Gumball in Trick-or-Treat Land Review

Do you ever miss the days of Game Boy nostalgia? If so, then might I recommend Gumball in Trick-or-Treat Land? Developed by Exquisite Laundry Pet LLC., this is a love letter to the classic JRPGs of old. In it, you play as Gumball, a sentient gumball (whom you can choose the flavour of), who is transported to Trick-or-Treat Land. Your goal? Return to the gumball machine you call home.

I have to admit, playing this, I was brought back to the childhood games that I enjoyed. With turn-based battles and 2D pixelated graphics, you can explore the different locales. You’ll meet and do battle against Trick-or-Treaters, where your basic attack is Treat, which will only do one HP of damage. The good news is that the Candy Corn you fight will also do one HP of damage, and you can check the stats of your character and the enemy by going to your Skills. These won’t take up a turn, but they will cost one if you use Focus to regain your HP (and later Magick).

It’s all about gauging what to do, and as you level up, you’ll gain another HP (or Magick, which you’ll get to choose later on). The only battles will be against the Trick-or-Treaters, so you don’t need to worry about any random encounters. Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t any; if you travel off the beaten path, there will be random battles, but you won’t gain experience, only Gold.

The battle system and the way they are arranged remind me a lot of the random trainer battles in Pokémon games of old, so I was quick to get to grips with it. Of course, there are items you can obtain, such as Potions and Pentagram Crackers. Potions allow you to fully restore your health, while Pentagram Crackers can raise your Attack by one for the remainder of a battle, which is particularly helpful in some tougher fights.

You’ll find fetch quests, such as returning Library materials to find the book that can help you return home, but there are other quests available, too. For example, you could accidentally become an accessory to a crime, and to avoid paying a 10,000 Gold fine, you’ll need to find the suspect you unwittingly aided as part of your community service.

The world itself is well-developed. The candies have their own lives, and it’s hard not to appreciate them. From Candy Corn to Apples, there’s a host of different types of villagers for you to meet and enjoy. These include residents who just love pizza, laboratory experiments, schools for mushrooms, and just a surprisingly cosy rural environment.

If you need to save the game, head over to Stumply, a tree stump that you can talk to and save the game. When you get a game over, you’ll start from the Stumply you’ve most recently met, but you can also save from any point in the Start menu. Just remember which Stumply you last spoke to, as the map isn’t large and you might end up having to travel further depending on which stump you last spoke to.

Once you get that Library book, though? Bad news, you’ll need to get the patches for the Scarecrow to ensure he gets his magical powers back. Remember how you became an accessory to a crime? Well, it’s good that you did because this is one of the ways you’ll need to get one of these patches back. There are eight of them altogether, and so you’ll need to go on a myriad of quests to eventually get to each boss fight. As you progress, these fights will get tougher, but you also don’t have to do them in a linear order, allowing you to get some more experience first.

While Gumball in Trick-or-Treat Land isn’t especially challenging, it does require you to consider where you should go next. Some boss fights are a lot tougher than others, and will require you to have more HP and Magick.

Gold is incredibly useful here, as you’re limited on how much HP and Magick you can earn. During my time playing through the title, I noticed that the highest level you could get to is 16, and the only way to raise your stats then? You’ll need to find rare items such as Dark Cereal, but this is only one of two items that can be used. These two items can’t be made, and one of each will either increase your Magick or HP by one.

I should also note that in battle, your Magick Spells are the best way to get through combat later. Melee attacks are considerably weak, but each time you get five library books, you’ll find yourself going back to the Library to get a new spell, of which there are seven in total. You’ll also get different partners to join you in combat, such as Ollie, a lollipop who joined me because we were both Blueberry flavour. There are three partners that you’ll find, and only one can be in battle with you at a time. However, they all have their own unique abilities, so it’s a bit of a guess on how you want to battle your enemies.

All in all, the puzzles and combat in Gumball in Trick-or-Treat Land were fun and they fit the all-age rating that the devs were going for. With the chiptune soundtrack, the nostalgic pixel art-style, and the Game Boy mechanics, this felt like a trip back through time. Plus, it’s been a while since I found a game where the predicted eight hours was actually accurate. Upon completing the game, you can still explore your save file to find any secrets you may have missed, which is a nice touch.

Sure, there were some very minor blips here and there, where maybe there was one or two typos in dialogue, and a few moments where some art clipped through but… overall, these didn’t detract from the experiences. The only major one I found was in one boss fight where, even when I’d knocked the HP down to the bottom, it still took some extra hits to win. Aside from that, those who are looking for a nostalgic trip down memory lane will surely enjoy this title.