Costume Quest is a Double Fine game, like Psychonauts and Brutal Legend. Does this mean it’s good? Will it share the fate of Psychonauts, becoming overlooked despite its quality? Well first off, lets backtrack a bit and start at the beginning. Double Fine’s latest game shows off the same charm and fun gameplay that made their previous games stand out.
Costume Quest
Developer: Double Fine
Price: $15.00
Platform: PS3 (reviewed) & 360
Costume Quest is basically a standard adventure RPG. You select your character from the twins Reynold and Wren, and began your trick-or-treating on Halloween night. However, your sibling soon gets kidnapped by a monster living in one of the houses, because they dressed up as a big piece of candy. Someone the monsters are fooled into believing this, despite the candy talking and being alive. So Reynold or Wren set out to rescue their sibling via the power of costumes. 
One their quest, the hero will encounter a lot of NPCs who will help them out and give them quests. As any modern RPG, the game has a journal to help the player memorize what they need to do, and to check various important things from costume powers to stats. The quests themselves can be mandatory and optional, although for the most part they are all easy to find and complete. Even without a walkthrough, I managed to complete the game to 100% on my first playthrough. As long as you keep your eyes open, you’ll find all the quests and costumes easily, but considering that the game was made with children in mind, this makes sense. While Costume Quest is enjoyable for it humour, charm and gameplay by adults, it is a game that primarily targets children, which shows through in its simplicity. It can serve as a good introduction to the RPG genre for younger audiences.
All this talk of costumes, and I still haven’t mentioned their role? First off, in the world of Costume Quest, costumes grant power to those who wear it. Much like in a child’s imagination, the costumes are just costumes, made out of cloth or cardboard, but they are actually superpowered outfits, that transform you and grant you power. When faced with enemies, you transform into a real robot, ninja, vampire, and a handful of others, depending on the costume you are currently wearing. Some costumes also have special abilities on the field, but most of them are just situational and rarely used. The only one that you will use frequently is the robot’s, which allows you to move faster. Others, like the knight’s ability to shield yourself from falling debris will only come into play two or three times maximum in the game. This is understandable considering the games length, though it doesn’t help that switching costumes in these situations is kind of a pain. It would have been easier if you could just switch party leader with the press of a button and use the character who is equipped with the correct costume. Switching costumes is still easy and efficient enough, but having to put on a costume just to avoid an enviromental hazard, then switch back to the robot one because it runs fast can get a little annoying after a while. 
The game’s combat is simple and fun. You enter a battle, and you see a typical turn-based system. Each character has one attack, and one special move that charges up over time. You can also assign special attacks by buying battle stamps, which can power up your characters by boosting stats or giving them special attacks. For the most part you just select your attack and perform a type of Quick Time Event to execute it, and if successful you deal a critical hit. Defense works the same way, except you only need to press buttons, while attacking can require you to time the button press, rotate the analog stick, and other actions depending on which costume your using. Special attacks also range from dealing heavy damage to healing a party member, depending on the costume. The combat system is fairly simple and fun, although it can be difficult at first while lacking a healer. However, I haven’t died a single time in the game, which is easy to do as long as you pay attention to the QTEs. However, messing up a QTE while defending can really turn the tide of battle against you. To be quite honest, the biggest draw of the game’s combat is its simplicity, but it can also be its biggest flaw. Depending on what kind of player you are, you may grow tired of the simple battle system after a while, as you can play through the whole game using just regular attacks and special attacks/healing when they are charged up, and it doesn’t require much strategy. Of course given that this is a downloadable title, and also made for kids, this is somewhat understandable. 
Luckily enough, the game’s length is short overall, but perfect for the game. I’d say it doesn’t take more than 6-8 hours to beat the game even to 100%. The game is simple, the quests are simple and sometimes similar, the combat is simple, and due to this it can get boring after a while, however the lenght of the game is just good enough so that it doesn’t outlast its welcome. By the time I started getting bored with it, I found myself at the last boss. This coupled with the game’s charm, and its humour, which is often made for older audiences as well with it’s ironic and sarcastic jokes make it just fun enough to warrant a playthrough and keep it entertaining. The game’s music and sound effects are also quite fitting for the game’s Halloween theme, though there is no voice acting, be it for better or worse. Sadly though, the game doesn’t offer much, if any, replayability. I don’t see myself playing through it again anytime soon.
The Final Word
Costume Quest is a fun and well made game. It provides good entertainment for both children and older audiences and has that Double Fine/Tim Schafer feel to it that makes it stand out. It’s quality makes the price tag seem worth it, although I’d recommend you play the trial version first and decide for yourself if the price is worth it for you, seeing as the game doesn’t offer any real replay value once you are finished with its 6-8 hour story and its simplicity can drag it down to where it becomes a one-time-only ride.
– MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
