Overview
In Costume Quest, players will traverse locations from their suburban neighborhood to their local shopping mall and festive carnival. Going door-to-door will award players with candy, power-ups, and quest assignments in an effort to rid the neighborhood of monsters and find the players' sibling. In Combat Mode, players take part in turn-based battles, where their characters will turn into large-scale versions of the home-made costume that they're currently wearing. Attacks will be themed to match the player's current costume, an example of which is a Statue of Liberty costume being able to summon symbols of America (Abe Lincoln and a bald eagle)
The game was an idea of Double Fine's lead animator, Tasha Harris. The game has a cell-shaded look to it with cartoon shaped characters and no hard angles. The game is being headed by Tasha Harris; a former animator for Pixar.
Story
The story is set in Schafer County. You get to play as Reynold or Wren, brother and sister (respectively) on Halloween night. Whichever character you aren't playing as is quickly mistaken as a giant piece of candy (due to a crude candy corn costume), and you must set out to save your sibling before something terrible happens.
The monsters are looting homes throughout the county for candy, and your character competes with them by going door-to-door trick-or-treating and using their imagination in conjunction with their costumes to defeat them. After saving a nerdy boy named Everett from the town bully, the two discover that the monsters are working in service to a witch named Dorsilla, and are currently raiding the mall's candy store.
The main character and Everett hitch a ride on the bus the monsters are using to transport their stolen candy, and come across Lucy, an intelligent and science-minded girl who is trying to fix the mall's train ride. The three children defeat the monsters blocking the path and find the stolen sibling, only to have the witch play some "inadmissable" audio that offends the missing child, who now refuses to rejoin you. Dorsilla takes your party hostage, and confiscates all of your costumes.
In the farming area of Schafer county, the kids break free and do odd jobs for the residents to acquire new costumes that they use to recover their old stash of outfits, and are approached by Dorsilla's brother, Dorian, who has been aiding you along the way in the forms of a black cat and some mysterious scarecrows. He gives you the final piece of a powerful Jack-O-Lantern costume and tells you that Dorsilla is just misunderstood, and has gotten caught up in the wrong crowd. He asks the children to stop her, because he's too afraid of her to do it himself.
The children climb the hill leading to the monster homeworld, Repugia, and find Drusilla at the top. She reveals her plan to give an offering of all the stolen candy to Repugia's tyrant leader, Big Bones, to get in his good graces, before turning on him and ruling the land as Queen. All this time, the monsters have been little more than slave labor for Drusilla and Big Bones. After being bested in battle, Drusilla calls forth Big Bones, a grim reaper with a bit of a weight problem, and they prepare to attack the children together. However, a speaker Dorian gave the children begins to play a message that his sister left for him, where she reveals her intended betrayal (and a few shots at Big Bones weight issues) and Big Bones banishes her. The children defeat Big Bones and the siblings reunite with an apology and a hug. They head back home in the monsters' bus, tossing candy out to the children they pass by. At Wren's and Reynold's house, Everett and Lucy plan to stay the night, as they count their candy and split their rewards.
Gameplay
In the regular world players can accept quests, recruit party members and find candy. You can also partake in side quests, such as finding hidden children on playing bobbing for apples. The only way to complete a set area is to trick-or-treat every single house; trick or treating can either yield candy, or a monster encounter.
When you enter combat, the game switches to the realm of Imagination. In this world, your characters go from being kids in childish costumes to being whatever they think they look like. For example a kid wearing a cardboard robot costume in the real world will turn into a giant robot equipped with missiles. The combat is reliant on quick time events where hitting buttons at the right time will increase the damage of your attacks and you can also dodge these attacks by also timing your button presses (similar to Super Mario RPG or the Mario and Luigi saga).
Shafer County contains three different areas you can visit and explore in the game:
- Auburn Pines Suburbs: The starting area, a quaint suburban neighbourhood.
- Autumn Haven Mall: A shopping mall where the food court is overrun by candy-stealing monsters.
- Fall Valley: Location of the carnival site and, of course, a lot of monsters.
One important element in Costume Quest is the Notebook, which is basically a pause menu, and is necessary for this game where you will want to keep track of all of the collectibles, your party, and your quests. The Notebook is divided into five sections:
- Status: Shows your party's status and is where you level up your characters.
- Battle Stamps: Your very own stamp collection! Stamps can be used to increase different stats such as your HP or your critical strike damage, but can also give you special abilities, such as counterattacking or auto-resurrection, or special and devastating attacks.
- Quests: Tracks your quest progress for the main story as well as for the optional quests that are available.
- Costume Patterns: Where you can see what materials you lack for the costumes you currently can create.
- Creepy Treats: There are over 50 special, and grotesque, treats that you can find during your adventure, and here is where you keep track of them. The only use for these in the game is to trade with NPCs for various quests.
Costumes
Each costume has different abilities such as defending others in your team, healing abilities or special attacks. There are 11 costumes total.
Costume | Combat Ability | Exploration Ability |
---|
Ranged character with focus on offense (The costume your character starts off with) | Missile Barrage Damages and applies a damage-over-time fire effect to all enemies | Boost The hero uses roller-skate shoes to provide a burst of movement speed |
Melee character with focus on defense (Obtained when Everett joins your party) | Guardian Shield A magical shield that protects one party member from enemy attacks | Shield The hero covers their head with the Knight's Shield to protect from falling objects |
Ranged character with focus on support (Obtained when you find three costume pieces in Auburn Pine Suburbs) | Anthem Restores a medium amount of health to all party members | None |
Melee character with special focus (Obtained when you find three costume pieces in Auburn Haven Mall) | Meteor Avalanche A giant asteroid is summoned over the combat area, damaging all enemies | Glow The hero uses a light-up sword to illuminate darkened areas |
Magic character with focus on support (Obtained when you find three costume pieces in Auburn Haven Mall) | My Pretty Panacea Revives a KO'd party member and heals them to full health | None |
Ninja Melee character with focus on offense (Obtained when you find three costume pieces in Auburn Haven Mall) | Kitsune Shroud A smoke bomb that protects a single party member from enemy attacks for one turn | Sneak The hero can sneak around characters |
Ranged character with focus on offense (Obtained through various Scarecrows found through the progression of the story) | All Hallows' Eve A powerful tornado that cuts all enemies' health in half | None |
Vampire Magic character with focus on offense (Obtained when you find three costume pieces in Fall Valley) | There's a Bat in My Hair! A flock of bats attacks all enemies and returns health to the party | None |
Melee character with special focus (Obtained when you talk to the french fry vendor in Fall Valley) | Salt Assault Salt and hot grease stuns all enemies for one turn | Lure The hero becomes a beacon of french fry goodness and lures characters to follow him/her |
Black Cat Magic character with special focus ( Obtained when you complete your Creepy Treat Card collection) | The Cat's Meow A booming roar with a chance to cause each enemy to flee | None |
Grubbin Special costume (Obtained when you save the three Grubbin prisoners) | Cannot be used in battle | Disguises the hero preventing enemy attacks while exploring |
DLC: Costume Quest: Grubbins on Ice
This DLC add includes a whole new level set in the monster world of Repugia. Grubbins on Ice includes a new quest, characters, costumes, and battle stamps.
A patch will come with this add on that makes it so you can pause cut scenes and save when ever you want.
The plot of Grubbins on Ice begins with Everett and Lucy returning to the place of their final battle with Big Bones. Lucy hopes to find some evidence of their foe to prove the existence of Repugia to the scientific community. As Everett attempts to share his feelings for Lucy with her, she is kidnapped by Araxia, Big Bones top general. Everett runs home to get Wren and Reynold, along with their costumes, and the trio hop through the portal into Repugia.
Here the children find that many of the monsters they fought in the first game, including the titular Grubbins, are being oppressed by Araxia's army, and after a brief battle with Araxia's forces that ends in a defeat, they decide to help the Grubbins amass a revolutionary army. Using their trick-or-treating skills, the children go door-to-door recruiting soldiers and candy donations to take down Araxia and save Lucy.
Eventually, it becomes evident that Araxia intends to resurrect Big Bones, and has kidnapped a number of children from the human world to prepare as large candy snacks for the skeletal menace. After some recruitment efforts involving reuniting the Grubbins leader with his long-lost love, finding a mystical tome, and impersonating a yeti, the children lead the Repugian Revolutionary Army to Araxia's gates. The army clears a path for the children, but flee in fear as they encounter their former despotic ruler, Big Bones, who Araxia has revived with large donations of candy and children.
The children battle with Araxia and the still-recovering Big Bones, and eventually defeat the two by dropping them into a vat of acid, thus saving Lucy and freeing Repugia for the Grubbins. Lucy makes sure to grab a piece of Big Bones before he has been completely destroyed for "scientific evidence" and the children hop through a nearby portal, as it will soon close now that Big Bones and Araxia are defeated. On the other side, the children find themselves in an inky blackness, surrounded by multiple portals. The game ends as they ponder which path to take next.
Soundtrack
The music for Costume Quest is composed by Peter McConnell of Psychonauts and Brutal Legend fame. In the Campin' and Stampin' shop within the Autumn Haven Mall, the theme to the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp from Psychonauts can be heard.
PC System Requirements
Minimum
- OS: Windows XP SP3+
- Processor: 2.0 Ghz Dual core processor
- Memory: 1.0 Gb Ram
- Video Card: Nvidia Geforce 8000+ 512mb, Intel G45+ 512mb, ATI Radeon X1300+ 512mb
- DirectX®: 9.0c
- Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
Recommended
- OS: Windows Vista
- Processor: 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo equivalent or better
- Memory: 2.0 Gb Ram
- Video Card: Nvidia 200 series+ 1gb, ATI 9500+ 1gb
- DirectX®: 9.0c
- Sound: DirectX Compatible Sound Card
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