Posted on: October 31, 2022

MotherKojiro

Games: 481 Reviews: 196

Costumes and Candy

Forget horror; this is what Halloween is all about. Most associate the season with dark, dingy rooms and grotesque creatures (usually zombies), but Costume Quest does something a bit more interesting. Trick-or-Treat is (or at least was) a time when you get to explore your neighborhood at a time you don't usually get to see, and with minimal supervision to boot! You get to be whatever you want and every house gives you free candy; what's not to love? This game does an excellent job of capturing both that experience and the child-like sense of wonder that came with it. The gameplay is simple: you wander around the neighborhood, going door to door for treats. Sometimes, you get tricks, and you'll have to battle monsters. Fights are pretty simple; it's basically just Paper Mario with a big special attack you can perform every 3 turns. You make new costumes to change what kind of warrior you are in battle, and there are other collectibles along the way that provide small benefits. The game is broken up into sections to keep exploration from getting too overwhelming, too. Where the game really shines is in the rest of the presentation. The environments are mostly dark with a beautiful glow, the color of which varies depending on the area, and it PERFECTLY represents what Trick-or-Treat was like. Better yet are the costumes: they look like a typical kids' costume while you're walking around, but every battle begins with an over-the-top transformation into a real robot, knight, or whatever else you're wearing. Attack animations are great, and the special moves are just as over-the-top; my personal favorite is Anthem. The story is cute and imaginative, and even if it isn't a huge focus, it fits in really well. This is the sort of thing you play for the charm and the experience; if that sounds good, then this is absolutely worth a go.

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Posted on: November 1, 2021

Freeneedles

Verified owner

Games: Reviews: 5

Stylish, but should have been shorter

This is a cute game that's spot-on for the Halloween season, but behind the Double Fine charm is a game that relies on endlessly repeating the same quicktime event battles and minigames over and over again. It's pretty short, so you can get through it before truly hating it, but it would have been better served being even shorter (or presenting deeper gameplay). Double Fine does great work, and the game is polished for what it is, but this still isn't a high effort production from the studio. At times, it almost felt like an early fundraising demo for a more a more ambitious title.

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Posted on: March 17, 2016

unconsidered

Verified owner

Games: 1236 Reviews: 43

It's very charming

A Halloween RPG? How many of those do we have?! Premise is that you are a kid trick-or-treating with your brother/sister who then get's kidnapped by monsters who mistake him/her as candy, and you along with other kids from the neighborhood are trying to get your brother/sister back and discover why these monsters are taking candy in the first place. Mechanics are fairly simple. Outside of battle you have a open world to explore, take side-quests, look for collectibles, shop for stickers to give your costume a boost, play mini-games for prizes, look for hidden candy, but mostly just going from door to door trick-or-treating. And half of the time you'll get candy, and the other half your getting a monster. Keep in mind monsters are also outside of the door area's too, but when you interact with them you go into battle mode. In battles, you use your imagination to make your costume into the thing it's representing and fight the monsters using the idea's associated with it, like missiles from a robot, etc. It's turn based and pretty much uses the mechanics from the Mario and Luigi RPG's, so you use a button command to make an attack, and you buttons to block from enemies. I like: 1: The story. It's funny, no real title associated to it like dark humor or whatever, it's just a realistic portrayal of real life, they really nailed that on the head. 2: The characters. You can see what their motives are, why they are the way they are, they are all just believable. Don't like: 1: It's short. It's a bit relegated by the RPG aspect but for the most part you'll only be spending around 5 hours on this game. I'm all for the idea of games that don't overstay their welcomes, but for this case I preferred a bit more. 2: It's pretty padded. What you'll be doing in this game is fighting and the activities I've listed above, and that's it. I mean the combat is fine, and the story breaks things up once in a while, but this is the game. All in all, I really like it.

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Posted on: October 30, 2017

ISnoodBear

Verified owner

Games: 336 Reviews: 17

A great little time killer

This game has some general faults, but overall it is just a fun little time waster. It's great for when you don't want to get super deep into something, but would love to unwind for an hour or so with a quick pop of humorous gaming. Pros - Nice art style, simple objective, fun pop culture Easter eggs hidden throughout, good humor and characters, good imagination in concept and execution (kids using their own imaginations to make their Halloween costumes real to fight candy-stealing monsters in-between Trick-or-Treating), and fun to play with a kid (my 5 year old couldn't control it well enough, but LOVED sitting with dad playing it together every night leading up to Halloween). Cons - Movement is a little wonky and counter-intuitive (on keyboard), overall game is generally repetitive, combat is pretty flat, easy, and without much variation, and it has bad contrast in too many places (it takes place at night, so it's often dark, and in some areas or with some characters, it can be really hard to see well). It's not terribly long--maybe 6 to 8 hours--which could be a detriment, but helps the game shine a little more when it risks far too repetitive gameplay were it any longer. Save points aren't as common as I'd like, but it's pretty easy to find one and play the game in casual intervals. You also basically can't lose, which makes it a great game for young kids (you may lose a battle, but there's no real consequence, you just get to try again--no loss to your candy stash or health or anything). Nice upgrades would be to mix and match costume parts to different effect (I know that would be hard to do with the art, though), more combat options and better combat mechanics (have powering up your special power more meaningful or have damage continue across battles instead of resetting), and making sure every costume had a special power outside battle. Also, it would be nice for each stage to have different mini-games.

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Posted on: October 12, 2019

Hanglyman

Verified owner

Games: 444 Reviews: 141

Short And Simple But Fun

Pros: The Halloween atmosphere is the best thing about this game- wandering a neighborhood, knocking on doors for candy, bobbing for apples, assembling costumes out of cardboard boxes, tin foil and bits of spare clothing, while the fall leaves blow past and jack-o-lanterns shed their warm glow- it captures some of the fun of the holiday, and definitely feels appropriately festive. Collecting the Garbage Pail Kids-esque creepy candy cards is also fun and thematically perfect for a game featuring kids and Halloween. My favorite is the transformation that happens during battles- your character is just a child wearing an adorably cheap thrown-together costume, but as soon as combat begins they become the idealized, perfect version of the character that costume represents, and look appropriately badass and scary as a result. It's an awesome depiction of a kid's imagination at work. The game's short length makes up for a few of its flaws, and enhances the feeling that everything is happening in one Halloween night. The DLC wears out its welcome a little, but it's worth playing to see the new costumes. Cons: The simplistic combat involves very little strategy other than your choice of battle stamps beforehand- these stamps give you extra abilities or bonuses, one per character, and there are a lot to choose from, but some are clearly superior to others and if you explore thoroughly, combat is fairly simple anyway. The quests and plot are simple and repetitive- essentially the same ones are repeated in every area with slight variation, if any. All that changes is the setting and enemies. There's not a lot to actually do in this game, other than some exploring, and the DLC is just more of the same. The graphics are cute but sometimes glitchy, with things flickering or characters' arms phasing through their costumes.

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