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Costume Quest is new PSN/XBLA game with a Halloween theme, created by Tim Schaefer’s Double Fine studio. Following the less-than-stellar reception of last year’s Brutal Legend, Double Fine chose to concentrate on a news eries of games, some of the small and downloadable variety. Costume Quest being the first release under this new strategy.

It’s an RPG parody, based on kids trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Two squabbling twins are separated in the game’s intro, and you control one twin (your choice) in a search for the other. The world, in what I saw in the first half-hour, is simply the suburban landscape of these kids’ home. Cul-de-sacs, parks, driveways and mailboxes. The houses are decked out for Halloween; knocking on any available door will either produce a costumed adult… or a monster battle.

The gimmick is that, when a battle begins, the kids’ costumes are transformed into giant-size attackers. The cheesy cardboard box robot costume becomes a massive, Gundam-worthy battlemech, for example. Each costume has unique attacks that are pulled off through something akin to quick-time events (a lot like the action-RPG elements of Paper Mario.) If you press X at the right time on a fluctuating status bar, you do maximum damage… that sort of thing. Each costume also has a special ability that can be used while exploring the neighborhood. The aforementioned robot comes with skates that allow you to scoot across ramps and access fenced-in yards.

I’m sold on the game’s cute art direction. The big-eyed, big-headed children bring to mind scribbly, sketchy animated shows like “Home Movies.” Although there is no voice acting, the character dialogue is worth reading. I stopped a little girl in a witch costume on the sidewalk and her opening line was “Just so you know, I prefer ‘Wiccan.’”

Talking to NPCs triggers quests that end in loot, such as candy (the game’s currency, of course) or parts of new costumes. You also get to take on additional party members, so it looks like the game will become a Pokemon-esque adventure of choosing the right costume to get through the game’s monster battles.

It’s a cool setup. I really like the visual of walking through Suburbia, following trails of Halloween luminaries up to somebody’s front porch.

My concern at this point is that the game will not provide enough variety to justify the $15 price, and I’ll end up slogging through fetch quests and loot grinds just to become strong enough to beat whatever I’m supposed to beat. In the First Thirty, I only ran into one baddie type, a goblin kind of thing that either had a cannon or a magic wand.

Still, I thought it was pretty excellent stuff, with cute characters and a solid take on a highly streamlined RPG. During the demo, I got to a point where the game told me I would have received a PS3 Trophy if I had purchased the full version… so I bought it.