South Park: Snow Day! Review

If you have ever watched the show South Park before, you are very familiar with these characters and the large amounts of “colourful” language and potty humour that they use. South Park: Snow Day! remains true to the show, and is the third chapter of “The New Kid” saga started in South Park: The Stick of Truth. So if you have played the other titles in the series, you know what you are in for.

There is a huge dump of snow in the town of South Park, causing numerous accidents and closures, along with shutting down the school, making all the kids in the town incredibly happy. How are they going to spend their day off? By staying inside? No way! They are going to take part in an epic battle involving all of the children in town.

You are the new kid in South Park; what your real name is, I have no idea, but Cartman will always refer to you as the New Kid. The first thing you get to do is customise your character’s look from their outfit — sweater, t-shirt, wizard's garb, or tunic; hairstyle — short, long, curly, or straight along with the colour; hat — a plaid hat with ear flaps, a sun hat, a baseball cap, hockey helmet, or headphones; glasses — sunglasses, eyeglasses, or goggles; eyes — tired-looking eyes, eyeshadow, plain, or wrinkles under the eyes; skin colour, and your emote. All the cutscenes in the game will include your personalised character, who feels like they fit right in with the residents of South Park. Now that your South Park-style character is complete, it is time to go out into the snow-filled streets!

The kids in South Park are playing a fantasy Dungeon & Dragons-style game where each child has a type and a faction that they belong to. Cartman is the Grand Wizard, Kyle is a High Druid leading the druid elves, Stan is a Barbarian, and Jimmy is a Bard. As you play, you will meet up with all the characters you know from the show, and those making appearances are Kenny (as Anime Princess Kenny), Tweek, and even Mr. Hanky. Some characters will help you out, while others, like Stan and his army, which Cartman calls the Marshwalkers, will battle against you.

Butters is the Keeper of the Rules and has a book full of cards that you can use while battling. It's divided into four sections: Player Upgrades, Enemy Upgrades, Player Bullshit, and Enemy Bullshit. These Bullshit cards are used around the midpoint of the battle and are often overpowered and outrageous. One card that you can use is called Laser Eyes, which allows you to shoot your enemies with lasers from your eyes three different times. The enemy, on the other hand, gets crazy cards like Vampire that turn the swarmers into clouds of bloodthirsty bats. The cards in Butters’ Book of Laws allow you to change their level and the cards' rarity from common to ultra-legendary.

Tolkien equips you with new weapons and powers at the Armoury located right beside the Kupa Keep Travel Gate, which is the entrance to your next battle. He has both melee and distance weapons to select from, and you can carry one of each. Pick from daggers, a sword and shield, and an axe that is locked at first. For distance weapons, choose a bow and arrow, a staff, or a wand. Each has its own strengths, so you will have to experiment to find the combination that fits your playstyle best.

Using the weapons you equipped is pretty straightforward. On an Xbox controller or on the Steam Deck, X is used to attack with your melee weapon, A is to jump, B is to dash. LT uses your ranged weapon and the shoulder buttons are used to activate the cards you selected at the start of the battle.

For powers, there are eight different options available; you can select the two that you want to equip. I made sure to keep the Healing Totem to recover my team’s health, and for the other, I selected Cheesing. This power drugs the enemy with cat urine to make them temporarily fight for your team. It sounds nasty, but if it works...

There are five big battles to play through in the story mode. Each has you fighting against another resident in South Park. The first fight is against Kyle, the High Druid, who is leading an army of Druid Elves. To select your battle, talk to Cartman at the War Table. You will select the difficulty of the mission between Easy, Normal, and Hard. Once decided, head to the Kupa Keep Gate, and you will be taken to the battle area.

When you start your mission, Butters will have each team select a card and a Bullshit Card that will be used during the battle. I have to point out how awesome the art on these cards is. It really looks like a homemade card that a little kid would draw with crayons! Anyway, back to the battle setup. Once these are selected and laid out on the table, it's time to begin.

Your team consists of four members; if you are playing alone, it will be you and three other new kids in town. You also have the option to team up with other players or your friends online to work together. I found that the bots that I was teamed up with were quite useful and very helpful when I needed to be healed or revived.

Reviving in South Park: Snow Day! is very easy and only requires you to stand in the circle surrounding your fallen teammate. It's nice that you don't need to worry about having special items to use. If everyone runs out of HP, it's Game Over, and the battle is over, but you still get to keep all the toilet paper — the game currency — that you collected, Dark Matter canisters you picked up, and Platinum Pieces you earned from taking down enemies. You can spend these to power up before you jump back into the mission once again.

Visit Mr. Hankey in the port-a-potty to redeem Dark Matter Perks like: Energetic — use 15% less stamina when you are sprinting; Healthy lets you start with more health, and Deadeye that when using ranged weapons, you deal 20% more damage. There are 30 different perks to activate; you can change and get a refund on any of the perks that you select if you decide on a different power-up to select instead. Buying one will unlock the option beside it.

There is so much personality in all the characters you encounter; besides their voices sounding exactly like they do on the show, the kids you battle on the field are freaking hilarious. When an enemy kid takes damage, they yell one of a variety of sayings, like “I'm hit!”, “Oh fudge", “Remember me!”, “Aww nuts", “Damnit!”, "I didn't wanna play anymore anyways”, and “I thought it would feel different”. These are repeated a bit since you fight so many children in each battle, but hearing the voice of a little kid saying it made me chuckle.

I never expected a 3D version of a flat 2D cartoon to look so good! The snow looked surprisingly realistic and totally reminded me of the winter storms where I live. Fortunately, we never get storms that bury the town like in this game, but it was sure fun to hide in deep snow banks to escape enemies or to find barrels and boxes filled with toilet paper, cheesy poofs to replenish health, Dark Matter canisters, and Foil Cards that are stronger than regular cards.

Besides the great characters, the soundtrack is epic, and it feels like you are on an important mission where you will be fighting for your life — well, to be victorious against your opponent. I never got tired of this music, which worked so well as a backdrop for these grand battles!

South Park: Snow Day! is an incredibly fun, hack-and-slash title with a surprisingly large amount of strategy involved. This game is full of personality, humour, and a lot of swearing (which you should expect), but it makes you appreciate having other members on your team who have your back like you have theirs. This game is a must-play for anyone who is a fan of the show or for fans of the other South Park games that have been released. Who would have expected that a South Park D&D-style game would be so good?