I'm not at all interested in all the menus, skills and perk stuff that was showcased in the Quick Look.

I just want the Stick of Truth experience - go through the funny story and fight mofos. I'm not interested in building my character.

Can this be done or will I get annihilated in the combat if my character doesn't have perks and skills?

@howardian: The story missions are gated by a might level. So if you don't use that stuff, you wont probably wont be able to beat a 250 might story mission at your base 0 might level. I tried fighting a 500 might mission at 300 last night and got wrecked. I tried the fight 10 times and it felt like no matter what I did I wasn't going to be able to get past it. It was a side mission, optional, but still. If you don't use that stuff, I don't see how you could get past the story stuff. since those do slowly ramp up.

But to clear that up. Its not like there is a lot there. The might stuff is basically just using equipment. And the "RPG" stuff about classes, is how you use your attacks. So without using that you'd just use the same three attacks the whole game. Which the starting stuff becomes pretty weak in the second act, which forces you to use other class attacks and mix and match. So really I don't see how you could not use any of the "RPG" menu stuff and get through his game to the end.

What yes you will be destroyed. It’s an rpg. That stuff wouldn’t be there if all it did was slowly make the game easier and easier. You have to level up. Pick something at random or whatever.

Is there an auto level feature?

@opusofthemagnum: There's no auto-level, but it really isn't a big issue to begin with. All you have to do is equip artifacts into your slots.
Just keep replacing them with higher might number artifacts you receive as rewards or craft. That all there is to it.

The game's pretty easy on the normal difficulty already. Just pick the artifacts with higher numbers and don't bother with the second and third class you get past then tutorial and you'll probably be fine on the easiest difficulty.

just mash on the higher number and then leave the menu. shit aint dwarf fortress fam.

Any rpg with these systems without all the bad South park humor?

That sounds like such a drag.. thanks for the explanation.

So I'll always be getting these better artifacts automatically as rewards for finish the missions?

@howardian: You do get a lot of artifacts from mission rewards.

However, crafting and upgrading artifacts takes you just a few seconds. You might get an artifact recipe which then shows up at the top of your crafting menu and it will tell you if it is an upgrade over what you have equipped. It is one button to craft it and another to equip it, that's it. We are talking about less than 10 seconds for the entire process here, and new artifacts can last you a long, long time. I think my character has 8 artifact slots right now, and at least 4 of them I've had for like the last 6 or 8 hours of gameplay.

Even mission reward artifacts need to be equipped, though. So you're looking at spending 5 seconds to equip an artifact that you just got from a mission compared to 10 seconds to craft one and then equip it. Compared to how long this game is overall, the crafting and RPG menu portion is practically nothing.

I’m really curious how one develops an aversion to this stuff so strong that they literally don’t want to go into any menus.

Do you try to use smartphones purely through voice controls? Do you refuse to use ATM machines at all? Aren’t these forums a series of menus?

@mike: Thanks for the thorough reply, I ended up getting the game and went through the artifact stuff relatively quickly, and am enjoying the experience.

I don't mind going through complex menus or understanding a bunch of intertwined systems when I'm in the mood for it. South Park, however, is not when I'm in that mood, it's when I want to completely turn my brain off and enjoy the silly humor and missions.