Costume Quest

I finished it, it took me about 6 hours to finish, and I'll be honest, I had fun. It was a cute story and it was nice to explore the world. Gameplay is repetitive, though, to the point of tediousness. The game basically breaks down into "three worlds," your local neighborhood, a mall, and a carnival, and in each (for example), you have an apple bobbing miniquest that you need to repeat three times, so you end up doing the same apple bobbing game 9 times. While you can switch up your costumes and you get different opponents over time, the opponents are essentially just reskins of a few variations, and the costumes do offer real variety, but with only three moves (one only available every three turns) how you handle the fights is very much the same from fight to fight. The game is strongest with its side-quests, like the costume contest, or delving into the patriotic costume conspiracy, or rescuing rebellious grubbins. If the game had been a quirky point-and-click adventure (what Double Fine excels at), I think I would have rated it higher; the gameplay feels more like padding on what makes the game fun. It is not worth $10 bucks. After watching the cartoon (which was fun!) I picked up both for $5, and that felt like a decent price. I don't feel ripped off and, like I said, I had fun, but unless you're really into this sort of game, I would skip it. There are better "cute/weird JRPG" knock-offs. On the Rain Slicked Precipice of Darkness, for example

The good - Halloween themed (can't go wrong with halloween) - cute cartoonish art style - the music fits nicely - The combat is simple and somewhat challenging: normal attacks and defense are based on QTES which forces you to pay attention (enemies hit hard and scale up to your level, fiortunately you get full health after every battle and if you are defeated you are not punished in any way - The game is short but very enjoyable, and the expansion adds a cliffhanger - The writing is simple, but effective, serves well to the child firendly nature of the game The not so good - more character variety was needed, it was hilarious to see how the dad looks just like the mom with a fake beard, it also happens with the main antagonist and another character (idk if this is one of those situations of "the world looked through the children eyes" - The QTES in Keybopard are rough, they only use 4 keys (shift, q, e, space) but I'm really shortsighted and so many times mixed up the shift and space prompts - It gets repetitive, I had no problems with it since I was really enjoying myself with the game, but it has to be mentioned - in combat most of the costumes are no better than your three first costumes (in the DLC the costumes you get are more useful in the final fight) - The cliffhanger at the end of the expansion Overall the game is good, enjoyable and fun, it has that flavor of kids going on an epic little adventure while grown ups are oblivious to the impending doom, the mechanics get repetitive over time, but if you like halloween and costumes this game is a must, I'll just sit here, waiting for a sequel that may never come

the controls suck and are not changeable~~! Atmosphere is great, graphics colorful and enchanting and the gameplay is differenet enough to be refreshing and appealing, yet it truly needs mouse/wasd control vs. only wasd

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.

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.