Costume Quest

By Mr. Tropnevad

Summary

In Costume Quest you play a child (boy or girl) that is trick-or-treating when a monster kidnaps the sibling that you do not choose to play. As one of the siblings you must travel through a neighborhood, mall, and a fair collecting costume items, candy, and companions to rescue your sibling and send the monsters back to their home dimension.


Expectations

This came out in 2010 and I forgot that I had even bought this and to my surprise along with several other Xbox Live Arcade tittles. After the failure of Double Fine’s last two disc based console games the studio decided it would be easier to stick to downloadable titles on XBL, PSN, and of course Steam. This was their first game to come out as a download game so expectations from me where just so-so. I thought for a $15 game I couldn’t really go wrong as long as I was getting at least five hours or more into it. Don’t get me wrong about Double Fine though, I love everything the studio has done especially Psychonauts and Brutal Legend. I am a huge fan of Tim Schafer, so naturally I am going to eventually get around to playing his studio's games, but that doesn’t mean all of the games are worth buying for some people.

The Bad

This game does disappoint in its length with only having three areas to explore. With few areas to explore I was able to finish all the quests and find every costume way too quickly. The other problem is that due to its short length I believe I beat the game in less than six hours and while that is disappointing I was glad I bought the game. I wanted to do more though after I finished each area.

Even though I wanted to keep playing there was a repetitiveness that I was tired of. I know this is a download game with not a big budget, but I wanted a variation in enemies and not the same ones over and over again. I found myself satisfied seeing new ones, but then after a few battles I became bored by them. They try to switch the enemies up by giving them different powers, but that did not work for me. I just wanted to look at something different.

Since this game is about collecting costumes and battle cards and it is a RPG I was expecting a better save system. This isn’t 1997 anymore I should not have to search for a save point. If I'm trying to collect something or needing to turn the game off I hate back tracking to the nearest save point. Believe me it isn’t hard to program a save feature in the pause menu. Now I know this cost extra money in the development process, but sometimes it’s better to spend the extra money.

The Good

The costumes that you find in the game are used during battle and I enjoyed playing with most of them. When your character goes into battle with a monster your costume transforms into a giant version of itself with a series of weapons and special abilities. Every costume is different when it comes to its special ability, but the basic fighting motion is reused for other characters. That doesn’t mean every character has the same weapon. The technique to attack is similar to another character such as having to push the X button a few times or rotate the control stick in order to attack. By the end of the game if you try and search out each costume (which I recommend) you will have a set of costumes that are awesome. The costumes are offensive and defensive and there are a few that have a special feature that will heal one or all characters in the group.

Certain costumes also have abilities in the actual world you are in. Some costumes have flash lights to help you get through dark areas and some have roller blades to help you jump ramps (which you will be doing a lot). I thought this was a nice feature to add to the game and the designers knew how to make it interesting. Not to give anything away, but I was given a ninja costume and it has a sneaking ability and I was thinking this is a RPG I'm not sneaking past enemies to lose out on XP. The game gave me a reason to use it and I was entertained by the use of it.

There are battle stamps that can be purchased from a battle stamp shop and I recommend buying several of them. They help you win your battles by giving each character an ability to give your character more power, extra healing, splash damage to enemies and various other abilities. Each character can only use one card at a time and I think that is fine, because if you were to have more than one, the game would be too easy.

Like most role playing game you pick up friends along the way to help you on your quest. You can do everything with them that you can do with characters in most role playing games. You can give your costumes to them and your special abilities to help each character in battle. Not a big surprise and the good thing is that everyone levels up together instead of separately like in most RPG's. There is no need to think who should be attacking more to get more abilities since everyone is an equal.

The animation in the game was done very well and I thought this looked good in a 3D world. Everything looks good on screen except for the fast animation of candy going into your pail in the close up scenes. Where the animation looks the best is during the battle scenes. The characters and their special moves look amazing and the creativity on each of the costumes special powers is very entertaining.

Overall Thoughts

I really enjoyed this game just like every game I have played from Double Fine. It has a sense of humor, a entertaining art style, and it is for anyone of any age. I love the costumes and I would love to see a sequel to this. Due to how short this game is it could turn some people off the fifteen dollar price tag, but as I said before quit being cheap and just buy it. If you would spend that much at a movie theater for two hours you can spend the same amount for five hours. Granted this game isn’t for everyone, but you can find the demo for it on XBL, PSN, and Steam. Overall I would recommend buying this game.

Overall- Buy

Side note: There is an extra level in the DLC for this game and it gives about another ninety minutes of game play and a few more costumes with a different story. I did play it and I enjoyed it just as much as the game. I bought it on sale for three dollars. If you play the game I recommend buying the DLC.