Quick Review: Costume Quest

Never too early for Halloween. Can we – can we swap out “Christmas in July” for “Halloween in July”? I’d much rather have that.

A product of Double Fine Productions released on Steam on October 14th, 2011, Costume Quest tells the story of twin siblings who go out trick-or-treating. You select your character – older sister Wren, 10 minutes younger brother Reynold – then go out to fill your bag with candy. Your selected character goes as a robot, the other dressed as a piece of candy corn.

Don't worry, they do love each other. It might take some
monster invasion for them to show it, though.

The first game where you save the world by trick-or-treating.

Things don’t go as planned. When the kids knock on their second door, it opens to a goblin-like monster known as a Grubbin, which steals your candy corn sibling and takes them to their base. These creatures have been tasked with stealing all the candy in town! You cannot enter the base, and what’s worse, some witch shows up and reduces your robot costume to nothing! You must now rescue your sibling, not out of love, but because you’ll be grounded if you don’t. Your first task? Rebuild your costume out of materials found in treasure chests in the neighborhood. Then, go kick some goblin butt.

Lots to do, indeed.

On the way, you make friends who will help on your quest, find new costumes with their own usefulness while exploring (the robot costume lets you move fast and jump ramps, the knight’s shield protects from falling things, etc.). There’s a lot of collectibles to look for: Trading cards showing rare treats; badges you can buy with candy at the park, giving perks in combat; lots of side-quests to look for; and, finally, more pieces to create costumes, which can then be worn by your party members.

An unexpected stop by the shopping mall...
...where monsters are also stealing all the candy...

For all intents and purposes, and for most battles, this is
basically "Baby's first RPG"; mechanics are simple, there
are no items, special moves unlock every 3rd turn, and
you rarely need to think up complex strategies.

The other half of this game is a turn-based RPG, in which the children turn into their costumes to fight the Grubbins. Combat relies heavily on action commands, not unlike, say, Paper Mario or South Park: The Stick of Truth. Each costume has its niche and uses in battle as well, from the offensive robot or space ranger to the more supportive knight or Statue of Liberty. On top of that, you can use badges (stamps) for added effects in battle. If you lose a battle? You can just start it over, no worse for wear. Later, you learn to smack an enemy from behind in the overworld to inflict preemptive damage.

The Statue of Liberty heals the party.
That costume stayed in my team for most of the game.

I literally played these fights with fingers resting on
E, Q, Shift and Space the whole time.

However, when defending and for some attacks, the action command is randomized between Q, E, Shift and Space rather than specific to each action, so you can’t prepare to press a key known in advance. I would also say that encounter difficulty is uneven; when I had a party of 2, some regular enemy teams were harder than bosses, and nigh impossible without switching costumes and badges around. Inversely, when the party grew to 3, most battles became a cakewalk. And then, the final bosses were such puzzles that they were barely beatable even with a specific team+badge loadout.

Dorsilla the Witch, second-to-last boss in the game, was
tough because, like the true final boss (and the final boss
of the DLC), there was a puzzle element to her fight.

The whole thing is candy-wrapped in Double Fine’s comedic storytelling. Funny moments abound, especially in silly situations and character banter. You can explore every nook and cranny for candy, but it only really serves to buy badges. In each area, you must visit every house or store to progress. Oh, and on my first save file, 2.5 hours in, the game autosaved due to progressing a quest while my character was stuck between props, making it impossible to leave. I had to start the whole damn thing over; thankfully I speedran it, so I only lost another hour, but it sucked to encounter a glitch like that. But barring that one sore point, everything else remained enjoyable.

For a DLC called "Grubbins on Ice", there isn't a lot
of ice in the area.

The game came with a one-chapter DLC titled Grubbins on Ice, where one of the siblings’ friend is accidentally taken to the monsters’ world during winter and the kids run in to save her. A sequel was also released three years later if you liked this one enough. This one’s fine, and easy enough (barring a few places) that I could recommend it for kids.

Costume Quest is available on Steam for 9.99$ USD.