Dunno how I feel about The Stick of Truth overall as it's essentially a long South Park episode with arbitrary RPG mechanics that are very much like Costume Quest, albeit with slightly more customization options and strategizing. There's a wider variety of skills in The Stick of Truth with QTEs associated with them, but the novelty wears off fast and many of them share very similar (or even the same) button commands; it's mostly mashing a single button, mashing two buttons back and forth, mashing multiple buttons or simply clicking when a sparkle and audio cue occurs.
The most tedious portion of the game is Canada, where you're sent back and forth between several cities on fetch quests. There's the initial gimmick of the country being in an pseudo 8-bit style, but this is already an old gag (see: Super Meat Boy, Penny Arcade etc) and it doesn't really make it more interesting as you're sent all around the map.
Of course, all of this is more or less irrelevant if you're a fan of South Park as you'll likely enjoy it regardless. The lacklustre gameplay mechanics are used as vehicles for the game's humour, which is more the point of the whole thing. Whether you'll find it funny or not is another story; the crowning moment for some people I've heard are the (censored in Australia and Europe) anal probe sequences, a gag which dates back to 1997 for fuck's sake. Admittedly, the Simon Says joke on that level is pretty funny though. A lot of the jokes fall short for me in general, but it's not all bad.
In conclusion, I would only really recommend this to people who like South Park. I'm not a huge fan, but I did enjoy the game regardless; it's certainly not worth the retail price right now for 8 hours of gameplay, but it beats the hell out of the PS1 South Park games. For RPG fans interested in similar mechanics executed better, I would recommend Superstar Saga or Partners in Time.
[ xys ] wrote:
i found the normal difficulty a tad bit too easy, so i'd recommend turning the difficulty up to hardcore in the options menu.
Even Hardcore is pretty piss easy, to be honest.