From the studio of Tim Schafer, the man responsible for such cult classics as Psychonauts, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango comes Costume Quest. Double Fine’s latest project is a cell-shaded and Halloween-inspired RPG adventure for PSN and XBLA. Costume Quest has quite a reputation to uphold, Schafer’s back catalogue is guilty of being intelligently designed, hilariously scripted and ultimately very fun to play. Thankfully Costume Quest can stand proudly among its predecessors as a cracking game and one of the most ingenious concepts ever conceived.
One of the motifs here is the juxtaposition of the abstract scenario in a mundane situation, for example a unicorn family secretly living in a library. This motif generally results in highly amusing situations and brilliantly sharp dialogue. Players assume the role of a young brother or sister, new in town and sent out by Mum and Dad to go trick or treating. Your task is initially to just get through the night and bag some delicious candy in the process. Shockingly this soon becomes a lot more complex when your sibling is accosted by one of the games enemies, a grubber who runs off with them leaving you with the unenviable task of rescuing her.
This all sounds rather unimaginative I know but the real highlight of this game is subtly embedded in the name. It is an RPG after all and to save your sibling you’re going to have to do some damage to bad guys, this is where your costumes become pretty darn special. Whilst wearing a costume and beginning a battle against one of the aforementioned monsters, your childish imagination kicks in and you transform into a fully fledged and ass-kicking version of your costume. In the beginning all you possess is a robot costume but as you progress you can collect parts of other outfits. Building up your collection and sampling the different animations is one of Costume Quests real treats. All the costumes are fantastic looking but there’s more to them than mere aesthetics, each costume has a specific type: offensive, defensive and ranged.
The battle system is of course a key element of the game and one could point out that it’s ultimately a simplified version of your standard RPG turn based combat system. It is very simple to master but this isn’t necessarily such a negative thing; for each costume you have one standard attack which you initiate with a face button. The other attack option available is a ‘special’ attack, which again varies depending on the costume and is an over the top version of your standard move. Each type of standard attack will have a different quick time event; these vary from costume to costume and when performed correctly greatly increase the power or range of your attack. The same type of quick time event is applied to defend against attacks, it’s very similar to the Paper Mario series’ approach which many found highly addictive and marvellous fun.
When not battling, you’ll move around your neighbourhood, talking to fellow children, knocking on doors to collect candy, and performing side quests. The side quests are initially brilliantly inventive, but do become repetitive towards the end of the game.
Unfortunately, for the price the game is much too short, giving a lack of replayability, meaning the game can’t reach its fullest potential. So while your time in the world of Costume Quest will be short lived, clocking in at around 3-5 hours, you’ll be hard pressed to find a sweeter experience in the online marketplace today.
