REVIEW: The Plucky Squire

September 18, 2024

Written by Jamie Galea

The Plucky Squire is one of those games that has been long awaited by everyone who’s laid eyes on it. You can thank its striking reveal, showing off a killer art style plus seamlessing merging 2D and 3D gameplay, creating a look and feel that you can’t help but be curious about. With the game out after two long years, I’m happy to report that it’s a mostly fun time, if not without some very clear faults.

You play as Jot, the titular Plucky Squire, and hero of the land of Mojo. After one too many defeats, the evil wizard Humgrump discovers a terrifying truth: he and everyone else is a character in a storybook, and he’s destined to lose against Jot every single time. Fuelled by this discovery, Humgrump discovers a way to break out of the storybook, and also manages to kick Jot out at the same time. It’s up to Jot to not only save the land of Mojo from its greatest threat yet, but also save his own story.

The story works fine enough, if a bit too twee for my liking. It nails the storybook vibe, thanks to a fantastic narrator reading out the story as you go along. If nothing else, the game has plenty of charm and it wants to make the most of it. I don’t think it’ll work for everyone, but it unabashedly commits to this vibe wholeheartedly, and I can’t help but respect that.

Arguably the most striking thing about the game is its art style. If you’ve followed co-director and former Game Freak artist James Turner long enough on social media, you know he’s got a particularly distinct artstyle. The Plucky Squire is full of his art, now given life and movement, and it’s glorious. It’s such a pleasant game to look at, filled with vibrant and lush colours. Even towards the end of the game where things take a bit of a shift, it still works fantastically.

It’s also a good incentive to seek out the concept art that’s one of the game’s collectables, because not only do you get more Turner art, you also get cool tidbits about unused concepts. Even when the game shifts to 3D, Turner’s designs still work. They don’t look quite as nice or as vibrant as the 2D art, but given the circumstances it does a decent enough job. The effect of transitioning between styles is seamless, never getting old or repetitive how many times you see it.

Much like with how it presents its narrative, The Plucky Squire also really commits to its aesthetic. When you’re navigating in the 2D mode, there is always a crease in the centre of your screen, and moving between screens gives you a full blown page turn animation. My fear was this animation would always be just a tad too long considering how often you’re moving between screens, but it’s just the right length to appear charming without feeling tedious.

As for what the game is, picture a classic top down 2D Zelda game, except every so often, the game shifts into 3D, yet locked to the top down perspective. Think the way the Link’s Awakening remake looked, and you’ve got the right idea. These 3D sections turn the game into a pseudo platformer, where you’re running around the desk of a very artsy child, which constantly shifts between chapters, showing different inspirations and themes. These levels are fun to navigate, with the game doing a good job of making mundane objects into things Jot has to move through.

While both perspectives couldn’t be anymore different, in both there’s plenty of combat and platforming and these are just fine enough. They’re a little basic and uninteresting, but ultimately functional. One neat way the game breaks up the action in the 2D world is via a series of minigames, which present an entirely different style of game as a distraction. Most of them tend to work fairly well, but there’s a few that tend to rely on stealth gameplay which doesn’t always work. It’s also how the game handles its boss fights, which I’m not entirely big on, but given how little the general combat has to offer, I think it’s ultimately the better play. Fortunately if you’re not super big on them, the game does let you skip them with no consequences.

Fortunately, the real meat of the game, and where you’ll be spending most of your playtime, is in its puzzles. While they won’t tax you in the same way a Zelda puzzle does, the game does a good job of making the logic easy enough to follow, which helps when you have a small pool of abilities to work with. Fortunately, if you’re ever stuck, there’s always a character during these scenes that’s able to point you in the right direction. If anything else, the game does a great job in making sure you can progress through it easily and not need external help.

Sadly, these puzzles also feel like the one element of the game that feels like a genuine let down, never really using the ideas it presents to its fullest. Most of the puzzles see Jot finding narrative descriptions in the world, with a word he can break apart from them. The goal here is to simply swap the words around to navigate around the map or get past an object hindering you. They’re fine, but very one note and samey. The puzzles where you move out of the book to manipulate objects in that environment are more interesting, but they’re not quite as plentiful as I’d like, nor do they really evolve much over the course of the game.

And then there’s the fact the game feels like it holds your hand a bit too much at times. While I appreciate the presence of the hint character, and it definitely came in clutch when I couldn’t recall what I could actually do in any given moment, at least the hints are optional. What’s more of a problem is that the game often has a habit of stopping to more or less tell you what you need to do to get past a puzzle before you’ve even had a chance to solve it. I’d understand if this was more a concession to younger gamers or if I was playing on an easier difficulty, which is all well and good. Yet it happens often enough in what the game describes as its more challenging mode that it doesn’t come across as helpful. I appreciate the games efforts to ensure people can finish it, but sometimes it can be a little much.

There’s ultimately a lot to like about The Plucky Squire, but at the end of the day, it’s a case of style over substance. For everything that it does with its presentation and aesthetics, I just wish the game did as much, if not more, with its concepts and ideas. For such a wildly cool and unique idea, everything it does is just okay, or not used to its fullest. It’s a shame, because I love the vibe and what it’s trying to do so very much.

As the debut title for All Possible Futures, I think it’s a good showcase of what the team is capable of and I’m excited to see what their next game is. If there’s more stunning art and cool ideas in their future, I’m all for it. I just hope it comes together better next time.

RATING: 3/5 (It’s Fine)

This game was reviewed thanks to a review code provided by the publisher. For more artsy takes like this, follow Jamie on all the social media at @jamiemgalea