Costume Quest

Posted: 10/22/10

To celebrate the season of witches and jack-o-lanterns, Tim Schafer's team at Double Fine has stitched together Costume Quest, a lighthearted downloadable RPG. Does it offer a sweet bundle of treats or a nasty surprise?

The tale unfolds as a brother and sister prepare for trick-or-treating, with the player choosing between siblings. As you make the rounds, you run into a monster raiding houses for candy, and the dim-witted creature mistakes your sibling's costume for an oversized treat. It's up to you to come to the rescue, using your costumes' powers to punish the otherworldly kidnappers. It's a fun, simple story full of oddball humor aimed at both kids and adults.

To open the gate guarding your sibling, you'll have to play trick or treat. Knocking on each door, you'll either be greeted by a candy-dispensing adult or go to battle with a plundering monster. Various quests lie between you and some houses, and to proceed, you'll need to save a kid from a bullies, find fruit for a teacher's bake sale, or assemble a patriotic costume for a theme party. There are also numerous side-quests like seeking out hiding kids and bobbing for apples, which earn you experience and candy to trade for battle stamps that augment your combat abilities.

The game takes you through three locations to change the scenery, but each area follows the same door-knocking structure and recycles the side-quests. You can clear the game in eight hours on a rainy day, but it lacks a manual save function, leaving you to rely on your last auto-save if you want to take a break.

Gameplay revolves around the near-dozen costumes you find, ranging from robots to knights to vampires. Each has special attributes and abilities in combat, and many have functions related to exploring, letting you zip through streets on roller skates or light up dark passages with a beam sword. The turn-based battles resemble Mario RPGs as you react to prescribed button prompts to effectively attack and defend. After a few turns, your costume's special meter fills up, giving you access to powerful attacks, defensive moves, or healing abilities. There's some strategy involved in which costumes you equip your party with, but soon, each battle starts to feel the same.

The game never explains how the crude costumes transform into their apocalyptic battle forms, but the contrasts are incredible. The Statue of Liberty's special animation is absolutely bad-to-the-bone.

Costume Quest is a bit shallow and repetitive, but if you're looking to get into the Halloween spirit with a bizarre sense of humor, it's not a bad pick for 15 dollars.

Reviewed on Microsoft Xbox 360.


Costume Quest

Release Date:
Adventure, RPG

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