day is a cautionary tale on what not to do. Development for these games tends to be rushed to coincide with some new release or to strike while the iron is hot, and that results in weak storylines, gameplay, and overall design.
Typically, the games that are more successful in crossing the boundary are based on longer standing media franchises. It gives the developers more to pull from then just loosely adapting a movie’s 2-hour plot into a 15-hour game that people would actually be willing to pay $60 for. In the case of South Park: The Fractured But Whole, the story follows the new kid in town as Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny compete for the most successful Super Hero franchise. Aspects from the show like The Coon and Mysterion become familiar back drops as the player navigates through the quaint Colorado town trying to uncover the mystery of a missing cat.
Gameplay wise, The Fractured But Whole tries to expand upon its predecessor The Stick of Truth. A lot of similar mechanics return including status effects such as bleeding and timed button presses to land stronger attacks. Where The Stick of Truth was pretty much Paper Mario but with South Park, The Fractured But Whole decides to change up the formula and incorporate tile movement from games like Fire Emblem to add another layer of strategy in attacks. Specific moves may only work along a certain playing field line, while others are free to use large chunks of the board. It can be both satisfying and frustrating as you’re trying to plan out moves or focus on a single enemy. The only real problem I had was that the game has some pretty glaring bugs that came out during the second half. On a few occasions, I had to restart the entire fight because the turn list stopped working and everyone just stood there or after using the fart abilities the game would have trouble moving on to the next player.
Compared to The Stick of Truth, this game is also almost double in length, which I can only assume was because people complained about how expensive the first game was despite being able to clear through it in under ten hours. In some ways, this hurts the games pacing. One of the most annoying things about RPG’s, in my opinion, is in starting a mission. Instead of just getting to the point, a lot of RPG’s and open-world games in general, will have you travel to one location and talk to a guy before making you backtrack several times to start the got dang mission.
In The Fractured But Whole, there is just mission after mission that requires you to go from one area of the map and talk to a guy before having to travel to the other side of the map and doing the same thing just to advance the story. The main missions have a lot of unnecessary extra steps to start the next objective. Typically, Cartman will call you on the phone and ask you to come back to the Coon Lair. You’ll go back, type in the shitty password again, walk down stairs, be asked to sit in the seat, and then watch an animation scene to get the basic information of what you’re supposed to do. After that, you’ll get to travel to some other part of town to actually start the mission, and my question is why? Why not just have Cartman tell you the low down while you’re out on the town and have you meet them at the mission start point. Instead, you have to go through a bunch of tedious steps to get to the action, and that’s my biggest gripe with this game. Things either take too long or go on for too long.
The gags in this game are funny, at first, but then they just keep hitting you again and again with the same thing. There are four different power ups that can be used to solve puzzles around the town, but to have any of them work you need to scan the item for a few seconds and then watch some canned animation before walking over to the character outline to start another animation and then press a button to solve a weak puzzle. It shouldn’t take 30 seconds to do one action, but that’s what’s happening here. The fast travel system gag, of Jimmy just trying to get out the word “fast” for five seconds, is funny at first, but then as you have to keep back tracking throughout the town just to start the mission it becomes obnoxious. Instead of just getting you into the combat these in-between moments can feel boring, monotonous, and drawn out as they force the player to listen to the same joke over and over again. It's like that guy who's only jokes are repeating one liners from sitcoms.
The combat here is fun and mildly engaging, and the absurd nature of kids fighting mutant sixth graders, raisin girls, and each other doesn’t get that stale. The game has its funny moments, and the story is strong for much of its duration, but I think that if they streamlined the more tedious aspects and fleshed out the pacing, even if short in duration, that this could have been a better title. But, it’s still an entertaining ride for fans that’s able to capture some of the magic from a show that’s still going twenty years later. Other people will say "Oh that's still happening. Alright cool I guess."