I promised myself that i would work on shortening my backlog within the next few weeks before buying anything new... but what the hell, it was only 2 bucks and i did play its demo back in like, 2013? So i'm still counting it as part of my backlog.
Speaking of the demo, this was the first time i'd seen a demo openly aknowledge that its a demo, with one of the NPCs telling you outright that to continue the game you had to buy it. Just a little memory that for some reason stayed with me until now.
That bit of self-awareness was just one of the many instances of well written comedic chatter that permeates the whole of Costume Quest. This is one of those games where each NPC has 10 different lines for every time you decide to talk to them (sometimes even getting new ones if you proceed with the story) and there's even unique interactions for when you punch them, something that is largely irrelevant to any gameplay mechanic, but is also really funny.
All of the gameplay mechanics in question have been properly contextualized to make sense when seen through the perspective of a child going trick-or-treating on Halloween night, rather than adhering to the average RPG tropes. The currency is candies, the collectibles are trading cards, the character perks exist in the form of stamps, costumes are put together assembling everyday objects and all your progress is reported inside a diary.
I wish i could say the writing is the strongest suit of Costume Quest, but all of the love and care put into these finer details isn't enough to compensate for a rather weak story. This is a game meant for younger audiences, an entry point into turn based RPGs of sort, and i'll go through how that doesn't excuse the gameplay either in a second, for now i'll just complain about how the 2 goobers who'll follow you along the way don't go through an arc of any kind, nor seem terribly invested in the quest to save your sister/brother. They're just kinda there, devoid of any personality other than the few lines of dialogue that lead to them joining you. There isn't much of a resolution for the villain either, like there was supposed to be a post credits scene that the developers forgot to program in. As it stands, the game just kind of ends. Brutal Legend, a game i reviewed recently from the same developers, gave off a similar feeling if you didn't bother looking up any of the lore, here there isn't much to work with other than what the main story outright tells you, so what the ♥♥♥♥?
Costume Quest is a short game, so the way it manages to get old so quickly is almost commendable. The world map is divided in 3 areas, each with their own set of secondary missions and collectibles. By the time you're done with the first one you might have a good impression of the game, you might think that the battles are a bit simplistic and the quests aren't the most elaborate, but it's the tutorial area, that's excusable! Then you play the other two areas and they are a carbon copy of the one you just played. Same structure, same side-missions, same everything.
The enemy variety is laughable if things weren't already dire, going as far as recycling the few models they created into different recolors. There's only 4 bosses, half of which are re-used at least once.
The difficulty spike that separates the whole affair leading up to the final boss, which you can confortably play in your sleep pretty much, and the final boss itself was a good knee slapper, reminded me of the Gen 4 remakes, always a good sign.
Character customization is the nail in the coffin, personally. I'll concede that there's a good amount of perks, but that's as far as my praise will go. The costumes slightly change a character's stats (stats that will otherwise be all identical) and each will have 2 different attacks, a normal one and another that requires you to fill a bar over the course of a fight. That's it. A miserable 10 costumes in total, 8 at best that will be seen by most people, with half of that number being genuinely viable, and this is all there's to them? Nah dawg, nah bruh, nah fam.
Should i REALLY be so harsh over such a low budget/low priced game? Part of me thinks i'm going overboard with the whining, but then again... whether a game is 5 bucks or then times as much, if i'm not having any fun playing it then i can't give it a passing score, simple as.
