Compared to the last game, this story is a lot better! The characters are a bit more developed, and I like that your twin is always on your team no matter what, really proving that they've become closer after the last game! Loved the time-travel plot- It's fun to see characters you recognize from previous games in the future and characters from this current game in the past. Again, aside from more "of the time" fat jokes (expected, but disappointing nonetheless) the writing is pretty decent again. In the last game I liked Everett and Lucy but they didn't have a lot of character moments, mainly focusing on the twins (I'm almost certain that Lucy only got like, 2 lines of dialogue or so before she joined the party) but in this game I liked the characters a lot more. Monty was my favorite :)
Aside from the story, the gameplay I think is what brought the score down a bit. It's fun and I think if I hadn't played the previous game before playing this (which I hadn't when I first played this) I'd like the battle mechanics a lot more, but I think the first game is a lot better. Each costume had specific quick-time-events, so if you could have a chance to have a team with three completely different quick-time-events, that which makes it fun and exciting! In this game, all the attacks are the same- hitting the corresponding button at the right time and either getting a "great!" or "amazing" (the buttons are different per character but it's still all the same) I feel like it could be fun, but it gets painfully repetitive after a while. The first few battles, before you get a better costume for your twin, were hard to sit through. The Candy Corn costume was a very funny bit, and it's good if you like to have a designated defense character, but again. Painfully repetitive. I felt like I was slogging through the first few battles. The specials are cool! I like how the special charge carries over from battle to battle, which is something I think was lacking in the other games. However! I really really loved Battle Stamps in the previous game. It was one of my favorite features and it made battles a lot easier and more fun (ex: some battle stamps allowed you to counterattack! How fun!) and I think getting rid of those in exchange for Creepy Treat cards (which had much more boring designs in this game :( I liked how they looked in the last game) you have to waste a turn mid-battle to use them and don't allow a lot of the cool powerups that the previous game was a major downfall. I think if given more chances to grind or just give more exp for some enemies, I'd forgive it more, but there weren't a lot of chances for either and I felt a bit under-leveled and weak in some battles.
I liked the character designs again, but some of the costumes were a tiny tiny bit boring. You don't get a lot of costumes back to back to back like in the previous game, which makes sense for the story, but it left me a tiny bit bored with the designs. Though, the powerups were a really good idea, being able to both up a character's stats and change their costume design was cool! The enemy design wasn't all that memorable- I loved the bosses though! The time lord guy I forgot the name of had the coolest design possible. The little time witches were cool too. The dentist robots were neat, I liked the designs of those a lot.

Liked the game but it's definitely not as cool gameplay-wise as the previous game. Liked the story a lot, though! 3 out of 5, another good family game.

Costume Quest 2 is a good sequel to the original game but in all honesty, a good stand alone title as well. I had originally played this before the first game back on the PS4, but this time around on Xbox I played the series in order.

There are a good amount of improvements to the last game with the ability to use abilities as cards in combat and have more variety in your fighting style, but the target timing button press isn't as fun as the combat in the first game.

New costumes and a new story are always good but the environments felts too similar and I found that the first title was better imo. Fighting a dentist who rules the world in the future vs the previous game's monsters and magic are different, but the later was a cooler concept.

I'd love to see a third game for modern systems with more costumes and another story, but I'm unsure of what they could do these days.

Spoiler only discussed at the very bottom

I wish I could be more enthusiastic writing this review, but I gotta be upfront with you guys- Costume Quest 2 was not fun. Not only does it do nothing to fix any of the issues I had with the first (minus one alleviant that has its own shortfalls), but it also saps the charm its predecessor at least coasted on when the gameplay faltered. The story is underdeveloped, the protagonists less individualistic, and the combat as atrocious as before. I don’t recommend it in any way, shape, or form.

When we last left off, the quartet were stranded in a plane of existence housing multiple portals. Unfortunately, there is no save transfer, meaning you’re going to get some discontinuity with the costumes the four are wearing here versus at the end of your Grubbins on Ice playthrough (an aspect that’ll prop up multiple times, but more on that later). Those who thought this would lead to some Rick and Morty-esque traversals through different dimensions with their own takes on Allhallowtide celebrations would be wrong as you are instead provided a basic time travel tale: the twins’ resident dentist, Orel, is scheming with time wizards to remove the holiday for good.

I know it’s dumb to dissect a lighthearted plot for its holes, but consistent worldbuilding is imperative when it comes to any fictional project. No matter how silly the tone, if you do not have coherent rules, your story will crumble and consequently lose viewer interest. These wizards, led by a sage named Kronoculus, appear out of nowhere: we aren’t told why they’re making a deal with Orel, why they care about removing Halloween, or why they’re so incompetent if they can control time. It may seem strange, but their parallels in the first Costume Quest were all addressed: Dorsilla’s magic gave her power and influence over the Repugians; they were targeting Halloween in order to amass enough confectionaries for Big Bones; and the Grubbins were regular blue collar workers who hated their job and subsequently privy to labor mishaps.

It’s a shame that the narrative wanes as often as it does because there was potential for an actual emotional climax(+). Yet that wasn’t to be, and you’re alternatively left with the generic goal of trying to save the timeline from culminating into a candyless dystopia.

Gone too, are the personalities of the Twins. The prior game glided on their conflicting demeanors and burgeoning acknowledgment that they loved each other: now, they’re just lackeys for whatever MacGuffin the other characters set them out to retrieve. There are moments when they get some one liners here and there, but overall they’re silent protagonists in spirit.

I mentioned earlier that one drawback from CQ1 was resolved, and that was the lack of player control over speech. You were forced to essentially sit back and wait for this recording to play out, no matter how fast or slow your pace of reading. The sequel fixes things by adding a control trigger, but this is offset by the transitions going from one pose to another. It’s like you’re reading a comic book, with the next character’s line of speech being associated with a complete shift in their posture, facial expressions, or even location. The result was jarring and lazy, as though the developers were unable to program a stationary camera showcasing these adjustments occurring between conversations in-real-time.

Graphically, Costume Quest 2 hasn’t changed much: you can read my critique of the first game for a full breakdown (https://backloggd.com/u/RedBackLoggd/review/279063/), but the character models and architecture are more-or-less unaltered. The decor of Hallow’s Eve is also more diminished this time around, being substituted with a nighttime vibrancy dependent on the district you’re in (the Jazzy French Quarter is decked with pink and purple stage lighting; old Auburn Pines a dilapidated neighborhood of Autumnal plainness; New Repugia a smokey metropolis of LED signposts and economic grit). As you can probably guess, there are a lot more locations this time around compared to CQ1, and the aesthetic minutiae were evidently planned to a tee by Double Fine. Unfortunately, while I do understand wanting to avoid rehashing the prequel’s atmosphere, the lack of an overarching theme does leave something to be desired in a game that is technically focused on Halloween.

The only real visual downside I found was the occasional costume clipping during trick-or-treat cutscenes. On that note, let’s talk about the gameplay: it’s literally the exact same. Progressing from one region to the next entails you doing a series of quests whilst engaging in combat with the monsters roaming about; 99% of these tasks (including side ones) consisting of fetch quests. Though a few involve interacting with some eccentric individuals, the majority are boring and forgettable, whether it’s playing hide-and-seek with the local kids, trading cards, or collecting candy/packages (read: trick-or-treating) for the occasional mook.

What brings down the whole experience, however, is the combat. It’s a good thing my rant from the first game remains true, as I don’t have to waste words explaining why it’s so bad, so if you want to know why it (and the RPG elements in general) fail, head over to that page. To be fair, a few adjustments have been made: one, sticky treat cards replace battle stamps from before and can be used by any character; two, the Repugians are replaced with a greater diversity of enemies (though they still go down the same); and three, taking a cue from the first two Paper Marios, there’s now a collision meter whenever you attack/defend that increases the power of each the closer you tap it to the moment of contact between you and the foe. Sadly, it’s diminished by the fact that you don’t unlock it’s full usage until close to the endgame, and it ultimately doesn’t do much to modify the repetitious nature of brawls. And while there are more than 10 levels this time around, I honestly went out of my way to avoid fighting whenever I could because of how monotonous such scenarios got.

Not only is the customization the same, but you’re often forced to reacquire and rehash suit powers that you used to own before, like the light sword for navigating dark alleys and the pirate hook for riding ziplines. That Double FIne couldn’t come up with any more unique abilities is definitely disappointing. Oh well, at least the menu interface is a lot cleaner, and you start off with the rocket boots by default, allowing you to burst drift from the get-go.

The one area Costume Quest 2 improves upon its progenitor is the sound. Attacks have a lot more force behind them, allowing you to feel the impact of whatever strike you throw out. I also enjoyed the score more this time around, the main theme being catchy, the battle music invigorating, and the ragtime tunes of a Saxophone as soothing as ever. On the downside, there is still no voice acting, and Costume Quest 2 is definitely a title that would have benefitted from the inclusion of vocalizations, at least for its main players.

That’s about all I can say on the subject. Despite being thematically appropriate, I do not recommend you waste your Halloween indulging in Costume Quest 2. It adds nothing to the original (minus retconning it to have a happier ending for the Grubbins), drains it of its charm, and doesn’t fix any of its qualms. Play something else.

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The idea of resolving Orel’s childhood abuse by using his past self to confront his future self was intriguing, and hearkened back to Goob from Meet the Robinsons. But it’s rushed and not delved into. Their sole interaction is reduced to a brief dabbling in Faustian bargaining.

It’s a shame too as seeing the adult Orel having a secret trick-or-treating facility was heartbreaking, yet confronting the trauma that lead to this situation is tossed out the window in favor of his adolescent version simply declaring he won’t turn into a loser. Wren stealing the talisman from him at the last minute (indicating, as the adult points out, a lack of trust in the kid coming to the right decision on his own) is just brushed aside.

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Really a step down from its predecessor. It's a game that hurts the good clean fun of the original. The story is by the numbers garbage. With odd story decisions like taking out the two minority characters from the original game and making them into side characters. Then they make the genius decision to pair them up in the future such that they have a child together. Really not a fan of shipping kids, it's kinda sick actually. Then the story does some dumb "authoritarian" dentist story, but it really just tries too hard and without the depth that something like that would require. It tries to take the aesthetic of stuff that is considered "authoritarian" but without much nuance. Talk about shallow! The original game was a fun romp with a cast of wacky kids. This time around, the fun aspect felt secondary to the mess of a storyline. Also, the level design was kinda shit. The only redeeming factor for me was the hot dog costume, that was sick.