It's every kid's dream to wake up to the news "Snow day! School Closed!" When you couple that wondrous feeling with the limitless imagination of the South Park kids, the possibilities are endless. Unfortunately, South Park: Snow Day! managed to make a snowflake instead of an avalanche!
Before I begin to dissect the time I spent with Snow Day, there are some positives that warrant praise. The issue is, these pros are immediately shriveled by negatives.
You join the kids in an all too familiar adventure and present are some components that differ to its predecessors. Snow Day adds 3D perspective, cooperative multiplayer, and a new card system. Let's break these down:
3D Perspective
As the camera hovers around in the intro scene, the new 3D perspective appears to be a phenomenal idea. That is until you are given control of your created character. The camera maneuvers feel extremely under cooked and clumsy. You're asked to move the camera and I was greeted with a massive jump to my far right. The directional controlling is very herky jerky.
Cooperative gameplay
This may be the best part of Snow Day and yet, still feels like it underachieved. There is tons of fun to be found in creating chaos by combining some pretty cool melee and ranged weapons. The new card system also adds to the mayhem as it is possible to engage in battle with a mix of abilities. All of this "fun to be had" is halted due to the wonky disaster of the controls.
New Card System
After cooperative gameplay, this is Snow Day's closest shining star. The cards consist of character abilities (for example; the fart launcher that allows you to escape a sticky situation by propelling you into the air with well... a fart). These abilities feel like they're well thought of and fleshed out. You can level these cards up in traditional RPG fashion and add buffs to their effects. While the card system is well thought out, the allure dies quickly because it doesn't innovate.
Hang on to your scarves, the Blizzard gets worse...
If these positives sound more like negatives, then prepare yourself for the true dark side of Snow Day. In reality, and saying this as an optimist, it took "finding a needle in a haystack" like effort to extract the good things in this game. For the record, this doesn't mean Snow Day is unplayable. Let's break the truly abysmal aspects of this game down:
Monotonous much?
During combat sequences, you will notice one glaringly obvious deficiency in South Park: Snow Day!; the weapons and animations are completely dull. Swinging your melee weapon into a group of enemies feels unpleasant and un-impactful. To describe it best, it feels like the damage and action animations were left out of Snow Day. This makes any and every action in South Park feel tedious and uninteresting.
The jokes didn't land
South Park The Stick of Truth and South Park The Fractured But Whole are well known for shocking moments and humor resulting in brief pauses to get the laughter out. While Snow Day certainly consists of the kid's usual charming selves, the jokes really miss the mark. Obviously, humor is purely subjective but, often times a cutscene or character dialogue are completely cut off by transitioning back to the game. This happens many times even in the middle of a punch line and, thus keeping players from becoming deeply immersed.
Fatuous Adventure
If you're looking for the satisfaction of completing a true adventure in Snow Day, do yourself a favor and steer very clear! This adventure is as toothless as it gets. Snow day suffers from a serious lack of depth and, with its simplicity, feels like a game directed towards actual children and not those who enjoy the shocking and reprobate nature typical of a South Park game.
The Bottom Line...
South Park: Snow Day! is a shockingly quick, boring, and perplexingly barebones multiplayer adventure. While the card and co-op system spell potential, the end result ultimately finds itself being more of a false weather warning than an actual blizzard. Die-hard fans may possibly find some enjoyment in this game; however, South Park: Snow Day! misses the mark by and large.
Reviewed on Nintendo Switch. South Park: Snow Day! is also available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
