After completing Costume Quest 1 earlier this year, I was looking forward to playing 2 and grabbed it in the Halloween sale. If you want to know about that one, I suggest you go read my review on it as a lot is similar.

Second Verse

Just like the first game, this is a wonderfully quirky game with so many jokes that I was frequently laughing out loud. In particular, the Candy Corn costume always made me giggle, despite reading the joke 50+ times. There was less meta-humour in this one than the first, but it was never boring.

The combat is very similar to the first, but improved overall. There is now only a single form of attack (compared to various QTE-styles in the first game), but they’ve added additional mechanics like countering that add another dimension to combat. They also added ‘actor types’ which are a basic form of strengths and weaknesses split between 3 classes; it sounds odd, but it’s easy to understand and it adds a tactical edge.

Like with CQ1, however, I did tend to stick to the first costume you get and swap out the third as I went (the second was always Candy Corn for the achievement), but as the visuals are interesting and the cutscene moves are now skippable, that isn’t too big an issue.

A Bigger Issue

One issue I should mention is this game was very easy. I only failed perhaps two fights (and one was because of a glitch), but I did do some grinding in places for XP and candy (in-game currency). The boss fights were very straight forward and fit SO MUCH better into the flow of the game compared to the almost puzzle-like ones in CQ1.

The story is clever and moves on from the first with just enough nods and references to 1 to induce nostalgia. They would, however, go over the heads of anyone who hasn’t played 1, so definitely play that before this. It is a sequel in every sense.

This was a fantastic game that kept all the good feelings I had for 1 and added to them, creating its own individual experience that fits beautifully into the Costume Quest universe.

Well worth your time, money and laughter.