I’ve been wondering for a long time just how far charm can carry a product. No seriously, think about it- we've all seen movies or played video games that rode on a series of archetypes and cliches implemented in other superior products, and yet we give the rehashes a pass because they held a significant amount of an unquantifiable emotion called charm.

With Costume Quest, I think I’ve finally gotten the answer to my question, at least as far as video games are concerned: the charm has to add onto a solid foundation, not substitute for it. If the latter happens, you get a product that will make you smile occasionally but ultimately be seen as not worth your time, and that was the case with this release from Double Fine (who, ironically, did the Grim Fandango remaster, which I completed prior to CQ).

Like Fandango, you have an interesting premise in monsters taking advantage of Halloween to steal a bunch of candy from unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. Twins Reynold and Wren are out celebrating (and arguing) when these creatures kidnap one of the siblings (the opposite of whoever you choose to play as- however, given that I played as Reynold, I’m going to be using him as my frame of reference from this point on). It’s up to Reynold to save her, who teams up with two others, Everett and Lucy, to get her.

Paranormal beings causing shenanigans during holidays might not be the most original setting, but Costume Quest does a couple of things that play to the aforementioned allure. One is the focus on Wren and Reynold’s relationship: the writers actually succeed in creating that love-hate sibling dynamic in the dialogue, laying the groundwork for a decent mini character arc in which Reynold learns to publicly love his sister. And two, the whole situation is played very tongue-in-cheek. Sure, stealing kids and wanting to turn them into candy is inherently dark, but the goblin-like entities are depicted as blue collarish in personality, seeing their work as more of a duty than a genuine goal. There is the atypical incompetency, but it never takes over the majority of the grunts (a wise choice, as that would render them more annoying than entertaining). I’m also, admittedly, a sucker for stories involving kids who aren’t conventional superheroes taking it upon themselves to save the world; growing up, I liked Starkid and Teamo Supremo to give you an idea of this dumb guilty pleasure.

That being said, I did have one pet peeve, which is the running gag of adults not discovering the presence of monsters. I say running gag, but it’s only addressed once wherein a mall cop remarks that the ghouls are simply kids dressed up as gremlins. Every other time you have an adult(s) near one, they don’t even react to their presence (or the battles you get into). It honestly kind of bugged me, especially considering a lot of the houses you trick-or-treat at have Grubbins in them- like, what happened to the original occupants and how do the neighbors NOT realize that something is amiss right next door to them?!

Like I said, the story isn’t terrific or overly-entertaining, but it’s enjoyable enough, with a script that’ll get the occasional chuckle out of you.

Unfortunately, the biggest flaw is the lack of voice acting: this is one of those RPGs that would’ve benefitted significantly from a series of voice artists giving life to the cast before you, and a big reason for that is that most of the dialogue bubbles are on a timer, meaning you cannot read things at your own pace lest you miss out on some characters’ contributions to a scene. I didn’t see the reason for this. If it was done for cinematic pacing, then the direction sucks because often the snaps during convos lacked cohesion or reason, either hurting the drama by dragging things out or hurting the comedy by shortening situational jokes.

The soundscape, in general, is paltry. None of the music stands out due to the OST being ambient to a fault - there are at least 4-5 main areas in the game, and I can’t recall the track for any of them. There are people who may prefer that, seeing Halloween as an inherently horror-based premise that should focus on ambience over direct beats, but my counter is there is a balance that has been achieved by other games indulging in horror-esque motifs. In the end, only the battle theme is distinct, and I feel that’s primarily because it’s the only fight music in the entire game and, as such, repeats.

Sound effects are decent. Every suit has its own unique noises for attack and defense, but limiting everything to just three moves total inherently makes it all get repetitive over the course of hours (i.e., hearing the same missile noise from the mech suit is tiresome). Outside of brawls, you get other sources of monotony: footsteps are synced well-enough but don’t change based on surface (save liquid in Grubbins on Ice), breakable objects, hittable items, and people all have the same specific din tied to them when hit by the pail, no matter the type of object or size of the person (i.e., pumpkins give the same sound as rubble piles, trash cans the same as gumball machines, fat guys the same as little boys, etc...).

Graphically, Costume Quest is good. The artists capture the feel of Hallow’s Eve, with every area being covered with an orange or purple/black tint. Your atypical jack-o'-lanterns, hay bales, scarecrows, skeletons, and autumnal leaves are strewn throughout, and NPCs are surprisingly distinct in costume wearing (the exception being if they’re a part of a clique that requires the same suit). Child character models, while suffering from the Powerpuff Girl problem of having big heads with giant eyes, are stylized enough and fit the aesthetic of the world perfectly. That being said, there is some laziness in the form of the houses/buildings: they aren’t individualized at all, and trick-or-treating at any of them gives the same rehashed dialogues and animation. Also, I experienced an inconsistent/low framerate.

Unfortunately, the real flaws come with the gameplay. Costume Quest is a very barebones RPG. You have your three criteria: an experience/leveling system, customization, and turn-based combat, but it’s all so minimal as to be insulting. With the first, there are only 10 levels total and no skill points- due to there being no skills: the only thing that increases is your HP and attack power, which is pointless because you rarely have to revisit previous areas and your leveling correlates with the minions in new ones, essentially making the whole thing a form of level scaling.

Customization comes down to giving every partner a fully-assembled costume: you can’t mix-or-match parts and a select few costumes contain abilities vital for bypassing exploration obstacles, forcing you to have to switch constantly when you want to prep for a fight versus use one for movement (i.e., having to switch to the spaceman suit for the light-up sword, then switch back to something else). Transmog would’ve gone a long way here, or having it so that, if one of your partners is wearing a suit, you have access to its capabilities.

And finally, combat is downright bad due to a couple of reasons, the first being the dearth of diversity in powers. Each suit has a single attack as well a special power that is available after 3 turns, and that latter ability is always one of four things: a more powerful attack, a strong defense, a fright scare, or a heal. That is it. And it’s not like you’ll be using it much considering you’ll defeat 90% of grunts before it’s charged-up.

The system is pathetic. Forget fancy variations, where are the standard block/defend, evade, use item, or heck charge-up? This is common stuff that has been in place for years now (even relative to when Costume Quest came out in 2010). The availability of battle stamps (which seem to have been ripped off the badges from Paper Mario 2) do give some variation such as stuns, poisons, and counterstrikes, but some of these should’ve just been associated with suits or suit parts. And you can only equip one per a person, though I assume that was done to prevent the already easy combat from becoming even easier, which brings up my second complaint, which is the lack of strategy- literally all you have to do to win any fight is concentrate your attacks on a single enemy and conquer each one individually. Taking out the mages/healers is the only thing I can say that resembles a tactic, but at level 5 you’re at a point where even this is technically unnecessary (you’ll still want to do it to avoid dragging out battles, so there is subtle forced gameplay there). The very few bosses offer some strategy, but it’s too little too late.

You will have to fight a lot as the whole schema of Costume Quest is going around defeating roaming bugaboos, or trick-or-treating at houses that secretly have Grubbins inside. And because the combat is repetitive it’s not fun, and because you have to do it multiple times, it makes the game not fun.

And that’s what ultimately prevents me from recommending Costume Quest. It has nice visuals and a charming enough story, but sound and especially gameplay are in wanting, and exploration, despite being free roam, is very limited in scope/details/secrets. On top of all this, most of the sidequests are repetitive (ex., find this trading card or bob for apples or locate these missing kids), and the ones that aren’t honestly shouldn’t even be called sidequests since they’re mandatory for story progression.

As for Grubbins on Ice, it’s just more of the same. The story starts off on an interesting note with three of the characters traveling to the monster dimension and getting involved in a rebellion against the oppressive regime there, but that latter part is LITERALLY dropped and you get your standard beat the final boss (one of whom is taken from the main game). The gameplay and even mission structure is reskinned from the previous games (i.e., trick-or-treating = door-to-door knocking/recruitment, hide-and-seek = find runaways, bobbing for apples = bobbing for candied eyes), and the aesthetic aspects are also reskinned (pumpkins become snowmen). There is a hookline, but it doesn’t add much variety to the game world.

For the record, compared to other games, Double Fine’s rehashes aren’t bad, and it was nice getting to see a more “human” side to the monsters. I also found the shy romance between Lucy and Everett to be Peanuts-esque in its heartwarmingness. But the end product still feels lazy, and given that this sets-up the sequel, it is required to be played, meaning more effort should’ve been put into it.

Costume Quest has the right amount of hours per gameplay (about 5 hours to beat the main game, 2.5-3 for the DLC), but it’s not enjoyable enough to be recommended.

Cute little RPG adventure, with tons of charm just oozing out of the environments and characters. However, the gameplay is just far too simple, it would give Pokémon a run for its money. It's an issue that unfortunately gets old and really starts to make the game feel like a drag, having to fight the same fights with the same costumes over and over and over again.

It's fun trying out the different costumes and their abilities in battle but there never comes a point where you'd need to think about what costumes you would need or switch around for a battle, other than the final boss fight.

Overall, it's a nice, spooky little adventure worth playing around the Halloween time if you can find it cheaper enough for you. The presentation is the highlight of this game as the main RPG elements and fights are far too simplified to the point of being tiring and boring after a few hours in.