Review | South Park: Snow Day!

Jon "Sikamikanico" Clarke March 25, 2024Last Updated: March 27, 2024

2 1,797 5 minutes read

Let’s talk about South Park: Snow Day!, shall we?

I haven’t actually watched South Park in a very long time, but back in the late 90’s, I found it just as amusing as everyone else did. I think I even owned a Mr Hankey plushy back in the day. Outside of cuddly fecal matter, South Park has also dabbled in a number of video game adaptations, from Tower Defense titles, pinball games and most recently, and successfully – a couple of genuinely good RPGs, all presented in the 2D style the show is famous for.

South Park: Snow Day! leaves the franchises traditionally 2D trappings behind, and brings the quiet little mountain town to life in three glorious dimensions. Is this latest outing with Cartman and pals worth your time?

Blizzard Wizard

South Park: Snow Day! has a relatively simple set-up, and to get things out of the way, this is not a deep, layered role playing game, so those of you hoping for more fare like The Stick of Truth or The Fractured But Whole are, I’m afraid, going to be left wanting.

Instead, South Park: Snow Day! is best described as a budget friendly rogue-like game, developed by Question Games. Built for 4 players and repeated co-operative runs, you’ll fight through snowed in back-yards, snowed in streets, the snowed in school and so on.

In case you haven’t got the hint, there’s a lot of snow.

The town of South Park is in jeopardy following the onset of a monstrous blizzard, snowing in everything. The adults are panic buying toilet paper (now a rare resource) and of course for Cartman, Kyle, Stan and Kenny, the closure of school means one glorious thing – a snow day.

And so the kids of South Park break out the wizard and elf costumes (and Paladin Butter’s rule book) for some Dungeons and Dragons make believe. And that includes you – as the “new kid” in town, Cartman calls upon you to help discover just where this storm is coming from, because it’s definitely not natural.

Cartman Crashers

You’ll start out your sessions at the Kupa Keep, which acts as a main hub from which you’ll launch your runs with either three friends, or if you’re a solitary sort, three AI driven companions. Kupa Keep has a few characters from across the South Park franchise, from Paladin Butters to even the cheerful Christmas Yule Log himself, Mr Hankey.

Some act as vendors from which you can buy cosmetics using Platinum Pieces or “PP”. These range from classics like the “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt to a pair of swinging testicles on your characters chin. So far, so South Park.

The story of South Park: Snow Day! plays out like an episode of the show, tasking players with five distinct chapters to play through, battling against various foes from younger to bigger kids all delivered with the usual South Park flair. It’s often very funny, and the plot is as ridiculous a romp as South Park has ever been.

You’ll go into battle equipped with a melee weapon, be it a swift pair of foil wrapped daggers or a sword and shield, and a ranged weapon, from a fire wand or a bow and arrow. You’ll also be able to wield two special moves, from farts that can launch you up in the air to a throwable black hole that pulls in enemies. If you’re worried about weapon variety, fret not – more weapons and powers become available to you as you play through the game.

They’re heading right for us!

At the start of each run, all players can choose an upgrade card for one of your weapons or abilities, and also, amusingly, a ‘bullshit’ card, which has a finite number of uses per run. These are absurd power-ups, from laser eyes to raining down meteors, but be aware, your enemy can equip their team with upgrades and bullshit cards too. There’s nothing worse than having your main weapon turned into a pool noodle mid-fight.

The cards are wonderfully done, all drawn in childlike scribbles and hastily crossed out stats when you land another upgrade. Unlocked cards can be viewed in Paladin Butter’s binder at the war-table should you be curious as to how many you’ve discovered so far.

As you play, you’ll earn two other types of currency – Toilet Paper (like I said, it’s a precious resource now) and Dark Matter. Toilet paper can be spent during the run on upgrading and levelling up cards at certain points throughout the mission. You don’t take any Toilet Paper earned with you come the end of the run, so spend it while you have it.

Dark Matter is the currency used for the more persistent upgrade side of things, like upgrades to health, stamina and weapon damage, which can be spent with Mr Hankey in the porta-cabin back at Kupa Keep (I’ll let you decide what you think “Dark Matter” might actually be). The number of upgrades to your abilities in the Dark Matter skill-tree is quite broad, and you’ll need to complete a large number of runs to fully max out your character.

Playing through each chapter will have you taking on various foes, and occasionally it attempts to mix things up a bit by mixing in some other objectives beyond just beating up everything you come across. While I won’t spoil any story beats, I’m pleased to say the South Park humour is well and truly intact, and the game certainly didn’t fail to make me laugh on multiple occasions.

A Fatal Thaw

Unfortunately, the game becomes repetitive extremely quickly, and after a while, it starts to feel like the franchise itself is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of keeping you interested. The combat, while seemingly simplistic by design, is frustratingly floaty and imprecise, and there’s not really much strategy beyond just mashing attack at various enemies you come across.

There’s no weight to any of the attacks you do, and often you’ll be left wondering if they connected at all – the only clue you really have is the number of damage points floating above an enemy as you vaguely wave your make believe weapon in their direction.

While the game mixes things up with random power ups and upgrades throughout to try and make each run feel a little different, I can’t say it really felt different in practice, and after several chapters, monotony starts to set in. Once you’ve seen a chapter through once, I can’t say I felt overly thrilled to attempt it again – and this is a game designed to be replayed.

That, my friends, is a big problem.

There’s also a horde mode available via the local goth, Henrietta, which tasks players with taking on waves of enemies in an arena type setting, grabbing card upgrades between each round. Primarily, this feels like the best way to farm Dark Matter for those permanent character upgrades, but again, the same flaws with the actual gameplay remain, and that’s a shame.

Blame Canada

South Park: Snow Day! isn’t a bad game – it looks nice enough, and it nails the franchise’s irreverent humour – hell, there’s even a dedicated fart button (and an achievement for finding it!), and there’s enough here to keep younger players interested. But – and it’s a big but – it’s fucking South Park – younger players are not the target audience.

For me, for a multiplayer game all focused on replaying levels again and again, the very fact that both my teammates and I were already tired at the mere suggestion of playing through all this snow again, meant one thing. I’m afraid I’m going to have sit this blizzard out.