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  • Balance Your Party
  • Go All Out In Combat
  • Understanding The Combat Order
  • Spend Your Candy Regularly
  • Visit Every House And Look At The Lights

Some people want to try out RPGs but feel overwhelmed by the complex systems, stats, and long play times. If you don't want to commit to over 40 hours of gameplay or try something funny and charming, you should look into Costume Quest.

Related: Best Halloween Games For Kids

Costume Quest comes from Double Fine, a team known for its hilarious and creative games. Even though Costume Quest gears itself toward kids,anyone can enjoy it and may find some parts challenging. If you review the best tips and understand the battle system, you'll find yourself succeeding and defeating any monster while you save your sibling.

Balance Your Party

Costume Quest lets you have up to three party members once you unlock them, so you'll have to balance your party. For example, if you have all support characters, you won't deal enough damage, but you may struggle during boss fights if you have only damage dealers.

If you need a good starting point, try to have an attacker, a tank, and support.

  • The attacker will deal damage and usually has a special move built around harming the enemy. For example, the Robot costume can launch missiles to destroy enemies, and the Space Warrior can summon a giant meteor.
  • Tanks will protect the party while dealing decent damage. You can use the Knight to give an ally a protective shield, while the French Fry Monster has a stunning move.
  • Supports heal their teammates to save them from sticky situations. The Statue of Liberty can heal the entire party, and the Unicorn can revive a teammate.

While an attacker, defender, and support work well for boss fights, you'll want to try out different combinations until you find costumes that work for your play style. For example, you may find that two attackers and a defender work well for regular fights since you may not need to heal in combat. On the other hand, some people may prefer all attackers for standard fights to see if they can defeat all the enemies before they get a chance to attack.

If you ever lose a battle, the game puts you close to where you lost, so you don't lose much progress. You can easily change your costumes and try a new strategy based on if you need more healing, defense, or anything else.

Go All Out In Combat

RPGs usually emphasize managing your resources, spending your MP wisely, and restoring your health between battles. However, Costume Quest streamlines these aspects to let you focus on combat at the moment and not worry about the next encounter. You heal all your health between battles, so you can take risks if you run low on HP. For example, you can use your special attacks to take out the enemies even if you're low on health since you won't have to worry about your HP when the next fight starts.

The same applies to specials and battle stamps. You have to wait three turns before using a combat ability - you should take advantage of them and use them in each combat encounter. You'll lose the recharge once the next battle starts, so you should use them as soon as possible.

You should only make an exception to this rule for healing moves. You don't want to waste a restoration on a team with full health, so hold off on using it until you run low. Since it takes three turns to recharge, you don't want to use the ability, barely heal anything, and have the enemy use a powerful attack.

Understanding The Combat Order

Costume Quest keeps working out your turn order straightforward by having your characters follow their order based on the UI. For example, your main character always acts first, followed by Everett, then Lucy. After they go, the enemy will attack based on their order in the UI. That means your team always attacks first, followed by the enemy, so you have the advantage.

From there, you can strategize your attacks based on the order. You may focus your first turn on attacking the most dangerous enemy to help you win the battle. Then, after the enemy takes their turn, you may want to use defense or healing abilities based on how much damage the enemy dealt. Since the game always follows this order, spend some time thinking about your moves before choosing an option.

You have to use your characters in the same order. That means who you assign to each costume matters. For example, if you like to use the Unicorn to revive teammates, you'll want your first character to wear it. That way, you can revive your teammate before their turn starts, so they don't miss it.

Related: Best Boss Fights In RPGs

Spend Your Candy Regularly

You'll collect candy as you defeat enemies, visit houses, and hit objects. Since candy works as your primary currency, you'll naturally want to save it and spend it on the best available items. However, you should spend your candy regularly when you first start the game. You can only carry so much candy in your bag, so you could lose candy if it gets too full.

However, you can find upgrades for your candy bag in the future, so keep an eye out for them and use them when possible. In short, if you see something you want to buy, like a battle stamp, purchase it once you have enough money.

Visit Every House And Look At The Lights

Every area requires you to trick-or-treat at each house. That means you'll have to stop by every place, knock on the door, and wait to see if the house has people to give you candy or Grubbins ready to fight. While you may become distracted by side quests or want to explore, ensure you stop by every house as you go down the street. Don't skip a single house; check both sides to ensure you go to every home there.

You can't easily keep track of the homes in your neighborhood, so you may find yourself backtracking and frantically searching the area for that last house. First, check streets you don't go to often to see if you missed any homes. Luckily, the game has each home turn off its lights after you trick-or-treat, so you can quickly check which ones you have already visited. Keep going to each house, see if you went there, and do what you can to track down that last home.

Even though the Robot rollerblades are primarily for launching yourself off ramps, they work as a sprint button. Use them to save time as you check the neighborhood for that last trick-or-treat spot.

Costume Quest offers some fun customization despite being a game geared toward kids. You'll need to think out your moves, plan for battles, and do what you can to succeed. As you look into the battle system, choose the right costumes, and utilize battle stamps, you'll defeat the Grubbins and save Halloween.

Next: The Best RPGs For Kids