I’ve had Costume Quest (CQ) sitting on my desktop for over a month, but even if you consider I wasn’t around for a couple of weeks, it’s still been sitting on my desktop for quite a while. I’m not sure what possessed me to keep playing, even though it took a long time for me to get into it. I suppose over time the cartoony graphics and the charm just kept asking me to play even though the story was a little lacking.

CQ felt like a mash up of RPG with a little bit of adventure. You play as one half of a twin pair seeking your other half, who after wearing a candy corn costume, has been kidnapped and will be sacrificed to the greatly feared Big Bones of the Repugia world. You are given quests to progress and these quests can be anything from collecting cards, defeating enemies for their trophies, winning a costume contest, and oh, I can’t forget, trick-or-treating. The theme is heavily based on Halloween, hence the name of the game.

The fun part is you walk around in these put-together costumes that you find materials for (e.g., the Statue of Liberty costume requires cardboard and a feather duster among other things) and it looks like what you would expect – kids with semi-decent costumes, no fancy cosplay here. Except, when you enter into battle with the denizens of the Repugia world who have been sent to the human world to gather candy, you transform into, for a lack of better metaphor, superheroes. You become giants, larger than life, just as the monsters you run into are giants. One of my favorite environments is at the Mall and going into battle, you’re in a parking lot with teeny cars making U-turns when they see you (or the monsters).

The battle system was also interesting, but since I haven’t been playing regularly, my reflexes have been pretty slow. Even after playing, I still feel slow. Each costume has a different method of attacking. Similar to God of War with random buttons to press at certain times, you are instructed to do one of four things: press a button right away (E, Q, shift, or spacebar), press a button multiple times, press a series of buttons (WASD), or press a button at the right time. Aside from the WASD series, whenever you’re asked to press a button, it will be from the same set of four: E, Q, shift, or spacebar. You are also given the chance to defend yourself and reduce the damage you take by pressing a button at the right time. Despite my slow reaction time, I did feel the developers gave ample time and I never got frustrated that I wasn’t fast enough. I almost feel like they gave players the time to read the entire line, then react.

There are 10 costumes, each with different abilities and attacks. My favorite was the French Fry costume because you actually turn into a spider with the sound of snipping scissors as your attack. The special move of spraying your enemies with salt is also amusing, but sometimes ineffective, especially against bosses. Some costumes have special out-of-combat abilities. For example, the robot costume allows you to skate up ramps to jump over walls and the ninja costume allows you to sneak around behind enemies so you actually handle the surprise attack, rather than leaving it up to the RNG.

Aesthetically, I found everything well put together. It could be that since I’m running these games on a standard desktop, the graphics are actually much better than what I played with, but it wasn’t really the quality that bugged me as much as the chibi-effect. I wasn’t sure what to think. But, in the end, I got used to it and the playfulness effect of that kept me wanting to return to find out what happened next in the story. The story itself felt a bit cliche. Based on the lost family member trope, you embark on an adventure to recover said lost family member. Along the way, you encounter the Big Bad Witch who is a servant of Big Bones, the final boss you fight. I say it’s a bit shallow because even though Big Bones is talked about and feared among the monster denizens, he never actually has a hand in anything until Dorsilla (the witch) summons him. If anything, I felt more of a connection to Dorsilla and couldn’t care less about Big Bones. I’m still left wondering what happened to Dorsilla after her humiliating defeat at my hands.

I’m glad that the game is relatively short – for older gamers or players who want to play something in 15-min chunks, it is easy to finish the game at a relaxed pace. One of the things that put me off initially was the lack of a map and the lack of save points, but once you get past the maze that is the neighborhood in the first stage and you reach your first police radio box (which serve as a save station), it gets easier to progress at your own pace. I would recommend this game for people who like RPGs with a little bit of action in their battle but don’t want to invest long hours (ala Final Fantasy), especially if your goal is to finish a game.