Costume Quest

If the picture above does nothing for you, then gladly, skip this post. I'm about to get ya'll "knowledged" up on some downloadable Clothing Party shenanigans.
This is Costume Quest, from Double Fine, where you get to have the full Halloween experience. Like smashing pumpkins? Its in there. What about actually trick-or-treating? Yup, in there too. Alright, how about this; you like going door to door, or even walking around your cul-de-sac, looking for candy and then you get ambushed by monsters stealing the said candy, whereas such event to happen, you go into "battle mode" in which the costume you chose to wear out that night has magically became the item it is representing? THEN YOU ARE IN FOR A TREAT!(Jason made a punny.) Costume Quest has all those and then some, all wrapped up in a $15 5 hour game. It's just awesome.

You start out your Quest where you, the player, chooses between one of the new to town twin siblings, Reynold or Wren. The other child is then used as bait for the whole game, meaning after you two set out on your night, the first house you go to is invaded by MONSTERS! MONSTERS WHO ARE THERE TO TAKE ALL THE CANDY, EVERYWHERE! You being in your Robot costume and your brother/sister in their Candy Corn costume are both taken by surprise and eventually grabbed to be part of the haul.

With your twin in the monsters' clutches, you set off gathering candy(currency) XP, party members, costumes, and battle stamps(stat buffs). The costumes you gather all demand either blueprints, or are just thrown at you with specific qualities and actions from/for quest completion. The candy plays only as a "collectible" in the shortest meaning, and is extremely addicting to scourge the landscape to get(isn't that true in real life too?). For the party members, Everette is introduced in the first stage while Lucy is the last one to join, in the second. They too share the unique ability to use the costumes to battle and serve to the "RPG-ness" of the game.

That's right! That shit is REAL! Screen cap of a later battle I was in with my crew.

Each character has HP, AP, a level, costume specific abilities in both special attacks and basic attacks, and the battle stamps to take on the opposing forces. Reynold(me) is in the French Fry costume, Everette(middle) is in the Ninja, and Lucy(right) is in the Robot. We each take the personas of the costumes and the outcome is usually something to behold. There are about 15 or so you can collect, but you don't necessarily need all of them to finish the game and save your twin.

This is the "Last Gourdian" costume in a concept picture. Can't tell its my favorite or anything, right?

Of course with the different costumes, there are many effects the costumes come with, like jet skates, a flash light, the ability to go invisible, or attract hungry NPCs. They are all used in one point of the game to further it along, but I found it most fun to just roll around fast-travelling with the skates.

Now, onto the flaws little they be, but are still noticeable. As I first pointed out, its only about 5 hours of gameplay. The level cap is set at 10 with no real point to it; I finished the game at Lv. 8 or 9 and got through it fine. I later came back and farmed until Lv. 10 just because I'm OCD like that. The combat gets repetitive, the frame rate hitches for only a 1 gig download. Characters chug during battle sequences, alongside with just pop in and out of the environment. But the most annoying for me was that I've had to go around in a circle, after skating up a flight of stairs, five times to have my party actually get summoned back to my side, and there shouldn't be any big clipping issues like that.

Anyway, the hours I put in was well worth the excitement I got out of this tiny package. The Double Fine team has done another great job in storytelling, gameplay even if it is nothing but a "my first RPG", and of course the writing itself. Those people are just plain funny. On my somewhat biased scale: 4 out of 5.