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Here's what I'll say about the game itself, after ranting about the unwanted, unnecessary, worse-than-useless dogshit that was vomited onto the PC version of the game.
The story was good... up until (spoilers, but I don't really give a fuck) the asinine Mitch Conner crap came into play. And then, even despite that, the story still managed to be passably okay... around that, as in all the set pieces that you were sent to as a result of Mitch Conner's actions but which didn't specifically revolve around Mitch Conner were still pretty cool, but whenever Mitch Conner/The Coon/Eric Cartman himself was onscreen and the story focused on him specifically, it just fell to shit, in my opinion. (The story of Stick of Truth, in my opinion, was much better, and flowed better as well.)
Beyond the story, the gameplay was pretty cool. Turn-based combat, set on a grid, so... kind of like a tactical RPG, in the manner of, like, Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea or whatever, sort of. I don't know, I don't play that many tactical RPGs, honestly. You have up to four characters in battle, including the New Kid/Douchebag/Butthole/whatever the other kids call him (i.e. your player character), with the option to summon in additional minions, if you or your companions have the abilities to do so. As the New Kid, you eventually get up to four simultaneous classes (out of 10 total [12 if you have the DLC, though I haven't played that yet]), and you can swap to new classes pretty much whenever you want, and from each of those classes, you can mix and match any of the skills you want, though you can only have four active at once (one of which is an Ultimate attack that you can only use once a bar fills up in combat, though it's shared with all of your party members). In any case, the combat was more involved, in a lot of ways, than the combat of Stick of Truth, in which you could only have one additional companion in pure turn-based combat, though there was a lot more item/equipment customization in Stick of Truth than in the sequel. The costumes in Fractured But Whole are purely cosmetic, unlike in Stick of Truth, where they actually had different stats and abilities.
Aside from the combat, the gameplay, as with Stick of Truth, involves simply wandering around the entirety of the town of South Park, looking at stuff, stealing stuff, breaking stuff, talking to people, punching people and farting on people to see their reactions. (Farting is a big deal in this game, and the story kind of revolves around it, as was the case in Stick of Truth.) There are lots of side-quests and companion quests outside of the main story. There are also some mild Metroidvania/Zelda-ish elements, i.e. there are places you will be barred from going until you have gained new abilities later in (both of) the game(s) which allow you to get around whatever obstacles that were barring your path before.
In this second playthrough, I played as a girl character. Specifically, a "Pansexual Cisgender Girl." That's another thing that's funny/weird about the game. Throughout the course of the gameplay, you're filling out your character sheet/bio, with things like your gender, orientation, alignment, religion, economic level, etc. It's interesting. In Stick of Truth, it was just assumed by everyone that your character was a boy, and since the character is mute for the vast majority of the game, he/she never told anyone differently. Even the New Kid's parents referred to him as boy for the entire game. That said, there were girly costumes that you could wear (and, in fact, needed to wear at one point for a quest). In The Fractured But Whole, if you choose to have your character identify as a girl, some of the characters in the game acknowledge this, but the main kids still just treat you as a boy, apparently because they simply don't know any better. Mostly. They do tend to comment on you supposedly looking more feminine than a typical boy, but otherwise, it makes little difference to the game as a whole.
The main raison d'etre of the game(s), like the show, is to be as ridiculously offensive and raunchy and potty-mouthed and disgusting as possible, which is why it's funny as hell (YMMV, obviously). If you've seen the show at all (I haven't seen much of it, admittedly, but still), you know what to expect. If not... well, think of it like The Simpsons or Family Guy or whatever, except hopped up on PCP or shrooms or something. If you're easily offended and prone to hurt feelings, then stay far, far, far away. Otherwise, it could be a funny experience. Like I said in the previous post, it actually makes me want to watch more of the show now. (EDIT 2) And since writing this post, I have seen up through around halfway through season 8. It's pretty good... though I got kind of burned out on it, which is why I haven't seen past that point, yet. (/EDIT 2)
As mentioned above, I still haven't played any of the DLC yet in this playthrough. I'm pretty sure I never played any of the DLC during my first playthrough, a few years ago, either, for whatever reason. In any case, I'll be playing that later, now that I've completed the main story in this playthrough. (EDIT) Yeah... I never played the DLC before. Pretty sure I'd have remembered fighting vampires in a Mexican restaurant with Michael Jackson (who they kept calling "Corey Haim") as the last boss. (/EDIT)
I'm going to put the game recommendations tag on this, but not for the PC version of the game (even though that's the version I played myself), at least not while the Denuvo malware is still infecting it. As I said in the other post, if I'd known beforehand that the game was infested with that shit, I'd have never bought or played it myself. If you have the option to play it on a console, I'd highly suggest doing that instead.
The story was good... up until (spoilers, but I don't really give a fuck) the asinine Mitch Conner crap came into play. And then, even despite that, the story still managed to be passably okay... around that, as in all the set pieces that you were sent to as a result of Mitch Conner's actions but which didn't specifically revolve around Mitch Conner were still pretty cool, but whenever Mitch Conner/The Coon/Eric Cartman himself was onscreen and the story focused on him specifically, it just fell to shit, in my opinion. (The story of Stick of Truth, in my opinion, was much better, and flowed better as well.)
Beyond the story, the gameplay was pretty cool. Turn-based combat, set on a grid, so... kind of like a tactical RPG, in the manner of, like, Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea or whatever, sort of. I don't know, I don't play that many tactical RPGs, honestly. You have up to four characters in battle, including the New Kid/Douchebag/Butthole/whatever the other kids call him (i.e. your player character), with the option to summon in additional minions, if you or your companions have the abilities to do so. As the New Kid, you eventually get up to four simultaneous classes (out of 10 total [12 if you have the DLC, though I haven't played that yet]), and you can swap to new classes pretty much whenever you want, and from each of those classes, you can mix and match any of the skills you want, though you can only have four active at once (one of which is an Ultimate attack that you can only use once a bar fills up in combat, though it's shared with all of your party members). In any case, the combat was more involved, in a lot of ways, than the combat of Stick of Truth, in which you could only have one additional companion in pure turn-based combat, though there was a lot more item/equipment customization in Stick of Truth than in the sequel. The costumes in Fractured But Whole are purely cosmetic, unlike in Stick of Truth, where they actually had different stats and abilities.
Aside from the combat, the gameplay, as with Stick of Truth, involves simply wandering around the entirety of the town of South Park, looking at stuff, stealing stuff, breaking stuff, talking to people, punching people and farting on people to see their reactions. (Farting is a big deal in this game, and the story kind of revolves around it, as was the case in Stick of Truth.) There are lots of side-quests and companion quests outside of the main story. There are also some mild Metroidvania/Zelda-ish elements, i.e. there are places you will be barred from going until you have gained new abilities later in (both of) the game(s) which allow you to get around whatever obstacles that were barring your path before.
In this second playthrough, I played as a girl character. Specifically, a "Pansexual Cisgender Girl." That's another thing that's funny/weird about the game. Throughout the course of the gameplay, you're filling out your character sheet/bio, with things like your gender, orientation, alignment, religion, economic level, etc. It's interesting. In Stick of Truth, it was just assumed by everyone that your character was a boy, and since the character is mute for the vast majority of the game, he/she never told anyone differently. Even the New Kid's parents referred to him as boy for the entire game. That said, there were girly costumes that you could wear (and, in fact, needed to wear at one point for a quest). In The Fractured But Whole, if you choose to have your character identify as a girl, some of the characters in the game acknowledge this, but the main kids still just treat you as a boy, apparently because they simply don't know any better. Mostly. They do tend to comment on you supposedly looking more feminine than a typical boy, but otherwise, it makes little difference to the game as a whole.
The main raison d'etre of the game(s), like the show, is to be as ridiculously offensive and raunchy and potty-mouthed and disgusting as possible, which is why it's funny as hell (YMMV, obviously). If you've seen the show at all (I haven't seen much of it, admittedly, but still), you know what to expect. If not... well, think of it like The Simpsons or Family Guy or whatever, except hopped up on PCP or shrooms or something. If you're easily offended and prone to hurt feelings, then stay far, far, far away. Otherwise, it could be a funny experience. Like I said in the previous post, it actually makes me want to watch more of the show now. (EDIT 2) And since writing this post, I have seen up through around halfway through season 8. It's pretty good... though I got kind of burned out on it, which is why I haven't seen past that point, yet. (/EDIT 2)
As mentioned above, I still haven't played any of the DLC yet in this playthrough. I'm pretty sure I never played any of the DLC during my first playthrough, a few years ago, either, for whatever reason. In any case, I'll be playing that later, now that I've completed the main story in this playthrough. (EDIT) Yeah... I never played the DLC before. Pretty sure I'd have remembered fighting vampires in a Mexican restaurant with Michael Jackson (who they kept calling "Corey Haim") as the last boss. (/EDIT)
I'm going to put the game recommendations tag on this, but not for the PC version of the game (even though that's the version I played myself), at least not while the Denuvo malware is still infecting it. As I said in the other post, if I'd known beforehand that the game was infested with that shit, I'd have never bought or played it myself. If you have the option to play it on a console, I'd highly suggest doing that instead.
