South Park: Snow Day! Review (PS5) | Push Square
The South Park franchise has an eclectic history of genre choices, trying (and mostly failing) everything from FPS to kart racer. 2014's South Park: The Stick of Truth and its comic-book-themed follow-up redressed the balance with an excellent comedic spin on the old-school RPG. Now it takes another genre pivot, becoming the latest property to wade into a heaving pool of co-op roguelikes.
Developed by Question Games, this latest Colorado adventure keeps the narrative setup from the last two titles. The grown-ups have declared a snow day and school is out, so it’s time for the children to wage war on one another. Having previously had their fantasy and superhero role-playing ruined by «some asshole that got too OP», the kids choose a different format. The Grand Wizard King (Cartman) introduces a card-based system that favours random abilities and unpredictable player builds.
Rather than an extended quest to obtain a mythical item, this latest campaign is more a series of arena skirmishes.
Like previous entries, you play one of a seemingly endless supply of New Kids, enlisted to join the latest humans versus elves war. The Wizard King sends you out on missions to take territory outlined on his war map. Starting off with an objective as basic as «go kill Kyle», the story soon takes a turn into mystery as the kids try to figure out who is behind the snowstorm.
Snow Day swaps out old-school, turn-based fights in favour of free-flowing 3D brawling; it loses a lot of the novelty and invention in that transition. Big set-piece battles are now just damage sponges. Fighting Princess Kenny is still a fun time, but pales in comparison to that same encounter in Stick of Truth. Later stages also throw so many enemies at you that it becomes a slog.
Each run generally has a central task that serves to string together several action sequences. Up to four players work together to violently murder preschool-age role players on the way to a boss encounter. There are different objective
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