When South Park hit in 1997, it hit right away. Like The Simpsons before it, and COVID-19 after it, one day it was simply everywhere and everyone was freaking out about it. A video game was inevitable, and a trilogy of dogshit Nintendo 64 games did nothing to change the notion that licensed video games were generally trash.
However, I recently learned about an all-but-finished South Park game for the Game Boy Color that was supposedly scrapped at the last minute not due to poor quality or a lack of interest, but because creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone opted at the last minute not to release a game that potty-mouthed on such a kid-friendly platform.
It turns out that a few years ago, a prototype of the ROM was made available online, which is great news! This means that after you send what you feel are appropriate amounts of money to Comedy Central, Paramount, and Stone & Parker, you’re free to download the game and play it yourself!
Unlike a lot of abandoned prototypes and unfinished projects made available on the internet, this is a fully realized game, complete with cutscenes and a soundtrack by chiptune legend Tim Follin. If nothing else, it’s a handful of unearthed tracks from the guy who got assigned the soundtrack to Pictionary on the NES and turned in this absolute banger. (What the hell, Tim?)
Overall the South Park GBC game is fun and suits the show, certainly the first few seasons. The graphics are crude, but is that so bad? I think the Game Boy Color’s simple-but-charming graphic capabilities serve the show’s look wonderfully. Conversely, the South Park N64 game had weird 3D graphics similar to the style they satirically teased in an early preview for the movie, where joke was at least partially “Wouldn’t this look dumb?” This game, like the show and film, understood that flashier doesn’t mean better when it comes to South Park.
Additionally, this cartridge making your Game Boy recite crude renditions of “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” and “Dude, that kicks ass!” at the end of levels is hard not to get a kick out of. To say nothing of this killer rendition of the theme song.
Beyond the sights and sounds, I was happy to discover a perfectly enjoyable character-driven puzzle game. Kenny keeps getting trapped, and you must switch between Kyle, Cartman, and Stan, all of whom have different abilities, to navigate the levels and free your friend. It doesn’t matter if you do, obviously; Kenny dies shortly after being freed every time and you move on to a new set of levels.
Unlike the “Why does this even exist?” nature of the other games of the era, players are given nine different chapters of South Park anchored by engaging gameplay that is inspired and funny. Not bad!
The game’s episodic nature means you’ll see a ton of stuff from the show, from levels set on Ms. Crabtree’s bus and Mr. Garrison’s classroom to boss fights against Damien and UFOs. It truly feels like a game with the show’s DNA, something we wouldn’t get until 2014’s The Stick of Truth, and its 2017 sequel The Fractured But Whole.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying, though. There were three first-wave South Park games released on the Nintendo 64, as well as some other systems. They were three very different titles, and they were all so very, very bad.
Last year me and some of the knuckleheads that were still writing for Hard Drive at the time played and ranked all 296 Nintendo 64 Games that were released in North America. The immeasurably talented and funny Chandler Dean wrote up two of the SP games, and I did the other one. Here’s a summary of what we said:
South Park Rally (#288 of 296)
…I came to realize that in other racing games, we often fail to appreciate how wonderful it is to know where you are supposed to be going and how you are supposed to get there. Instead of simply circling around a set path, South Park Rally is one of very few racing games to embrace FromSoftware-style open world hostility; you’re free to go wherever you want, but you’re fucked if you don’t take one highly specific route. Other things we’ve taken for granted? Controls that work, sound that’s audible, AI that’s beatable, and most of all: a game that’s playable. South Park Rally succeeds only as an exercise in cynicism. Acclaim took this beloved franchise, chopped it up, fed it to us, and licked up our tears. Jesus Christ, dude. — Chandler Dean
South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack (#267 of 296)
It’s obvious that the developers think South Park is just a bunch of poop jokes—when in reality, South Park is a bunch of poop jokes with an underlying theme of libertarian nihilism. The questions are wanting; you get a little South Park trivia and a lot of Snapple facts hastily rephrased as questions. The handful of minigames wouldn’t make the front page of Newgrounds. — Chandler Dean
South Park (#231 of 296)
I found it’s really not worth trudging through this game’s big empty levels to hear Kyle say “No way, dude!” and a bunch of not-that-funny-today Season One era bits. It’s really too bad that this floaty first person shooter missed the mark, because a halfway fun four-player South Park game would have been absolutely obsessed over by a generation of youths, played in between sessions of Mario Kart and GoldenEye. Sadly, they blew it, and its legacy is merely that it’s one of three South Park games for the system that quite simply should not be. — M. Roebuck
There you have it. A trilogy of awful games that would have been bested by the canceled one. I get that the Game Boy was geared toward kids, but wasn’t that the perception of Nintendo at large? I assure you, I wasn’t gathering with adults to play Mario Party and WaveRace 64 back in those days. Aborting the Game Boy cart and releasing three games on the 64 hardly seems consistent. Especially when you consider that mature-themed games like Resident Evil Gaiden, Metal Gear Solid, and Survival Kids all released on the Game Boy Color. Big whup!
I said this once already, and it might seem obvious or unimportant, but I’d like to stress that in 1997, South Park was everywhere. Sure, it might have been inappropriate for a kid’s console, but South Park merchandise was hardly kept away from children in other aspects. Hell I leveled up two whole social tiers because I got this shirt from Spencer’s Gifts in the 8th grade.
It was extra funny because I myself was a little fat boy
A few years later, in a post-Columbine world, the South Park movie is the one film I remember proving to be inaccessible to me due to its R-rating and the sensitivity in the air around media and age appropriateness. How fitting that the film showed how kids are going to lie to their parents and seek out the “harmful” media they want to consume no matter what. I don’t think too many more or less kids would’ve played South Park on the Game Boy than they did on the N64.
With the cancellation of this game, Parker and Stone were no better than Kyle’s mom, the big fat bitch. It’s too bad, because it’s actually pretty good. If you don’t believe me, check out The New Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley, because that’s what the South Park game was crudely reskinned into. You play as Mary-Kate, Ashley, and their dog Clue. None of them get killed, if you’re wondering.
And I’m pretty sure they got rid of this scene altogether
Thanks for reading Skitching the Elephant! Subscribe for free to receive everything I publish on here.
Thanks for reading. Sorry it’s been a minute. As I detailed in a previous post, I’ve changed the newsletter/website to being entirely free, and with that comes a more sporadic posting schedule. However, I am excited about continuing Skitching the Elephant, and have several more posts already cooking up.
Subscribe to get everything for free, and check out our shirt if you like shirts with elephants on them!
