The last game released in May - for those Xbox One owners with a Gold membership - was Costume Quest 2, the sequel to Double Fine’s original master piece. I must admit I never played the first one and I did not really know what to expect when playing the sequel, but I don't think you need to worry too much about this; especially as I have had fun playing it.
For one I loved the graphical style which takes the form of a notebook view for your quest book/stat sheets and a kid’s drawing for the maps. In-game the character animation is also fun and has a cartoon feel.
The setting for the game takes place around Halloween; hence you dress up in costumes looking for candy treats. You primarily play as a character called ‘Reynold’, but you are also joined by a band of friends, usually ‘Wren’ and later another member tags along i.e. 'Monty'.
At first I thought it was an inspired adventure game, as you take on quests and side quests in order to restore Halloween, which has been wiped out by an Evil Dentist and his minions. To twist matters further the game involves plenty of time travel, as you nip between the past and future; so you interact with older versions of the friends you meet – this is a nice touch.
Combat can be fun!
However later on the cute nature turns on its head as you delve into Child of Light JRPG style turned based combat; the costumes you were using for trick or treat transform into battle harden combat suits!
Combat (ranged or melee) involves using a series of timed button presses as you control yourself and your friends characters and each turn allows you to attack the highlighted enemy (each displaying their own health bar and abilities). Once you finish your attack the opposing force unleashes their’s, so you need more timed button presses to form a defence.
Later by visiting ‘Corvus’ (your fighting guru) you can learn new attack/defence moves and add special treat cards to the combat arena in order to help balance the fight in your favour.
After a while you can even build up a special attack move which is generated by forming successful hits on the enemies and this adds a cool cartoon style animation.
Thus, to begin with the combat is refreshing and fun (more so when you get harder opponents), especially as it gives you a break from the cute quests that you take on.
Sadly as the game progresses combat can get repetitive, mainly because you feel as if you are constantly tripping up on enemies that scatter the land.
You also don’t heal after combat, so you need to make sure you eat some candy (which restores health) before the next encounter, otherwise you need to run away! At least the loading times are nippy - ed!
On the flip-side your special combat move power meter also remains the same, so you can use this as a tactic for future attacks.
Quests
Quests however do take precedence and while you can’t fast travel (from what I could tell) and map locations are only viewable after they are bought (and even then it won’t reveal too much detail), you can press the left trigger to zip about the current locations and this is fun. Locations incidentally vary depending on the time-line you are in; though most have a Halloween inspired theme.
A lot for the in-game wandering - between quests - involves smashing pumpkins and trash cans to earn candy (which is also the main currency in the game). However you can look for secrets during the wondering phases and these can reveal new parts for clothing items i.e. to build more costumes.
Some of these are found in the main quests, such as a Gandalf inspired wizard costume. The latter will then allow you to not only perform differently in combat, but it does aid in the location of areas in other quests.
You also have basic interaction with NPC’s, but a lot of the conversations are repeated and yet sometimes it pays to keep asking question just in case they reveal any new info as the quest unfolds. Some examples of a quest involve joining a small street band so you can get recognition from the tourists. You then take this reputation to join an up-market jazz band in order to earn money, which then in turn provides you with the next item for continuing the quest.
I must admit some quests take a bit of time to complete, unless you put your thinking cap on. However its not perfect as in one quest I was stuck, only to realise that I had not actioned a particular move (some costumes, which you can switch between, have powers that you use in the quest phase) on a NPC character in the proper angle.
Some people have stated that the game is quite short and currently I’m at the 5 hour mark of gameplay, so it’s hard to tell if I’m close to finishing or not; though according to the achievement side I have only unlocked 28%, so there should be more life in the game.
Summary
For free though (albeit with a Gold Membership) I can’t complain too much and for the most part I think it’s a great little game to pass the time away; especially if you are waiting for other games to install. The repetitive nature could be a problem if you let it, but combat can be avoided; though you will miss out on XP and in turn have problems facing of against some of the harder adversaries. You have until the 15th June to download the title, so I reckon it’s still worth a gander if you missed it the first time around!