4 Improvements South Park: The Fractured But Whole Has Over its Predecessor

More Outrageous Humor

South Park: The Stick of Truth was praised for the way that it didn’t back away from the outrageous humor of the show. There was just as much crude humor in Stick of Truth as fans had come to expect from the potty-mouthed kids of South Park. Yet, somehow, when it comes to South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Trey, Matt, and the team at Ubisoft have managed to take it even further.

During our hands-on time with the demo, we fought strippers, gave a DJ an incredibly questionable drink (seriously… it was gross), and even got to make use of the game’s new ‘Toilet Control’ allowing us to separate the New Kid’s butt cheeks as he sat on the throne. During the roughly 20 minutes I spent with the game, I didn’t stop smiling. The whole thing is rounded out with an exceptional delivery of the hilarious script from Matt and Trey themselves that only helps to strengthen the humor on display.

More Strategic Combat

One of the biggest changes that South Park: The Fractured But Whole brings over its predecessor is its combat overhaul. In Stick of Truth, players were given a variety of attacks and that was pretty much it. Sure, some of them had status effects that could be used in a strategic manner, but it didn’t quite provide the level of strategic depth seen in other turn-based RPGs. In The Fractured But Whole, the team over at Ubisoft has broken battlegrounds down into grids. This in itself is enough to completely transform the way combat plays out. With characters now able to move around the battlefield, players can use tactics that makes use of each character’s different traits. You can’t just fire off an attack from anywhere on the battlefield. Each attack has a different pattern of grids that it’ll hit, so you’ll need to think about the best place to position your party members in order to make the most of every turn.

It leads to you constantly having to think about where your characters are, whether they can survive a hit from your opponent, and exactly when you should use your special attack once it’s charged up. From my hands-on time with the game, it was clear that simply spamming the same moves over and over just won’t cut it this time around.

Special Objectives

While the combat mechanics themselves have been given an overhaul, providing for more tactical gameplay, The Fractured But Whole also adds in special objectives into the mix. For us, we simply had to progress across the screen as quickly as possible, defeating enemies and avoiding what was basically an unstoppable stripper chasing us down. It couldn’t be defeated, it interrupted our turns, and forever remained a lingering threat that literally crushed everything in its path.

It was unclear from our hands-on time with the game whether or not these will appear outside of combat, but they certainly presented an additional problem that needed to be taken into consideration on the battlefield.

Crafting System

During The Stick of Truth’s battles, players were able to use items to heal their party, recover MP, and deal out negative status effects on enemies. It was the kind of stuff that we’ve seen time and time again in RPGs, but the only way you were able to get your hands on them was through exploring the world and simply finding them.

The Fractured But Whole brings the South Park kids’ RPG adventure to the modern day, adding in a crafting system that we only got a brief glimpse of in our time with the game. After collecting all manner of gross and disgusting items, we then combined them to create a vile drink to knock out the DJ and progress the story. However, it looks like we’ll be able to use the very same items and other minor bits and pieces dotted around the world to craft things that can be used in battle to either buff our own characters, or nerf our enemies. Exactly how comprehensive this crafting system is remains to be seen, but it’s a notable improvement over its predecessor nonetheless.