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Think about the qualities of poorly reviewed games: short, linear, easy. These are pejoratives we hear all the time.

Costume Quest is all of these things, but it’s better for them. “How can this be?” you may be asking yourself. Let me explain.

Costume Quest, the newest game by Tim Schafer’s critically-acclaimed, consumer-ignored studio, Double Fine, is a wonderful little downloadable title that follows one child’s journey on Halloween night to find his or her sibling while also accumulating as much candy as humanly (and more appropriately, inhumanly,) possible. To do this, you form a party, share costumes – which take on the form of what inspired them in combat, ranging from giant robots to the Statue of Liberty – to solve puzzles, fight monsters, and go trick-or-treating.

Costume Quest’s biggest fault turned feature is its length. I was able to beat it and gain all 200 points of its delicious Gamerscore in a matter of five or so hours. It could easily be cut down to about four hours if you focused solely on the main story.

Normally, this would be a bad thing, but it actually works in Costume Quest’s favor. In being so short, it’s something that’s easy to go back to. Maybe you’ll even make it a Halloween tradition like I plan to do for many years to come.

Costume Quest is also pretty linear. The only reason to go back to any of the previous areas is to finish the odd quest (which you should never have to do anyway since each level’s quests are self-contained in that area.)

Again, this normally doesn’t go over very well when reviewing a triple-A title, but when applied to Costume Quest, it works. The harsh linearity makes the game play out more like a Halloween television special than an interactive experience, perfect again for a yearly playthrough.

And of course, there’s the difficulty – or lack thereof. Costume Quest is about as punishing as a pillow fight. Battles are pretty easy – enemies seem to do everything in their power not to kill you – but even when you do manage to get overwhelmed, which happened a total of four times to me (three of those can be attributed to the final boss,) you are taken right back to before the battle. No penalty, no condescension, no nothing. And win or lose, you’ll always regain your full health after every altercation.

But this just feeds right into Costume Quest’s strengths.

Costume quest is a light, simple, and fun RPG romp full of fun and imagination. What Schafer’s team has made is the video game equivalent of “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.” It’s a perfect accompaniment to the season and something that is enduring enough to be an annual tradition.

I’d love to see Double Fine extend this to other holidays, y’know, right after they finish Psychonauts 2 (a guy can dream.)