Okay so I was really annoyed when three days after Halloween I see this game Costume Quest on the XBla marketplace. I think the cover art looks cute, so I read the description and see that it's a game developed by none other than Double Fine studios. Double Fine put out a game and there wasn't a bigger hubub about it? Well here's the hubub I'm making because I'm annoyed I didn't find out about this sooner!
What a freaking fun and cute game to get you in the spirit of Halloween (a few days too late but still)! You start the game watching a scene with two fraternal siblings Reynold and Wren, bickering about trick or treating. At this point you are momentarily placed in the body of their Mom, whom you use to place one of the siblings in charge for the night, which is how you choose your character. The other sibling then is placed in a lame Halloween costume as a piece of candy corn, you adorn your Robot costume, and you're on your way. Shortly thereafter, a monster who mistakes your sibling as a tasty treat, and hauls them away. So, since you were placed in charge of them, you make it your mission to get them back (mostly so your parents don't kill you and ruin Halloween!)
The game is an RPG in one of it's purest forms. When you square off against the monsters, you turn into this imagination driven larger than life version of the costume you are wearing. The robot costume you start with is rather unassuming (cardboard box, dials, etc...) but in battle you look more like something out of the Gundam universe with flying and rockets and oh man cool. The battles are something a bit new to me, as your ability to do and take damage has less to do with your level as it does your actual reaction time. All the fights are build on a quick-time event system, where you hit an input button (ABXY) at a precise moment to block more damage or deal more damage. I get the feeling the novelty of this may wear off at some point, but I played the thing for like 6 hours so far and I think the animations keep it from getting too stale.
This game makes you feel like a kid in the best sense of the term. And look, I keep feeling silly for doing these reviews of games like this that have a demo that YOU CAN GO AND PLAY YOURSELF, I KNOW! But still, I didn't hear anything as far as buzz about this game, and I feel as though it is a disservice, since the game is fun, made by a studio reputable for making great games; let's face it, who doesn't love Halloween? Maybe that sentence doesn't make sense, but I don't care! Buy the game and love it! BOOSH!
p.s. I know it's also weird that I never write about games that are bad, and that's because I constantly play demos of these games to decide which to buy, because I'm frugal and don't want to have a plethora of XBla games that I don't like. Perhaps I will make a list of games to just skip over and don't even waste your time playing, but I'll save it for another post...
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