Costume Quest Review

From the Vault — originally published October 30, 2010. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.

Costume Quest is a new game developed by Double Fine. It takes place on Halloween night and you take the role of one of the two twins Reynold or Wren. Soon enough the twin you did not choose to play as will get kidnapped by monsters and your mission is to rescue your sibling.

The environments are really nice and simple. Every level is nicely decorated with a Halloween theme and really sets the mood. First is a small community with about twenty houses you go trick or treating through. Others neighborhoods featured in the game include a mall and a carnival. To proceed to the next level you will have to trick or treat to every possible house or store in an area.

The costumes your wear play an important part in the game. Each costume has a special power for use in a battle and outside battles. Your first costume is a robot costume, and in battle the special attack is missiles that shoot at multiple enemies. Outside of battle the costume gives you super speed. Which is a lot faster than walking. Early in the game another child joins you, who has a knight costume. This gives you a shield that protects one of the children in battle for a couple of turns. As well a shield outside of battle to pass through some areas obstacles like failing debris. As the games progresses you unlock more costumes and decide which kid wears which one.

The combat is really simple. It’s a turn based fight and you have two attacks, one basic and a special attack which is available after a few basic attacks. Basic attacks depending on the costume have to be executed differently. One has a timing bar and you have to time your attack once it hits a certain section. Another one with a message saying to press a certain button. If the timing is wrong, or you have pressed the wrong button the attack will not do to as much damage. After a few of these you will be allowed to do a special attack, no timing is required. Each costume will have their own special attack. Some will attack the enemies or possibly heal your squad. Defending is very simple a message saying which button to press pops up and you got to press. If you fail to press it you will endure more damage.

Throughout the game you can purchase stamps which will help you in battle. They will help you in just about every way. Some will give you more HP, and heal you after each turn, some will increase the damage you dish out, and so on. These can be purchased with candy which are collected by trick or treating, defeating enemies, found in treasuries, and by hitting certain objects in the game like mailboxes, pumpkins etc.

Each level has a few mini games. One of them is bobbing for apples. It is pretty simple, just pick out the good apple and avoid the bad one. If you beat the score in the required time you will earn a prize. Each level also contains a with hide-and-seek game. Kids will be spread out across the level usually partially visible fight all six and you will earn some XP.

Although I had a great time with this game it was missing few important features. The game could use a hard mode even though it’s apparent that it is really made for young kids. Then comes the problem of no manual save. The game saves automatically usually after completing a quest. This caused problems for me because I had to spend time trying to save rather than just pressing start and save. The most important that it is missing is voice dialogue. All dialogue is relayed text. With voice dialogue the experience would increase greatly especially with humor in the game. It would be more enjoyable hearing and not just reading it. Even with these flaws it is still an enjoyable game especially if you have kids in the house which the game is mainly made for. The game comes with a price of $15 which is a bit too much, but there are worse things you can spend your money on. The demo is available on PSN & XBLA you can at least see for yourself if you are going to enjoy the game.