A few years ago, Double Fine crafted a turn-based RPG with an unusual premise revolving around kids wearing costumes and trick or treating for candy at Halloween.  So what better way to celebrate the Christmas season than with a review of the sequel!  Hey, it worked for Nightmare Before Christmas, right?  To be fair, Costume Quest 2 was released a few days before Halloween, but I’ve been pretty busy and just now got a chance to review it.  Anyway, the sequel takes place right where the original left off.  After saving Halloween in the first game and in the expansion pack: Grubbins on Ice, brother and sister Wren and Reynold are ready to take the portal home.  When they get back, Halloween is saved, but the two kids notice their dentist, Dr. White, sneaking around.  They follow him and find him talking to a mysterious Time Wizard, and then he jumps through a time portal.  Just then, the kids’ costumes and candy and all of Halloween disappear!  Now it’s up to the two siblings to travel in time to the past and future, get their costumes back, and prevent the evil dentist from ridding the world of candy and Halloween forever!  Costume Quest 2 is available to download on most current gen consoles, but reviewed on PS3 here.

In the game, you move the kids around various locations, like a bayou trailer park in the past and a schoolyard from the future.  In most areas are people you can talk to, treasures to find, and candy to collect.  If you find a house with a light on, you can knock on the door to trick or treat to get candy, but watch out as a monster may be inside waiting for you, too!  As you play, you’ll find pieces and parts to costumes.  Collect them all and you’ll be able to dress in that costume.  Outfits give you various abilities, both in battle and in the overworld.  For instance, wearing the clown costume lets you honk a horn, scaring certain animals away or for getting people’s attention.  And the pterodactyl costume lets you flap away piles of leaves that block your progress.

When you bump into an enemy, you’ll start a turn-based battle.  The neat thing is that the kids can turn into whatever costume their wearing in the overworld, so you’ll be fighting as things like a clown, superhero, pterodactyl, even Thomas Jefferson!  You can also dress as candy corn which does nothing in battle, but is handy if you want to unlock the “Hardcorn Mode” trophy or achievement.

I never played the first game outside the demo, so I don’t really know what’s been improved or added to the sequel.  I know that in the overworld, all characters can roll fast and you don’t need the robot costume to do it.  And in battle, I think they now give you picture cues to make performing your timed attacks a little easier.  As you give blows and take hits, a special meter will fill up and then you can use a special move.  Most of these moves are just more powerful attacks, but some can heal your party as well.  You can also find “Creepy Treat” trading cards in chests, after battles, or by purchasing them with candy.  You can use these cards in battle to give you an edge as well.  But be careful as once you use one, you won’t be able to use it again in battle for a while.

Costume Quest 2’s biggest strength is that it really captures the whimsical spirit and imagination of being a kid on Halloween and dressing up and going door to door to get candy.  But charm can only get you so far.  The meat of the gameplay: the battles, really aren’t that interesting and don’t do anything new or innovative, so it didn’t really draw me in like I thought it would.  And sometimes goals and objectives can be a bit unclear, too.  However, this doesn’t make it a bad game.  It just means that I’ve gotten more selective about my RPGs as I’ve grown older.  If you enjoy cute RPGs with a unique setting and love Halloween in general, you should check out this game and the first one anyway.

Kid Factor:

Costume Quest 2 is rated E-10 with an ESRB descriptor of Fantasy Violence.  In battles, characters punch, bounce, and swipe at enemies, as well as other silly cartoony attacks like throwing a bus at them.  But defeated characters just fall over and disappear.  Reading skill is a must with all the text, and younger gamers may get frustrated at some of the more unclear objectives and challenging battles.

Tags: Game Reviews