Playing a game based on a TV show you love can be a hit-or-miss experience. You may have higher expectations, but if it lands, you’ll enjoy it twice as much. Thankfully, the dungeon crawler-esque South Park: Snow Day succeeds at being a fun co-op experience!
Gameplay Offers an Imaginative Take on D&D
The devs of South Park: Snow Day settled on a topic with plenty of opportunity — a snow day. Every kid dreams of having a day off from school, and the game encompasses the very best of that childhood experience. You play as your own unique character, joining Cartman, Kenny, Kyle, Stan, and all the notable characters from the series through the snow-filled town of South Park. With the town shutting down due to the storm, it’s free reign for the most epic adventure you can imagine.
The gameplay caters to kids’ imaginations by including things like swords, powers, elves, and dragons. However, it’s formatted in a way that adults can enjoy, thanks to South Park‘s trademark humor. As the “new kid,” you’ll learn the ropes of the kids’ Dungeons & Dragons-inspired game, including how to wield weapons, utilize powerful Upgrade Cards, and even “Bullshit” Cheat Cards. You’ll work your way toward becoming “OP” and take on the other neighborhood kids pretending to be evil.
Any fans who played the previous South Park game, South Park: The Stick of Truth, will be familiar with the D&D style and basic story concept already. However, the games had different developers. The Stick of Truth came from Obsidian Entertainment, and Snow Day came from a more indie developer, Question, alongside THQ Nordic. As such, there are some noticeable differences between them. The Stick of Truth stuck with a more strategic approach with turn-based battles, whereas Snow Day embraces a fast-paced dungeon crawler style. Plus, the addition of abilities and Bullshit powers laid out like cards makes Snow Day feel even more like D&D.
Before each round, you can choose from a variety of Upgrade Cards and Bullshit Cards that will come into play. These can make your weapons perform new techniques and better their skills, giving you an edge in battle, such as providing your axe with an explosive vortex. You’ll also get a chance to gain more Upgrade Cards as you progress through the mission.
The Bullshit Cards behave like cheats, such as raining down meteors on your opponents, but they have limited uses. The enemy will also receive random upgrades, so you must stay alert and counteract their abilities as much as possible. These Upgrade and Bullshit Cards being random each round creates a unique challenge every time you play a chapter. I enjoyed seeing what upgrades would become available as I worked through them.
Even though South Park: Snow Day is meant to be a chill co-op experience, the missions are not simple. You’ll face many enemies simultaneously, ward against Bullshit Cards, and take on challenging bosses. You can choose from three different difficulties, but I found that even the lower difficulties still had complex areas to progress through. Being a co-op game, I appreciated it more with the difficulty. This means you and your friends must work well together to overcome the challenges.
Being a co-op game also ensures that you’ll always have allies on your side. You can join other public players or invite friends to have a full squad of four. With allies, you’ll be able to clear enemies more effectively and have someone revive you if you happen to go down.
The boss fights, in particular, was a fun but tough part of the missions that required a well-balanced team and finesse. The bosses have noticeable differences from regular enemies with highly damaging attacks and special moves. You must adapt strategically and defend against them as much as possible.
Boss fights have the classic boss-like style, with red indicators telling you where you need to dodge and different waves of movesets that switch from close-range attacks to fireballs or vines from a distance. And, of course, there’s that huge HP bar at the bottom of the screen, making it feel even more like Dungeon & Dragons.
My only gripe about the gameplay was the slight problem with the CPU allies. The game is meant for a four-player squad, and computer players replace them if you start a game without joining or inviting friends. While they can be handy for reviving you, they don’t help much. A lot of times, they get stuck in spots and die over and over, which required me to backtrack and revive them several times. There’s no way to turn them off, so single players are stuck dealing with them.
South Park: Snow Day Excels at Replayability
South Park: Snow Day comprises five chapters, meaning it will only take you a short time to work through the story. The gameplay lasted five to six hours, possibly a bit longer, since I had to redo a few chapters after I died. The length of the game can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your preference. However, I thought it was the perfect length for the tale. Plus, the game’s length doesn’t really matter since it allows for endless replayability.
I barely went through the skill tree, only getting two major skills out of the majority available. This allowed me to continue collecting Dark Matter to unlock skills by repeatedly playing the chapters again. I could then backtrack and try to unlock all the chests I missed. Since you can respec your points, there’s also the opportunity to redo your build entirely. You can focus on Stamina for sprinting and performing attacks rather than Health.
Replayability also increases through challenges. Being a competitive player, I enjoy having challenges to complete on top of the story. The “Unlocks” and “Infernal Pacts” are in-game challenges like defeating certain enemies or using various abilities that reward with character cosmetics. There’s no way to complete all these challenges in your first playthrough, which is a reason to hop back in and try again.
All in all, South Park: Snow Day has many great features that make replayability possible: An expanded skill tree, challenges and pacts to take on, and plenty of weapons and powers. It even has a free DLC with five extra missions. With the randomly drawn upgrade and cheat cards, you can play through them multiple times and have a different experience. By the time you’ve played through all the levels once, you’ll also have all the weapons and powers unlocked. You can switch things up and try different combinations.
A Pungent Narrative
The storyline ties perfectly in with the replayability and gameplay style, and that story is all about a snow day that never ends. A D&D campaign can go on forever as long as you have enemies to face, new abilities to learn, and enough imagination. South Park: Snow Day mirrors this concept with a day off from school that can also go on and on, thanks to Mr. Hankey.
I enjoyed the narrative for its imaginative twist on D&D and because it had some other valuable themes that were quite surprising. Cartman prays for a snow day so he doesn’t have to go back to school, and miraculously, he gets the biggest snowstorm you could imagine. While the others are doing everything they can to stop the storm, Cartman will risk siding with an unexpected evil for it to continue, putting the whole town in jeopardy. By the end, Cartman learns the valuable lesson that school isn’t quite as bad as he thinks and definitely not worth siding with evil about.
Of course, the story wouldn’t be quite as successful without South Park‘s iconic humor. It features all sorts of innuendos, sarcasm, potty jokes, and plenty of farting (because we can’t avoid laughing at those…).
All the neighborhood kids react with silly whines and over-exaggerated remarks, making the game feel even more like kids just pretending. More importantly, the cutscenes and story feel genuinely South Park. The comedy we know and love from the show winds perfectly into the gameplay.
South Park: Snow Day — The Bottom Line
Pros:
- D&D-style gameplay perfect for teens and adults.
- Replayability thanks to weapon and power options, challenges, and random upgrade opportunities.
- Challenging levels that require strategy and teamwork.
- South Park humor we all know and love
Cons:
- CPU Allies don’t do a great job of replacing actual teammates
Overall, I found South Park: Snow Day to be an entertaining story with a fun twist on the usual D&D meets dungeon crawler experience. Not to mention, it’s a great option to play with friends. The gameplay was smooth and challenging all the way through, allowing me to change my style by trying different weapons and powers. With all its great features, it becomes instantly replayable. If you’re a South Park fan, it’s a must to try!
