One Word Review: Jocular
Costume Quest hits you with fun from the first moment. The game continues forward almost lackadaisically, never trying to overload the player with too many choices. This makes the game something easy to best in just a night or two. The story is easy to follow. The game mechanics are easy to perform. The game in total is easy, but without any of the negative baggage that goes along with that word.
The game’s gleefully colorful art style is reminiscent of Psychonauts, another Double Fine joint. But, during the fight sequences your giant mech, ninja, skinny pumpkin man or king (if, like me, you think this looks almost infringement worthy), and other notable Saturday morning crime fighting tropes, the game switches to a cleaner animation style. In cutscenes the game looks like an amateur cartoon, but in the fighting sequences it looks like a high production modern day computer created cartoon.
The game mechanics are easy to pick up and play. It is a joy to know everything that a game can do and to be able to produce those actions at any time. All of the moves are produced by hitting the button at a set time, hitting a button immediately, or mashing a button until a meter fills. The special attacks use the same sort of input. The animations on the attacks are amusing, but become repetitive after playing for a couple of hours. Luckily, the game doesn’t last for 10 hours so the moves don’t ever get JRPG stale.
The music is bubbly and charming. The tracks sound like they could be from an old Disney produced Halloween romp. I like the decision to not use voices. It is more comical to imagine what the voices would sound like myself.
From the moment I started this game on a Friday night, until I finished it Saturday afternoon this game made me smile. Even as an adult with no children, I found this game helped me recall things about the Halloweens of my youth. It almost feels like this game is made for a child to play with his/her parents in the room or vice versa. The jocose parts of this game outlast any possible irritants.
