Costume Quest 2 takes the idea of becoming your costume and turns it into a sweet, silly game, where each outfit has its own powers both in and outside of battles. Cleopatra can raise people from the dead, the pterodactyl can flap away obstacles and Thomas Jefferson can negotiate with people or diplomatically explode enemies with the Declaration of Devastation.
This all takes place in a time-hopping dystopia where poor, sugar deprived child Orel White grows up to be a dictatorial dentist with plans to take over the world to ensure perfect dental hygiene by banning Halloween. There are jokes stuffed in all over the place a small child dressed as the devil challenges you to a musical battle, playing the fiddle while you toot a clown horn; dressing up as Candy Corn in battle is utterly useless, but the sugar lump will spout one-liners like, “Candy Corn is sick of this charade,” or, “If Candy Corn had arms, this fight would be SO over.”
Turn based battling focuses on strategic combinations of fighters, with a Pokémon-style strengths and weaknesses system that’s broad enough to rise above rock-paper-scissors and timed button taps to beef up your impact. Alas, the fighting gets repetitive quickly, even with a rotating cast of monsters and outfits even special attacks and reusable buffs fail to elevate scraps to much more than a slightly too long grind.
That said, it’s hard not to love anything that comes out of the minds of Double Fine and Tim Schafer, coated as they are in genuinely good humour, adorable art styles and generally enjoyable gameplay. Sweet.