Sugary Sweet, but is it a treat?
Double Fine, the people that brought us Psychonauts and Brutal Legend, have released their first downloadable title, Costume Quest. This Halloween themed RPG is dripping with adorable, but is there a Tootsie Roll center of this Tootsie Pop? Let’s find out.
From as soon as the title screen pops up, you know you are in for some fun. The trademark Double Fine style is all over the place. More Psychonauts than Brutal Legend, the characters have over-sized eyes and exagerated features. The colorful environments are full of charm and whimsy. The costumes are stars of the show and their design is great. Even the menus and HUD are fun to see. Overall, this game is a pleasure to look at.
From a pure gameplay perspective, you are handed a real mixed bag. The exploration of the areas is generally brisk and leads to some adventure game lite quests. From finding fruit for a pie, to collecting rare candy for some of the other children, the quests are simple, but cute. Usually the reward for your exploring is finding a piece of a costume. Upon finding all three pieces of the costume, one of your characters can wear the costume in battle.
The battle system is the main problem with this game. It’s really exciting to watch the cardboard and tape costume creations transform into a more “realistic” version, but there is little depth or strategy to using them. Each costume has a basic attack or special ability that charges up during the battle that can be used about once every three turns. These special abilities are just about the only thing that differentiates the costumes. Characters can be slightly customized using battle patches which grant bonuses such as extra attack power, stunning, or ongoing poison damage. I ended up using the first three costumes you come across throughout most of the game, the robot, the Statue of Liberty and the Knight.
The battles end up being a repetitive series of button presses and the occasional joystick move. It’s a little bit of a let down that the costumes are so fun to find and unlock, but the game really gives you no reward for having them. The game’s wit, charm and sense of humor try really hard to make up for what it lacks in terms of gameplay, but it doesn’t quite. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every second of it. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the fact that my son loved playing it with me. It’s just hard to, at $15, recommend this game to everyone.
Originally published here.
