South Park: Snow Day Review: Don't Fix What Isn't Broken

South Park has had a long history in the video game world, with two of its more recent entries, South Park: The Stick of Truth and South Park: The Fractured but Whole, finding a way to take the humor and crudeness of the series and transplant it seamlessly into a video game environment. Unfortunately, for both franchise fans and gamers alike, South Park: Snow Day attempts to recreate the formula and massively stumbles in doing so. Even if you're a mega-fan of Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman, Snow Day might not be the video game that you're looking for to follow in the footsteps of Stick of Truth and Fractured but Whole. 

South Park's latest video game begins in a day much like any other in the small Colorado town as Eric Cartman prays as hard as he can that the locale is blanketed in snow. Cartman's wish is granted, much to the detriment of the town, as South Park is bombarded with a historic blizzard that cancels school for our favorite crude cartoon characters. As the player, gamers once again take on the role of the "new kid," a customizable character that has no voice of their own but marches forward on the behest of Cartman and his fictional machinations. Fighting against elves, older students, boss fights featuring beloved characters, and more, Snow Day attempts to capture the spirit of the show, but falls on its face in its attempt.

To start, South Park: Snow Day is a 3-D "roguelike" meaning death is but a rung on a ladder in empowering yourself to take on challenges in this five-chapter affair. Fans will be dodging, hacking, slashing, and "magicking" their way through countless waves of enemies, rather than taking on the turn-based role-playing game system as the previous two console entries. Fractured, But Whole and Stick of Truth found a method to make players feel like they were entering the world of South Park, both in their humor and in their gameplay, two elements completely lost in Snow Day.

What's most baffling about Snow Day is how neutered it feels compared to the crude humor and story structures of the recent South Park titles. The stilted, often frustrating combat system could be forgiven if the story fired on all engines, making players believe that they were playing a series of South Park episodes. Alas, what players get here is more like the South Park Nintendo 64 game where you had the minimal trappings of the animated world but failed to find much enjoyment in traversing the landscape. There are some smirk-worthy jokes, such as using toilet paper as currency to poke fun at the Coronavirus pandemic, but ultimately, so much of the humor falls flat, which was honestly the last thing I was expecting here. 

Even for a budget title, South Park: Snow Day feels surprisingly bare-bones with its options for player modification in terms of cosmetics, emotes, weaponry, and abilities. You're given three primary weapons, three ancillary ranged weapons, and some magical abilities to crash your way through South Park's other youngsters, though they all feel rather dull and uninspiring. When the chaos of waves of enemies hits you, you mostly find yourself foregoing strategy to simply button mash and hope that your three cohorts, who can be real players or bots, will revive you in a pinch. The four-player modes are also only relegated to online play meaning those hoping for a couch co-op won't find good news here. The game attempts to add variety to the adventure of the four "new kids" by injecting the "BS" mechanic to inject variety, but once again falls short. 

Speaking of "BS", this turns into one of the more frustrating parts of the experience as your opponents will routinely have their own "BS" cards to play on top of the cards you receive. The abilities that they demonstrate will routinely feel far more aggravating than inventive, sometimes turning your main weapon into a "pool noodle," meaning you'll have to rely on your secondary abilities that can have cooldown times and frustrating styles to make your way. It all feels extremely tedious, and once again, doesn't rely so much on strategy rather than simply brute forcing your way through the game's issues. With your character hulking through the map with little maneuverability, the game's weaknesses are placed further on display. 

There are ways to strengthen your character, of course, using "Dark Matter" to permanently upgrade aspects for your "new kid" or "PP" to unlock new cosmetics, but it all feels like window dressing in this rogue-like. In my run-through, I was able to beat the game's five chapters in a little over five hours before diving into more of the nitty gritty, but I never felt as though my strategy ever changed or that my character was gaining significant strength as a result of their runs. Some weapons felt downright unusable in many of the game's scenarios causing me to put them down and never pick them up again for even the purpose of experimentation. 

Finally, South Park: Snow Day's biggest sin is the complete lack of what made Fractured, But Whole and Stick of Truth work so well: their humor. Gone are many of the edgy jokes that made the previous two entries stick out, instead being replaced by characters that feel neutered and lacking the punch that helped make the animated series such a hit for oh so many years. Everything feels safe and stale, meaning that Snow Day is an easy pass for those looking to re-enter the world of South Park on their consoles or computers.

Rating 1.5 Out Of 5

South Park: Snow Day is currently available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC. A PS5 review copy was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.