Just finished South Park: The Fractured But Whole.
Overall it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the combat system, much better than Stick of Truth's. The story was solid with a few highlights, felt like a long episode of the show.
While playing I noticed just how much it reminded me of Paper Mario. The combat's very similar, so is the badge system and the buddies helping you in the overworld one. It's not nearly as great of a game as the original Paper Mario is, but since the actual sequels to that game kind of suck it's nice to have these around. If you would've told me a few years ago that the closest thing to a good Paper Mario sequel we'd get would be fucking South Park games I never would've bought it.
That all being said, the game definitely has its shortcomings. The most egregious being that there are unskippable cut scenes constantly. Not the story cutscenes themselves, the little ones that play every time you summon a buddy or every time you use an ultimate in combat. These take anywhere from 10~15 seconds and after the first few times watching they just get fucking tedious. There was a room where you needed to use 3 different buddies in order to pass. In Paper Mario, you'd just go into the menu, pick your dude quick, press the joystick down and bam that's it 5 seconds tops.
In Fractured But Whole, you need to first go into scanning mode to scan the area you want a buddy to interact with, then hold down a button while it scans, then a sillohuette of said buddy will appear, then you need to walk over to that silhouette and text your buddy then they play an animation where they show up then you need to do a quick minigame to actually use their power then they say one of 3 voicelines that get old fast THEN they play another animation where they go away.
This happens throughout the game constantly, sometimes multiple times in a single room, and it's just tedious as shit and so easily fixable. Just copy Paper Mario. C'mon now.
There's also not a lot of consistency with Boss Battles, especially in the last third of the game or so. Some bosses are immune to all status effects, some are only immune to a handful and some are just not immune to anything so you can cheese the crap out of them. The thing is, it's not really a type of enemy or anything that determines their immunity, it's just sort of random.
The final boss is also kinda shit.
Also can we stop having these fucking progression systems that stop half way through the stupid game? Owlboy did this last year, now South Park. If I hit the XP/Loot/Whatever cap before the last third of your game, it makes everything feel pointless. I don't even know why I'm venting about this seriously why is this happening. What if you were playing Final Fantasy on normal difficulty then after 10 hours the game said "hah you can't level anymore" YOU'D JUST RUN AWAY FROM SHIT BECAUSE FIGHTING IS POINTLESS. That's what I ended up doing for a while in this.
All in all, it's a really solid RPG that I'd recommend in a heartbeat, just sloppy in a few areas.
Overall it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the combat system, much better than Stick of Truth's. The story was solid with a few highlights, felt like a long episode of the show.
While playing I noticed just how much it reminded me of Paper Mario. The combat's very similar, so is the badge system and the buddies helping you in the overworld one. It's not nearly as great of a game as the original Paper Mario is, but since the actual sequels to that game kind of suck it's nice to have these around. If you would've told me a few years ago that the closest thing to a good Paper Mario sequel we'd get would be fucking South Park games I never would've bought it.
That all being said, the game definitely has its shortcomings. The most egregious being that there are unskippable cut scenes constantly. Not the story cutscenes themselves, the little ones that play every time you summon a buddy or every time you use an ultimate in combat. These take anywhere from 10~15 seconds and after the first few times watching they just get fucking tedious. There was a room where you needed to use 3 different buddies in order to pass. In Paper Mario, you'd just go into the menu, pick your dude quick, press the joystick down and bam that's it 5 seconds tops.
In Fractured But Whole, you need to first go into scanning mode to scan the area you want a buddy to interact with, then hold down a button while it scans, then a sillohuette of said buddy will appear, then you need to walk over to that silhouette and text your buddy then they play an animation where they show up then you need to do a quick minigame to actually use their power then they say one of 3 voicelines that get old fast THEN they play another animation where they go away.
This happens throughout the game constantly, sometimes multiple times in a single room, and it's just tedious as shit and so easily fixable. Just copy Paper Mario. C'mon now.
There's also not a lot of consistency with Boss Battles, especially in the last third of the game or so. Some bosses are immune to all status effects, some are only immune to a handful and some are just not immune to anything so you can cheese the crap out of them. The thing is, it's not really a type of enemy or anything that determines their immunity, it's just sort of random.
![[+]](images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
SpoilerThe final boss is also kinda shit.
Also can we stop having these fucking progression systems that stop half way through the stupid game? Owlboy did this last year, now South Park. If I hit the XP/Loot/Whatever cap before the last third of your game, it makes everything feel pointless. I don't even know why I'm venting about this seriously why is this happening. What if you were playing Final Fantasy on normal difficulty then after 10 hours the game said "hah you can't level anymore" YOU'D JUST RUN AWAY FROM SHIT BECAUSE FIGHTING IS POINTLESS. That's what I ended up doing for a while in this.
All in all, it's a really solid RPG that I'd recommend in a heartbeat, just sloppy in a few areas.