The Stick of Truth, a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) released in early 2014, is still arguably one of the best licensed games, well, ever, and many of the lessons learned in that game’s development have translated to the newest South Park release, The Fractured But Whole, which hits store shelves Tuesday. New efforts at serialization helped keep the show relevant in the past few years, beginning – coincidentally or not –the season after the release of the last South Park video game.
Each new episode can respond to the world around it in nearly real-time, including entire plotlines sprung from one negative article written the previous week. Much of that can be credited to the show’s immediacy, which has always been one of its key strengths. Even if it’s not brilliant every week, the storytelling capabilities of creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have gotten better with time, not worse.
It’s kind of amazing that, 21 seasons in, South Park is still worth watching.
