South Park has an outstanding legacy as a pop cultural satire phenomenon. Over 25 years, South Park has examined many cultural, political, and pop events in hilarious ways. What is curious is the video game tie-ins, as when South Park became a massive success in the late 1990s, multiple video game adaptions, ranged from pretty terrible to somewhat terrible. I didn’t mind the South Park FPS or the charming little quiz game But it wasn’t the best time for a true and honest representation of the TV show, until 2014 with The Stick of Truth and in 2017, with The Fractured But Whole. Both are fantastic games.
Well, another South Park game is here and the fanfare lead-up to its release has been very curious. And after playing it, I can say that South Park Snow Day is somewhat disappointing.
What is South Park: Snow Day? 
We return to the Colorado town of South Park for another adventure with the boys, as Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman lead another epic role-playing session when a devastating snowstorm hits the town. This results in a snow day, meaning the school is closed, and the kids can play fantasy games with the new kid again. The fantasy setting to the boy’s make-believe world returns, as superhero culture has outstayed its welcome, and the boys, along with fellow pals Butters, Token, Jimmy and others join in as the 4th graders wage war on the kindergarteners.
And that’s pretty much the deal with South Park: Snow Day. The boys once again play another role-playing session filled with cardboard cut-out castles, take on classes that best fit their persona, be it elf, warlock, or new kid, and do plenty of farting along the way.
Snow Day is an oddity, be it taking a drastic change of pace from the previous two turn-based adventure games, into a fully three-dimensional ARPG akin to Diablo in many ways.
And returning to the fantasy setting is a nice idea, as much more can be explored, for jokes, parodies, noteworthy combat encounters and mission structures. To be clear, Snow Day is not on the same level of scope and grandest as Stick of Truth, or The Fracture but Whole. It is a much smaller, linear affair, amounting to a leaner 4-player co-op action game you can pick up and play.
Many of these like Left 4 Dead, Vermintide, and the likes of indie darlings such as Leath Company or GTFO. But then there are many others which have stunk up the genre and failed spectacularly such as 2021’s Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance. While Snow Day is not a failure enough to join these epic fails, it is incredibly lacking, even for a smaller budget title.
When Heck freezes over! 
South Park has always managed to find a way to capture what is pop culture, political, or newsworthy, and merge it with the twisted and darkly humour formula from Trey Barker and Matt Stone. And the previous two games executed a lot of surrealist elements, pop culture references, and incredibly dark humour, but woven together with enjoyable storytelling and engaging narratives.
With Snow Day, it’s just that, a fantasy role-playing session during a snow day, with little exciting events, or developing narratives to speak of. I don’t mind that so much, be it if there were cool mission objectives or exciting mini-stories I could play out.
I can fondly remember The Stick of Truth, starting small, then venturing into plot threads featuring a UFO abduction, zombie outbreak, being shrunk down in size and seeing your parents do the nasty … and the rise of Nazi zombies, with the belief that a generic stick held the power to shape time and space. Then with The Fractured but Whole, seeing a rise of cheesing incidents, leading to a discovery of a drug empire in the town, run by corrupt cops who worshipped a demi-god that was racist, and ending with multiple time jumps, and a ploy to stop Armageddon. These games went all out in their stories, including some immensely creative and memorable encounters, and sub-plots which add charm, humour, and fun gameplay moments.
Snow Day does not go the extra mile to include memorable moments, and the most we get is a couple of zombie encounters and a return of Mr Hanky which I did like. But these are massively underused, and the general flow from mission to mission is just fighting other kids or even one of the gangs playing the evil role. While the other games did use a lot of previous material, yet it was combined in a way that made it all quite refreshing and enjoyable, for those who’ve watched the show and those who’ve not.
While I get that the South Park FPS from 2000 is not well received at all, it does include a lot of great enemy variety and creative set-ups from an alien invasion, clones attacking, and waging a war against killer Turkeys. Maybe it’s due to South Park’s recent seasons taking on more “grounded” problems like cancel culture, COVID-19 and pop culture rivalry, that there isn’t much new surrealistic material to add in, aside from the return of Mr Hanky, which is really in the much later part of the game.
I do like the set-up, and we’ve seen the previous games go all out with the stories, comedy and situations to bring in a ton of fun events, and mischief. But Snow Day feels like a long sub-par episode of South Park, like if “A Million Little Fibers” just went on, and on, and on. It doesn’t help that Snow Day lacks any real hearty laughs, clever satire, or funny situations. Even the joke of Randy hoarding toilet paper, and it being used as a currency (be it one of the funnier jokes in the game) isn’t enough.
It feels so underwhelming in many ways, that this could be a generic ARPG that didn’t need the South Park label.
Fantasy role-playing is dangerous for your health 
Now as mentioned, Snow Day takes on a different perspective and vibe to gameplay, compared to the turn-based counterparts. I was quite keen to see a new look and feel for a South Park game, be it treading some familiar ground.
The game itself looks rather nice, and I appreciate the design choice, making Snow Day fall in line with an ARPG. The setup is that you’re once again the new kid, and the storm has covered South Park in a chunky sheet of snow. You create your character and set off into the town of South Park to play with Cartmen, Kyle, Butters and others as another epic fantasy role-playing session is underway. You’ll visit numerous iconic locations from the show, and fight kindergarteners, other 4th graders, and the occasional zombie or two. You’ll pick one from three weapons including twin swords, a sword and shield, and a battle axe, while you can also equip a ranged weapon, be it a wizard’s staff, bow, or wand.
There are five missions in total, where you’ll battle your way through a series of iconic landmarks from South Park Elementary, to Stark’s Pond, and usually end up fighting a big bag guy in an epic battle.
It’s all rather simple, be it from a couple of small but remarkable mechanics.
The fighting is straightforward, and while the main weapon line-up is quite limited, there is a nice selection of spells which are helpful in battle and some decent variety to enemies. But the main feature of cards which alter you and the battlefield strikes out as the most engaging system in the game. This roguelike element plays out by granting various perks and statues in a level, be it giving you a more plentiful healing spell, or allowing your farts to deal prolonged poison damage. Better yet players are allowed to upgrade any of the provided cards for a fee of toilet paper.
There are some amazing cards to discover, and depending on who is selling them, there are a host of different attributes and effects that can lead to some inventive and outright outrageous spectacle. And even more noteworthy is the variant of cards and their impact on the player. Be it safer cards that grant a boost to power, health recovery and so forth without any compromise, but then seeing a chance to equip a card that allows you to spew a powerful fire attack, but using it chips away at your own HP bar is an incredibly dynamic of risk and reward.
I love the card system, as it does spice things up quite a bit. And another smaller system is just as important, be it a little underdeveloped. Bulls**t cards come into play for both players and enemies in a mission. Players will be granted a BS card granting an extra perk, while enemies also get their version of BS cards. So, you can expect to see enemies gaining bubble shields, dealing toxic damage, or suddenly equip laser swords dealing immense extra damage.
While I like the idea, I do wish it wasn’t so random, or there be more choice in the matter. While it had issues, I did like Back 4 Blood’s card system, which saw you pick perks, modifiers, and downsides to the incoming level, that would stack up, providing better enhancements for you, but deadly consequences too. It’s a nice balancing act, again playing with risk and reward and you’re aware of what’s to come, but it could easily go either way.
Snow Day’s approach to this feels more random, and just ends up being a massive slap to the face that just feels tacked on and a means to sucker punch you at the worse possible time, usually extending certain battles which are already going on for far too long. And I wouldn’t mind these problems so much if the encounters and level design were a little more appealing.
As it stands, snow is a big part of level design, and it’s not the most engaging … snow levels tend to be hit or miss, and even the best ones don’t last all that long. Again, compared to the previous games there were so many inventive situations to overcome, and Snow Day doesn’t provide enough to match. There are some cool moments, and boss battles, but the peak of combat and level design just has you running around massive arenas, fighting other kids, flushing out spells and basic attacks, with no neat dynamics, environmental interactions (unless it’s one of the boss battles), and the limited weaponry, no class system, and limited enemy variety hinder the basic design principles in play here.
I don’t understand why Snow Day couldn’t have been a lavish, over-the-top fantasy game, where you can band together with friends and play as one of the boys, or one of the supporting cast, to fight crab people, man-bear pig, visit imagination land, and so forth, in a proper isometric ARPG fashion. I, and I’m sure many others would have loved something closer to that.
I do love the card system, some elements of combat, and the world/level design can be interesting at times, but there is a feeling of something big missing.
Overall? I do whole-heartedly understand that South Park: Snow Day is a smaller experience, and it’s unfair to say this is bad compared to the scope and vision of the previous two games... but it's underwhelming and lacks even the basic staples to make it a thrilling ARPG. It’s also baffling as there is some real production value here, a new system of play and a nice setup that it should be much grander in theory. If the developers wanted to do a smaller project, why not make an entire game at the Canadian level from Stick of Truth? Or even do a proper 4-player co-op FPS like Left 4 Dead? There are so many ways to do a new South Park game, and while there are some neat ideas and gameplay mechanics here and there, it’s just uninspiring and tedious overall due to missing core components seen in other ARPGs.
South Park: Snow Day is not an entirely bad game; it can be fun with friends. Yet, I don't see the lasting appeal as it's limited in weapons, and level design, while not having a great story and misses things like classes and character progression. This could have been a huge win and a much-needed return to South Park in gaming, but it might be time for the boys to leave the gaming space.
+ Cool concept, and another South Park game!
+ The card system is fantastic and provides some excellent modifications to combat.
+ Poisoning kindergarteners with massive farts is hilarious no matter what.
- No compelling narrative, or amusing mission setups.
- Combat lacks variety and lacks meaningful systems resulting in no depth.
- Repetitive and quite short.
A PS5 key for South Park: Snow Day was kindly provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
