Though not the deepest game on the market, Costume Quest provides a fine quick role-playing fix that seeps with charm.
This is the story of Costume Quest, Double Fine Productions' first foray onto the role-playing game scene. Delivering plenty of strong humor and a entertaining lighthearted story alongside an excellently designed, more simplified approach toward the genre, Costume Quest makes itself both a perfect starting point for the genre as well as nice and simple role-playing fix.
Gameplay is simple. You and your party move about the neighborhood trick-or-treating to collect candy (hey, one can't just put trick-or-treating on hold just because of some monsters, after all) and eradicate monsters, as well as take-on and subsequently complete quests offered by the town's inhabitants. The game is split into three sizable environments that hold plenty of activities to participate in and quirky characters to converse with. An apple bobbing mini-game that you can partake in, for example, is run by a guy who promotes good dental hygiene by rewarding kids with, ironically enough, candy as thanks for playing. His justification? "It's positive re-enforcement." Yeah... sure. Eccentrics like that make up a good portion of the cast, each delivering their own endearing quirks. It's well written stuff, and makes conversing with all the town's inhabitants well worthwhile.
The trick-or-treating aspect serves as the conduit for battle. What you encounter upon knocking on doors is all a matter of chance. Sometimes you'll be lucky and be met by a friendly costumed adult who'll hand you bucket-loads of candy, which can be used to buy various battle enhancement items called Battle Stamps; other times you'll be unlucky and find a monster thus engaging combat. It's basically a random encounter system, really, just with without all the annoying parts. When engaged, battle switches to a miniature version of the surrounding scenery and enlarges both you and your party and the enemy from their diminutive cel-shaded selves to gargantuan sizes to duke it out (though they still retain their cel-shaded appearance). Battle itself takes on the form of a turn-based system accompanied by command prompts a la Paper Mario to spice things up a notch. You have only two basic commands: a standard attack and a special attack that charges up over time. An additional third stun command also becomes available if you equip a battle stamp that grants such. Each attack initiates a button prompt that, when pressed, will increase the damage dealt by it. They also allow you to defend against enemy attacks. Prompts range from simply pressing the button shown, mashing on it, timing the button press, and moving the left-analog stick about. Because of this, battle becomes more involved and exciting, as you're always an active participant instead of just imputing commands passively watching as everything plays out. It's quite fun.
One other aspect of battle are your costumes, which essentially serve as different classes of sorts. Each costume carries its own special ability that can be used both in and out of battle and affects your team's stats in varying ways. The Knight costume, one of the first you get, for instance, is marked as specializing in defense as evident by it's ability to shield your and your allies in battle to up their defense exponentially, as well as use the shield to protect yourself from various hazards like falling rocks. Different costumes are obtained by collecting the necessary materials from coffins (this game's version of treasure chests) scattered about and from completing quests.
With all that said, Costume Quest seems like just another role-playing game but with a somewhat unusual setting, right? What makes it something of a standout is in it's utter simplicity. Costume Quest takes all the usual role-playing tropes and makes them much easier to digest. Where battles usually add loads of strategical considerations into the mix, Costume Quest makes it simple and effortless while still making it engaging. Quests are easy as can be, but deliver plenty of entertaining dialog that alone justifies pursuing them. Everything strikes just the right balance to satisfy both new and experienced players alike. And for a quick 5-6 hour game, that it can strike such a balance is quite an achievement. And it's for that reason that Costume Quest is a successful game.