Recent reviews by JPridgey

It’s really quite remarkable how South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have slowly ramped up the shock value over the past 17 years to keep the show sharp. Whether they and developer Obsidian could pull off the same for a 14-hour game instead of a 22-minute show was never a sure thing. But there I was, shrunk down to Underpants Gnome-size, crawling up Mr. Slave’s orifices to retrieve a WMD, slicing through gobs of bodily fluids in turn-based JRPG combat and climbing up half-digested corn-on-the-cob as I went, laughing hysterically the whole way. I’m floored at how consistently funny it is, and at how well the outrageous comedy melds with the relatively simple gameplay to create not just an amazing South Park game, but an intelligent and witty satire of roleplaying mechanics.

As for the story, it’s a clever premise that allows The Stick of Truth to take place in a recognizable and painstakingly recreated South Park setting, but also brings in all the usual fantasy roleplaying tropes through the power of children’s imagination. It’s a trick used many times in the show, and it works great for the game, too. An epic LARPing session (as casually set up by last year’s “Black Friday” trilogy of episodes) has your custom-created new kid in town joining either Cartman’s Humans or Kyle’s Elves, all dressed in amusingly bad makeshift cosplay outfits. True to the show, things escalate wildly and hilariously, leading to conspiracies involving the government, aliens, and Taco Bell.

Though it manifests itself in typically over-the-top South Park-ian ways, The Stick of Truth is a Paper Mario-esque RPG-lite. You and your single extra party member (you’ll unlock several South Park regulars, though only one can fight with you at a time) take turns battling formations of enemies, be it the Gingers, crazy homeless guys, aliens, and more. Typical buffs and debuffs are ably skinned in screwed-up fourth grader verbiage (throwing feces to add “gross out” effects) mixed with mana-powered spells and timed button-press attacks and blocks to keep you on your toes during combat. It keeps things simple enough while still leaving room for some tactical depth. And Obsidian refreshingly leaves out time-sink annoyances like character encumbrance and random battles you can’t avoid.

I couldn’t resist the curious lure of playing as the Jew class over the archetypal Fighter, Thief, and Mage options, but the differences between them turned out to be disappointingly slight. Sure, each has their own special abilities, but there are effectively no class-specific weapons or items, and there’s nothing to stop a Mage from choosing melee-enhancing gear and carving up foes with a blade just as well as a Fighter. All classes eventually learn special farting magic (a crude parody of Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts) though both the thumbstick motions and especially the tutorial sessions for your powers of flatulence tend to be cumbersome. Achievement or Trophy hunting aside, this lack of class differentiation or significant choices in the story are big reasons why I don’t feel much incentive to replay the campaign.

The other unfortunate offense is that some extremely useful things are poorly explained, if they’re even mentioned at all. Tricks like being able to switch your Buddy at any time by pressing down on the D-pad to access the Party menu, or taking the first swing at overworld enemies so that you get the first turn when the battle starts, and what your Buddies can do and are specifically good at are all up to us to discover accidentally. One other puzzling issue is the slipperiness of the action-selection wheel during combat – it’s strangely difficult to get your pointer to stick on the option you want, particularly if it’s in a diagonal slot on the wheel.

But that’s about the extent of the damage. Aesthetically, The Stick of Truth might be the most beautiful crappy-looking-on-purpose game I’ve ever seen. While it may seem trivial to make a role-playing game resemble the crude, construction-paper cutout style of the show, it’s executed so well here that the two mediums are almost indistinguishable. You’ll never see a HUD when walking around town, for instance, unless you tap the Y/Triangle button. Only the very rare stuck animation on an overworld enemy and (on both consoles, but not a capable PC) the occasional frame rate stutter when a new area loaded in for the first time reminded me that this was a game and not the show. And that was the extent of the technical problems I encountered.

Speaking of the quiet Colorado mountain town, it is itself one of the stars of The Stick of Truth. For the first time in the series’ history, it has been fully mapped out and given official geographical context. As a superfan who’s seen every episode of the show, I spent the first two to three hours of Stick of Truth exploring every kid’s house and each recognizable location, and from Stan’s bedroom closet (be sure to check it!) to Stark’s Pond and South Park Elementary, they’re all packed incredibly densely with in-jokes. Even every piece of inventory junk loot I collected is a show reference with a funny description attached to it.

A convenient fast-travel system eases post-exploration navigation, but various quests provide plenty of enticing reasons to comb the town throughout the adventure. Classic songs like “Taco-Flavored Kisses” and “Kyle’s Mom is a B****” are deployed with deft comedic subtlety on radios and in shops, and you absolutely must listen carefully for the particularly perfect use of Bigger, Longer, & Uncut’s “Blame Canada.”

The roughly 14 hours of absurdity and satire feels just right, from beginning to end. That being said, despite featuring over 100 characters and countless references, I wanted more. Towelie only ever shows up in a loading screen. Ditto the Talking Taco That Craps Ice Cream. The always-hilarious Christmas Critters have a criminally short cameo that is literally off-the-beaten-path. And while I’m being picky, I was also hoping for some sort of interactive or customized version of the show’s opening-credits Primus song that never came (though, laudably, any time you load up your save file, the instantly recognizable back-from-commercial-break guitar riff plays).

The Verdict

The Stick of Truth makes one thing abundantly clear: I never want to play another South Park video game made without Trey Parker and Matt Stone's direct, intimate involvement. With a controller in your hand, you are almost literally – gloriously – playing a 14-hour episode of South Park. There’s much, much more here for series fans than the uninitiated, but it’s a light but good quality role-playing game in its own right. It is, in a way, Season 18 all by itself. It is funny, shocking, self-effacing, and pretty much everything I could ask for from a South Park game -- even if it’s mostly a one-and-done experience.

9.0

+ Feels like the show
+ Light but fun RPG system
+ Legitimately funny
+ Canada. Just...Canada

- Classes too similar

Four years ago, IGN deemed Persona 4 “amazing” on the PlayStation 2. Today, I’m saying the same thing about NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 on the PC. With its slick HD visuals, peppy voice actors and engaging story, the Japanese role-playing game stands among the best titles on the PC, but when you toss in how deep the gameplay is and how much there is to do, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 becomes the stuff of legend.

NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 is equal parts high school drama and dungeon crawling action. Our protagonist moves to the countryside town of Inaba, makes some friends at school, and – bam – a woman’s murdered. Over the course of the game, the protagonist and his buds uncover a serial killer tossing victims into another world via TV screens, and the group of high schoolers is the only thing that can save the day.

Think of this as a tale of super-powered, high school-aged detectives. See, the kids are the modern day Monster Squad because they wield Personas, which are kind of like spiritual Pokemon. When a turn-based battle kicks off, the kids can call in a Persona to attack with ice moves, fire punches and so on.

That’s the basic line on NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4, but there’s so much more going on. That’s the strength and weakness of the game – it’s dauntingly huge. There are well over 150 Personas to collect, and getting them all will require you to fuse different ones together. Now, when you’re fusing, you’ll need to check the fusion forecast and see what days of the week will get you what Persona bonuses, but then you need to keep in mind your Social Links, too, as those will influence the number of moves Personas get. Of course building those relationships comes down to properly managing your afterschool time.

That’s a mouthful, and if you’re just trying to grind out a dungeon, it can be a bit much. I’m not against intricate systems playing off one another, but NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 could do more to explain the ins and outs of what it’s up to.

But in the end, that doesn’t matter. Even I, IGN’s village idiot, figured out what books my character needed to read in order to improve his Diligence (one of the five upgradeable traits that influence your conversations) and what people I needed to spend time with to make my Jack Frost Persona more powerful. If a game’s biggest problem is giving you a lot to do and not bogging you down with tutorials, it’s sitting pretty, and NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 is approachable regardless of your JRPG expertise.

That’s always been a hallmark of the series; anyone can jump in. You don’t need to have played another Persona to understand this one as the characters and setting are brand new. Even though the action is otherworldly, the story is relatable. Trying to make friends, fit in at school and get a significant other are themes we all understand, and that’s why the non-combat stuff is as good as the fighting.

Living in Inaba, you’ll attend school and take pop quizzes. You’ll have part-time jobs. You’ll join sports teams and clubs. You’ll choose dialogue responses that affect relationships. The Walking Dead: The Game is getting a lot of attention right now – deservedly so – for giving players choices and allowing them to mold the game into a personal experience. Persona 4 does that; it’s not as drastic as The Walking Dead, but you can tell people off, make bold plays on girls if you’ve built up your Courage, and build your party as you see fit.

Everything you’re doing in the game is building your character and your party so that when you enter one of the game’s dungeons, which are visually varied and based around the kidnapped character, you’re fighting the way you want to. You’re entering these turn-based encounters where you need to analyze enemies to determine the element they’re weak to and then unleashing the pimped out Persona you’ve been building your character around. It’s a rush to grind and grind only to find that your squad is powerful enough to topple an enemy that used to give you trouble, and that’s a rush you’ll find again and again in NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 – especially seeing as how a playthrough can take 60 hours and then open New Game Plus.

Now, every lovely thing IGN said in its 2008 review of Persona 4 pretty much applies to NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 – from the detailed rundown of the story to the little stuff like your inability to get tired in a dungeon (you can explore until your heart’s content). But that does mean the game can feel antiquated as it’s 4 years old. You can only save in certain spots, side quests don’t hold your hand like the ones in Mass Effect, and while there are cutscenes, most of the story is told through images, text and some really well done voice work. I find all this charming, but it’s worthy of a heads up.

If you’re looking for what the PC version of Persona 4 adds to the 4-year-old game, we’ve already covered the major stuff with the redone visuals and new lines of dialogue. However, NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 adds some online functionality to the mix, but none of it’s all that newsworthy. At times, a “voice” icon will appear, and you can see how other people have spent their time in the game at that moment. It’s a nice idea, but it’s just a bunch of word bubbles that pop on the screen. There’s no helpful information. Meanwhile, in dungeons, you can send out an SOS and then get words of encouragement from online players and a stat buff at the beginning of the next battle.

There’s a new character in the Velvet Room’s Marie who comes complete with her own Social Link to max out and story to investigate. She’s an interesting addition, but I don’t want to ruin her tale for you.

The Verdict -

The PC is lucky to have NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4. While the game doesn’t do much of note besides bringing the 2008 title to the HD era, it doesn’t need to. The story hooks you, dungeon crawling makes for a great time, and exploring your relationships while building a better army is the kind of tinkering you can get lose hours to. NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM 4 is perfectly at home on the handheld and should dominate your free time.

9.3/10

An unplished P2W game that belongs on miniclip or the app store not steam

It was... pretty okay... I guess.

I want to choose my people's religion and start a holy war between the east and west banks

The game is querky, and definitely not for everyone... For those who appreciate tycoon games however this is an interesting addition to your collection. The micro-management aspect of creating blueprints is what really sets this game apart. The game still has a few bugs, but the developers work hard to patch them out.

Totally unrealistic, my citizens never started rioting because of the major police presence...

For investing in this game I recieved the much coveted limited edition... saddle

Please try to keep your jealousy at bay.