The Haunted Hoard: Costume Quest 2 (Xbox One)

Sequel escalation is always interesting to see, the desire to raise the stakes in a follow-up title sometimes taking something that started simple into curious new directions. The original Costume Quest was a delightful little adventure about kids transforming into their Halloween costumes to stop monsters from stealing their candy, but after the DLC expansion added in dimensional portals, Costume Quest 2 decides to take things even further, the plot this go around about the same kids trying to stop a dentist from using time travel to ban Halloween and all its associated accoutrements entirely.

The game begins in a very strange way, the main menu depicting the kids from the first game hopping out of a portal in something that might not register as a menu right away. Once they do return to their neighborhood though, the plot about stopping the Halloween-hating dentist kicks off, the kids needing to split their attention between the past, present, and a future where the world has become a dental dystopia overrun with monsters and machines that enforce Dr. White’s anti-Halloween agenda. The game is definitely presented in a comical fashion despite the dental dictatorship, children cracking jokes constantly and scenes existing that are almost purely there for humor’s sake. For example, a jazz band puts on a concert where your character is on the horn… the clown horn, the player encouraged to honk like crazy just for kicks. The Candy Corn costume is a constant source of delight as well, hanging back every round of combat with some excuse on why it’s not fighting and made into the butt of early game jokes about how bad a costume it is until you can finally replace it. Childish behavior and an earnest love for the Halloween season makes for a lighthearted romp no matter what time period you’re in. The efforts to undo the dentist’s attempts to eradicate the holiday don’t take you to too many locations however, a few neighborhoods like one near a bayou and one in the future dictatorship existing, but for the most part the game wants to get all it can from a setting rather than providing a lot of variety.

Playing as siblings Wren and Reynold and joined every now and then by other children in Halloween costumes, the player explores these areas and will often end up in battles with different monsters and minions. While both hero and villain alike are depicted in somewhat cute, cartoony proportions normally, once the fight begins, everyone becomes gigantic and receives a visual upgrade based on what they’re wearing. Monsters will grow more fierce in appearance and be wielding dangerous weapons, but the player characters will all take on forms their costumes represent. For example, if a character is in the tights of a superhero, when the battle starts, they’ll change into a full-grown adult with super strength and the gift of flight. Much of the appeal of Costume Quest 2 is wearing the new costumes found along the adventure and seeing how they’ll manifest in the combat portions. Sure, some are fairly predictable in concept, the wizard costume especially looking exactly how most people would immediately imagine one looking, but there are some fairly creative interpretations as well, such as a hot dog costume that turns the child into a hot dog cerberus that spits condiments at its foes. The costumes available are all new to this Costume Quest game, and there are some interesting picks to be found on top of the expected ones, players able to dress up as staples like a werewolf and unique ideas like Thomas Jefferson, and the animations for some of the costumes are glorious. The clown is a bouncy, ridiculous character who truly lives up to the goofiness you’d expect from an innocent interpretation of the costume, and Jefferson’s special attack will have him write the Declaration of Independence, every enemy in the game having an animation for their reaction to it, although the secret costume perhaps has the most elaborate animations of them all as a reward for taking the time to seek it out.

As for how the battles are fought, they are rather simple. Taking the form of turn-based battles where all player controlled characters act first and then the villains take their turns next, the player only really has a few options on what a character can do on their turn. Each costume has a basic damaging attack and a unique super move, the traits of these changing depending on that costume’s role. There are costumes that are focused on raw power, ones that hit multiple enemies with their attacks, ones that inflict statuses, and costumes more focused on defending by drawing enemy attacks or taking less damage. While the basic attacks of different outfit can have extra effects, the super moves are the bigger deviations, the player able to build up bars for each character to unleash unique skills like heavy damaging moves, player revival, and special moves that are one of the few guaranteed ways to heal during a battle. Timed button presses can make attacks deal more damage or weaken enemies attacks when on defense, but besides small additions like having a follow-up attack or small counter options added over the course of the game, these basics are mostly what you’ll rely on throughout the experience. The game does do a good job of designing its costume niches though, meaning that you can almost always try out a new one and find it useful since the three person team only has a few potential roles to fill. Strength, healing, defense, and status infliction are all you really have to consider, and no costume ever swings too hard in one direction to make it necessary to keep around or necessary to swap out.

There is one more element to the battles though, and those are cards you can equip to give your party access to special powers. All designed after cute joke candies, the cards can provide useful buffs to your team, skirt around rules to give your characters extra turns or instant super meter refills, and increase your prizes from winning such as experience points needed to level up or the haul of candy you receive that works as this game’s form of money and healing. Unlike the previous game, health isn’t replenish after battle, requiring either visits to a healing fountain or the consumption of some candy if you don’t want to use a healing super or card, although the out-of-battle options are so simple and free of consequence they’re hardly a bother. The cards do come up a little short though, mainly because their most useful and interesting combat effects can’t be used on bosses and the regular fights are too easy to require using those abilities, although boss fights aren’t often too hard even with these restrictions. Cards also need a few battles to recharge after use, fights not being abundant enough to really make using the same card too often feasible, but you are given a huge selection of cards across the course of the game, so whipping them out in a fight and then equipping new ones as the others recharge isn’t too much of a task. It’s an aspect of combat that could be done better for sure, and since enemies don’t really fight in the smartest ways or with the hardest attacks, perhaps the cards could have been better emphasized to allow the game to crank up the difficulty of certain fights.

The combat is in acceptable shape though to supplement a game that mostly seems to be having fun with its world and Halloween setting. There are multiple points in the game where you go door to door, knocking to see if the person inside is someone nice with candy or a monster waiting to ambush you, but whether or not this is identified as trick-or-treating changes as the game comes up with kooky explanations for why you might do this in a future where such a thing is banned. Side quests exist in most areas where you can find kids playing hide-and-seek, use costume abilities to open new paths to hidden goodies, and complete other challenges specific to the area. Perhaps a player who isn’t too thorough with these will find fights a bit more challenging, but optional tasks provide plenty of helpful costume upgrades, experience, and candy for buying cards, all while providing other cute interactions along your adventure to make an already charming game that much more delightful.

THE VERDICT: Costume Quest 2 is more of the same holiday fun found in the first game with a few small refinements here and there. The costume-based classes used in combat provide interesting twists on the decent battle system, but much of the game’s enjoyment comes from its humor, Halloween flavor, and a Saturday morning cartoon style plot that is delightfully ridiculous. Talking to characters, doing side quests, and looking forward to the next costume’s interesting interpretation in battle keep this short RPG interesting until the end even if it’s a bit simple and easy overall.

And so, I give Costume Quest 2 for Xbox One…

A GOOD rating. Considering just how much of the game’s mechanics and designs are simply carried over into the sequel with very few alterations or additions, it’s not too strange that it’s about just as good. The combat is still simple to engage with but not complex enough to ask much of the player, but the costumes are balanced well to allow frequent swaps or getting into a comfy set you like. The story is the kind of absurd tale you’d find in some children’s cartoon, and that earnest embrace of childhood delight is what carries much of the experience. Kids are acting like kids here even when they need to save the future, making silly jokes and enjoying Halloween for what it is rather than trying to make the purpose of the adventure something grand or deeply meaningful. They just want Halloween back from an over-the-top time-traveling dentist, and their wacky costumes will help them stop the monsters that dentist has recruited to his side.

Costume Quest 2 is another go from Double Fine Productions to provide a charming Halloween experience, the simple mechanics that hold it together doing a good enough job that it doesn’t drag despite being easy and straightforward. It’s a game to laugh at, an innocent reflection of why kids love the holiday, and an accessible RPG for those same kids to play. While there are definitely ways the developers could adjust the experience to be more complex or difficult without completely breaking that intended tone and style, Costume Quest 2 is still a nice game to whip out and play when October rolls around.