The best costume in Costume Quest 2 is also the most useless
Costume Quest 2 is Double Fine's first sequel, and the one that, according to Greg Rice, was "probably the most requested besides Psychonauts." What fans wanted was more of the same, and that's what they're getting, right down to Reynold's Candy Corn costume, which was how the whole mess got started in the first Costume Quest. It wasn't a usable costume then, but it is now. A completely useless, utterly awesome costume.
The gimmick for the turn-based combat in Costume Quest 2 is that the trick-or-treating heroes can swap out Halloween costumes, thus granting themselves different attacks. The clown, for example, has a special move called Laughter Is the Best Medicine which heals the party, while the superhero costume comes with devastating uppercuts. The candy corn ... sits there. (It's just a big piece of candy corn, what did you really expect it to do?) It's a hilarious running gag in combat, noted each turn by phrases like "Candy corn is doing calculations" and "Candy corn chooses not to participate."
Though the candy corn never chooses to participate, it's not actually entirely useless. It's a heck of a tank, absorbing damage like mad, and it's also the only way you can earn the "Hard Corn Mode" achievement for completing the game with him in your party, essentially reducing your party to two active members.
Should you choose to give up the candy corn for a slightly more useful outfit, you'll find that all of the costumes of Costume Quest 2 have gotten a very desirable tweak: Heelies. In the original game, only the robot costume had roller skates, and players tended to default to wearing it simply for the speed boost it gave while navigating the world. Now, every costume has roller skates, and Double Fine hopes that will help encourage players to experiment more with the full suite of costumes, some of which will be repeats from the first game, and some of which will be brand new.
The combat itself has also been reworked to be a bit more engaging. It was always meant to be rather simple and accessible, but as players tended to stick with a few favorite costumes and battle cards, fights started to feel very repetitive. Now, each costume has a two hit attack, provided you can time your button presses correctly, and the new Battlecard system - a combination of the buffs and abilities from the previous games Creepy Treat cards and Battle stamps - has cooldowns that will force players to swap out cards more frequently. Double Fine believes the tweaks will invigorate the combat without losing the pick-up-and-play style, says Rice.
Costume Quest 2 will be out for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Wii U, PC, Mac and Linux just in time for Halloween.
