Review: Costume Quest

Easily the best game to feature a spider made of French fries

Get ready for the cutest Halloween adventure of your life

Halloween has been approached with varying levels of success countless times in the movie industry, but video gaming has rarely touched on this eclectic holiday. There are plenty of scary titles out there to sink your teeth into, a plethora of grisly gaming experiences in which to indulge on a spooky night, but very few specifically associated with the 31^st of October. Costume Quest, from developer Double Fine, is one of the rare games specifically focused on Halloween. It’s also one of the best downloadable games money can buy. Combining a cheery art-style with a great sense of humour and some fun, simple gameplay mechanics, Costume Quest provides a solid few hours of enjoyable Halloween adventure that all ages can enjoy.

Everything about the game's look oozes charm

The story is simple and set-up nicely, it’s all you’d want from a game like this; nothing too confusing or in-depth. A brother and sister, Wren and Reynold, are off out trick-or-treating when they stumble onto some monsters plotting to steal all the Halloween candy in their neighbourhood. One of the two gets kidnapped by these fiends, and it’s up to the player to save their brother or sister before the night is through. Just your average Halloween night really. You'll meet a couple of new friends and enemies along the way, and learn more about the monsters’ plans. The story might not be the deepest, but it serves its purpose, nothing about the game is particular deep, nor was it intended to be. Costume Quest is simply a fun little ride from beginning to end, the gaming equivalent of a good family Halloween movie.

Now, it’s Halloween, and the name of the game is Costume Quest, so, as you’ll expect, costumes play a big role, and when I say ‘big’, I mean they turn you into giant warriors of destruction that could give Godzilla and Gamera a run for their money, but more on that later. You’ll build and collect various costumes throughout the game, most in typical Halloween style like a vampire, robot, and a knight. Then there are one or two slightly more obscure outfits thrown in for good measure. Collecting the costumes is part of the fun, but actually using them is what makes the game great. Gameplay is divided between simple puzzle-solving, traversing the world, and turn-based combat, and the costumes play a big part in all aspects. Nearly every suit has its own abilities to help you get around, the robot gives you a speed boost to glide around faster and zoom off ramps to reach hidden areas, the knight has a trusty shield to protect you from dangers on the path, and so on. None of the environment-based puzzles are ever too taxing, and the game more or less tells you what power to use in each instance—the game is very kid-friendly and accessible to all ages—but the use of the costumes makes traversing the environments a little more engaging, and makes finding all the secrets a fun and rewarding task.

The Space Warrior costume is easily the coolest, and will help you through dark areas

The combat will be the make-or-break factor for a lot of players, some may find it repetitive and dull, and others will appreciate the simplicity. Regardless, it’d be hard not to love the look of the battles; any time combat is initiated, you’ll be treated to some brilliant scenes of the kids transforming into giant awesome versions of the costumes they’re wearing. The fighting in Costume Quest is for anyone who remembers what it was like to play robots as a kid or pretend to be a gallant knight. That sort of wild imagination that only children have, Double Fine capture it perfectly in the battle sequences as each character, only really wearing the likes of cardboard costumes and plastic vampire teeth, transform into mighty heroes the size of buildings, and do battle with the monsters in scenes that wouldn't look out of place in Power Rangers. How on Earth this fits in with the whole fiction of the game will remain one of the great mysteries of Costume Quest, but, really, it’s a game about kids beating up candy-thieving monsters, so let’s leave realism out of it. 

The combat isn't the game's strongest suit, but it sure looks awesome

The fighting itself is a simple turn-based affair with some quick-time mechanics thrown in. You'll have to time button presses and the like to power up your moves or block enemy attacks. Fights will rarely last more than a few rounds, but the combat isn’t so easy that you won’t have to try; a few mistimed button presses could spell disaster. Luckily, even if you are defeated, you’ll respawn at the same location and can try again instantly. Some depth is present in the combat system, which again ties in with the costumes, each having their own special abilities in battle, some offensive, some defensive, it’s not overly complex but you will have to find the right balance of costumes for some of the more difficult boss fights. There’s also a simple levelling system, and stamps to buy which give you extra abilities or power boosts. The combat is pretty basic, but enjoyable enough and so much fun to watch that it’ll never get tedious, battles are easy and over quickly, and there’s enough other things to do to break-up the action, that all helps to make Costume Quest feel like a very well-balanced game. One minute you’ll be fighting, the next you’ll be bobbing for apples, then using your suit powers to find some secret items. There’s not all that much variety to the game when you really look at it, but the various activities that are present are spread out and paced so well that it never feels repetitive, and no part of the game ever outstays its welcome.

Apple-bobbing a simple mini-game, just like in real life

Throughout the evening, you’ll make your way across three environments, tasked with ridding all the houses of candy through the age-old tradition of trick-or-treating. The areas are cartoony, colourful and well-designed, being simple enough to navigate that you shouldn't feel the need to gripe over the lack of a mini-map, whilst hiding a number of secret paths and treasures to find. Each level takes around thirty minutes to an hour to complete, depending on how thorough you are with exploration. It’s very possible to see everything in the game the first-time through, which speaks more for the quality of the game’s design than its lack of content. There are plenty of collectibles to find, stat-enhancing stamps to collect, side missions to take on, and, of course, costumes to make, and even if you don’t go out of your way to find them all, you’ll uncover most through the natural progression of the game. Double Fine have to be commended for building their game in such a way that players can see almost everything it has to offer without the need for backtracking, grinding, or excessive pixel-hunting exploration.

No, really, this is actually a screenshot from the game

Double Fine’s humour shines throughout, with the witty dialogue and amusing characters providing plenty of chuckles and enhancing the simplistic story, and helping to extend the playtime as you'll go about talking to as many people as possible just to see what they have to say. The game lacks any voice-acting, in fact the sound design on the whole is probably Costume Quest’s biggest drawback, with some scenes feeling void of sound altogether, but the rest of the game is so charming and easy on the eyes that you can forgive the audio issues. From the bright-eyed, smiling children, to the fantastically-designed battle costumes, to the smallest details like the candy packet experience bar, the game's sense of visual presentation is great all round. Put simply, the game gets a lot more right than wrong, and is more than cute enough for you to ignore its minor issues. It controls well, and there are no technical problems to speak of. It's the perfect example of a simple, but very well-made game that has had a lot of care put into it.

Overall Costume Quest is simply a lovely little game. I played it from start to finish in one sitting last Halloween, and I did the same this year, I’ll probably even play it again next year. Like watching a John Carpenter movie and eating a lot of Skittles, Double Fine’s charming little game is becoming part of my Halloween traditions. If you give it a chance, it might become part of yours too.

For the purposes of this review, the Xbox 360 version of the game was played.