#17 - Costume Quest

Kids can be mean, huh? But adults can be just as awful sometimes. Here’s the conversation at the first house you go trick-or-treating at:

I decided to change things up a bit for my Halloween screenshot postings. I’ve been posting too much horror and gore lately; it’s time for some childish Halloween fun! And what better way than a video game that’s all about trick-or-treating?

Costume Quest is about two new kids on the block - twin siblings - who are going out trick-or-treating for the first time in their new neighborhood.

At the beginning, you get to choose which of the two siblings to play as: the boy Reynold or the girl Wren. Of course, with my affinity for playing strong feminine characters, I went with Wren.

Your first trick-or-treat door went poorly, as seen above. Afraid to be seen with your embarrassment of a sibling, you let your twin go alone to the next door, where they encounter a monster hunting for candy! And it just so happens, your sibling is wearing a candy corn costume!

Your sibling is abducted and thrown over a gate into an ominous land and you find yourself forced to collect Halloween candy in order to open the gates and pursue your sibling.

Along the way, you find an ally in another new kid who’s being bullied. With your combined costumes, you collect candy and fight more monsters you encounter in houses. You can exchange costumes for various abilities, and you can find resources in the neighborhood that let you build new and unique costumes, for more unique abilities that will help you on your quest.

The fights against monsters transform into giant kaiju-like battles, where your costumes provide you with special attacks. The fights are turn-based with quick time events to successfully land a blow.

This was a fun game about trying to rescue your sibling so they don’t ruin Halloween for you. This game is a Halloween tradition for me; I always like to re-play this game every October. I personally enjoy it because it feels nostalgic to me. It takes me back to my childhood days of trick-or-treating in suburban neighborhoods. I lived out in the forested countryside, so I had to be driven into town by my parents to go trick-or-treating.

I always looked way older than I actually was, so the last 3 years I went out, people always asked if I was too old to be trick-or-treating. Halloween was my favorite holiday, so it was sad that I had to give up trick-or-treating a little early, just because I looked much older. We need to normalize trick-or-treating for adults!

Ahem.

There is also a sequel to this game called Costume Quest 2, where trick-or-treating is outlawed in the near future by dentists. You and your sibling go on time-traveling adventures to stop this horrible dark future from happening.