South Park: Snow Day! Review – Weather and Wizardry

A blizzard has struck South Park, so there’s only one thing to do: grab a cardboard sword and go medieval on your neighbors. The saga of the New Kid that began with The Stick of Truth continues, albeit with a twist. Gone are the days of turn-based combat. Instead, we get a third-person roguelike with co-op, fart jokes, and a deluge of screen-filling AoE blasts. Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s unmistakable brand of irreverent humor has carried South Park for more than 25 seasons, and it serves just as well in the hands of THQ and Question. South Park: Snow Day! is an excellent and surprising roguelike with a touch of the same magic that brings Towelie and Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo to life.

South Park: Snow Day Review

With school closed and the parents fighting over toilet paper, it’s time for the kids to go to war. As the New Kid, you aren’t alone in serving as a loyal(ish) follower in Grand Wizard Cartman’s army. South Park favorites like Craig, Tweak, and Token lend a hand with clothes and equipment, and three friends (or bots) will fight alongside you. A handful of unique weapons and plenty of gross but powerful special abilities help you to fart, stab, and cheese your way to victory in a series of roguelike levels. Although the somewhat limited selection holds the game back from its true potential, what’s here is excellent.

Story: Hail and Little Hellions

After a gigantic storm plunges South Park into chaos, the kids get straight to playing while their parents scramble to dig their frozen loved ones out of the ice. Snow Day‘s story picks up more or less where The Fractured But Whole left off. The New Kid took advantage of the last game’s rules to become OP, forcing Cartman and the others to come up with a new game. Though it’s flavored like Return to Moria, the new game incorporates a meta card-playing mechanic and some old-fashioned bullying.

To prevent the New Kid from becoming OP again, Butters has been elected the official Game Master. Reading from his Book of Laws, he does his best to keep the game running smoothly. The resulting hodgepodge of rules, whims, and improvisation isn’t exactly fair, but it’s fair enough that everyone keeps playing. Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman find themselves at odds and in command of opposing armies. That’s where you come in. Following Cartman’s orders is typically a terrible idea, but maybe the New Kid remembers what happened to Scott Tenorman.

It’s no Hades, but Snow Day! has more story than many roguelikes. Although the classic 2D look is traded in for 3D, pretty much everything feels like it could’ve been ripped from an episode of the show. While Kyle the Elf King, Princess Kenny, and other kids drive the action, the game features a ton of fan-favorite characters. Even when they only appear for one joke and then disappear, seeing characters like Mr. Mackey or Terrance and Phillip is always funny. They happen to be well-written too, which doesn’t hurt.

Unlike The Fractured But Whole or The Stick of Truth, Snow Day is a roguelike rather than an RPG. The scope of its story reflects that. Still, there’s some good environmental storytelling as you progress through each level, so even though there aren’t a ton of cutscenes, you get steady doses of Matt and Trey’s humor. Snow Day! is often as funny as the show. The only thing holding back its humor is repetition. Hearing the same joke a dozen times sucks the fun out of it, but even so, the gags are good.

Gameplay: Playground Chaos

I hope you’re okay with shooting kindergarteners in the face with a bow and arrow. You’ll be doing a lot of that in South Park: Snow Day! You explore, collect toilet paper (the game’s currency), beat up your grade-school enemies, and upgrade your special powers with random cards. Quests range from collecting Chinpokomon cards for Jimbo and Ned to finding condoms with which to repair a catapult. If you find South Park dumb, gross, or offensive, you’ll feel the same way about Snow Day!, but the core gameplay loop is engaging.

Before each level, you choose two weapons and two magic powers. Then the Bullshit starts. No, literally: the next step is the Bullshit Trial, a formal gathering where both sides of the kid war declare which unfair advantages they’ll be using. Turn your enemy’s arrows into bananas. Shoot lasers from your eyes. Reanimate the dead like a Diablo 4 Necromancer. The Bullshit Trial is one of the game’s key roguelike features, injecting welcome RNG and variability into levels that would otherwise grow stale.

You spend TP to upgrade your weapons and abilities, and you can activate your special abilities whenever you deal enough damage to become Pissed Off. Whether you’re rocking daggers and a bow or an axe and fire wand, all the core weapons feel enjoyable and unique. The issue is how few there are. With just a handful of melee and ranged weapons to choose from, theorycrafting in Snow Day has hard limits. Weapon-specific skill paths aside from RNG upgrades would help, but they aren’t here. The builds are fun; you just run out of road quickly.

One moment you might be involved in a tense sniper’s duel, slinging arrows back and forth with archers in some cardboard ramparts. The next you’re going toe-to-toe with a lumbering sixth-grader in hockey pads, dodging the big kid’s meaty swings and trying not to get grabbed. Most battles, however, degenerate into free-for-all whirlwinds of swords, spells, and bloody noses. During some battles, there might be half a dozen AoE explosions, a healing totem, arrows, and flames to contend with before you even get to the weapons.

Though the New Kid is the star, they won’t be going it alone. You’ll be joined in battle by three bots (or friends if you feel like co-op). The AI is good, although it sometimes struggles with prioritizing heals and revives. You can get through Normal difficulty with bots, but friends are better, and not even for the advantage in battle. Like Deep Rock Galactic, South Park: Snow Day! is as much about the silliness and camaraderie of friends as it is about getting the job done.

Your card abilities reset between levels. Fortunately, you can visit Mr. Hankey at his Port-a-Potty to give the Christmas Poo some Dark Matter and unlock power-ups. These buffs stick with you until you respec, and they can deliver some game-changing abilities, like tripling your speed when moving on ice. As you play you’ll also earn Platinum Pieces, a special currency used to buy new hats, capes, mustaches, and other cosmetics. Now you can look as confident as Cartman feels. The Mr. Hankey buff tree is a fantastic addition to the game, although I wish it branched more often to allow more build variety.

Graphics & Audio: Squeezing One Out

Four 1st-graders wearing plastic elf ears charge at you across the snow, screaming in high-pitched voices as they raise their cardboard swords. You slash the first with a charged dagger strike, a high-pitched cry of “Ow, I’m bleeding” leaving no doubt your blade found its mark. As the remaining 1st-graders surround you, you cut an explosive fart. The blast propels you above them like a disgusting bottle rocket. Before your boots touch down in the snow, the announcer’s deep voice declares “Bullshit!” as Stan activates a card. South Park: Snow Day! feels like a proper playground battle, where imagination clashes with the children’s need to litigate every rule.

The voice work is perfect. Sure, what you’re getting is toilet humor, but it’s exquisitely crafted toilet humor. Forged with the same seriousness and magic as the One Ring, these lines land. Matt and Trey’s voices, combined with the nostalgic look instantly transport you into Snow Day!‘s world. It’s South Park through and through. I was nervous about the jump to 3D and an over-the-shoulder camera. Thankfully, the devs found an excellent compromise between the show’s aesthetic and the needs of a roguelike brawler.

Though the characters are multidimensional instead of the paper dolls we’re used to, they are just as expressive. Other models and textures sometimes lack depth and detail, but that’s true of the show too. While Snow Day! sometimes looks kiddish or rushed, you can’t say it’s not accurate. Facial expressions and exclamations are vital to the game’s physical comedy, and they’re solid here. Snow Day! borrows more from The Binding of Isaac and Hellboy: Web of Wyrd than The Fractured But Whole, the series feels consistent in tone and presentation.

The music sometimes disappears amid the chorus of screaming children, explosions, fantasy sound effects, and farts. When you can hear it, it’s better than it has any right to be. The audio is great throughout, and the main menu music deserves a particular nod. My one complaint is that some voice lines repeat way too often. There’s a good reason: they’re telegraphing enemy moves, thus letting you prepare and counter. Still, considering how spammy some enemies are, you end up hearing the same line three times in five seconds. It’s sometimes grating.

Conclusion: Made-Up Rules, Real Fun

I experienced no crashes and almost no bugs. One quest item did glitch through the floor though, forcing me to restart a level (thanks, Chinpokomon). It’s unlikely to replace Risk of Rain or The Binding of Isaac in roguelike Top 10s lists, but South Park: Snow Day! is a great balance of gross-out comedy, magical beat-’em-up, and multiplayer antics. There’s not enough RNG, build diversity, or strategic depth to run for 26 seasons, but this is more than a magical Christmas one-off. If you’re a fan of the show and the genre, round up some friends and give it a go. Just don’t touch Mr. Hankey. We know where he’s been.

South Park: Snow Day! will be available for PC (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch on March 26, 2024.

South Park: Snow Day! Review

8 Great!

A third-person roguelike brawler that celebrates immature humor and co-op destruction.

Pros

1. Engaging combat and card mechanics
2. Funny story that feels true to the show
3. Solid enemy designs and powers

Cons

1. Not enough weapons and build variety
2. Spotty teammate AI
3. A bit too short