HomeReviewsThe Plucky Squire
The Plucky Squire review: a charming storybook adventure, but I wish it let you go full plucko modeUp all night to get plucky
Up all night to get plucky
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Ireallywanted to likeaction adventureThe Plucky Squiremore than I do now, having given its charming 2D to 3D platforming a proper whirl. Yes, it’s lovely to look at. Yes, hopping out of a storybook and making friends with an illustration on a coffee mug is cool. And yes, everyone can have a mildly fun time with its puzzles and fights. But that’s the problem: who is everyone? At first I thought, “This game is for young kids and that’s fine!”, given its relative simplicity. Then I hit some puzzles and thought, “Ain’t no kid figuring this out”.
Then it hit me. It struggles to balance the fine line between being approachable for tiny tots and layered enough for people who’ve graduated from “goo goo ga ga” to “oo oo aa aa my back hurts”. And that’s down to how plucky you’re allowed to squire at any given time, because it can be surprisingly limited and, sadly, a bit underwhelming.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
What’s clear right away is how wonderful it is that the adventure’s laid out, quite literally, as a kid’s book flipping its pages. A calming narrator’s voice lays out what Jot and his pals are up to, as illustrations spring to life on a surface so detailed the sheen of the ink reveals the high quality GSM it’s overlaid on. Everyone and everything is drawn in a pleasing manner, that’s colourful and round and very, very merchable. If there’s one thing this game nails, it’s presentation - I rate it gawgeous out of ten.
Fights in The Plucky Squire a bit Zelda-like, with basic sword slashes and the occasional combo. Prepare for your pals to do absolutely nothing to help, unless in some very rare, very specific scenarios. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Presentation, though, isn’t everything. As I’m unsure whether children with prune thumbs and/or soiled diapers would care much for Jot’s tale, nor parents who might play it alongside them. I know pacing is naturally a bit slower given it has to lock page turns behind video gamestuff, but even still, it’s a story that lacks those clear, concise, moral teachings of timeless bangers like The Rainbow Fish or The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Story aside, early on your adventure is confined to the pages of your storybook. It’s a bit of dodgerolling and basic bashing with your sword, maybe some hopping across platforms, the usual sort of thing. Not long after your encounter with Humgrump, however, green swirly portals let you spring out from the page and into the 3D realm, with a transition that’s smooth and an aesthetic that’s also lovely on the eye. And whenever the game lets you do so, you’re then able to wander over the book and actually flip back and forth between pages.
Sometimes, you’ll just need to locate someone or something you might’ve spotted in a passing cutscene, which is really cool, as you then realise that cutscenes aren’t separate entities but very much flips of the page like everything else. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Why? Because then you can make use of Jot’s best ability, which is to cut highlighted words out of sentences and repurpose them in others. For instance, you could grab the word “cheese” from somewhere, then plop it into a gap you’ve carved out of a sentence like, “A block of ____ sat in the corner” to lure a raging rat out of his lair so you can safely shuffle past. These puzzles are some of my faves, as it feels like you’re frankensteining story beats to overcome obstacles. Combine this ability with that page-flipper and you’ve got a recipe for some interesting stuff! When you flip pages back and forth in the 3D realm, a page will thrum with light if there’s a helpful word in there. Clever, isn’t it? This means you can cleave words out of previous pages, then bring them into the current page you’re on.
As you try and foil Humgrump’s plans, you’ll travel through all sorts of funky spots, like an ascent up a mountain filled with metal-loving mice and a beach home to a rotund bird called Tumbo, who exists purely to dig and believes that all problems can be solved with a shovel. One of my favourite locales is an artsy world, filled with cute renderings of famous artists like Van Gogh and Picasso and Dali and many others who say jokes I don’t get the references in. And it’s here where you’re encouraged to leave the pages again and take on one of few 3D set pieces.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
These range from gloves that’ll let you tilt pages of the book to make things slide or roll, to stamps that’ll let you generate bombs in the 2D realm or freeze items in place. Combined with your previous word-chopping and page-flipping abilities, you’d think that the game’s transformed your Jot into a Swiss Army pen of the editorial world; so maximally plucked, none of Humgrumps antics will get in the way of your creativity. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case.
That’s not to say there aren’t puzzles that don’t make you feel clever, like when you tilt the page to unplug a gap, or place a bomb in the 3D space, so it drops onto a pressure plate in the 2D realm. Trouble is, the game gives you so many powerful, world-altering abilities, that it needs to restrict what’s available to you within each puzzle scenario. This means that, yes, you and/or your kid might be less overwhelmed while playing - a positive. Yet, it also strips a lot of the organic puzzle-solving or creativity out of each solution.
For instance, there was one puzzle where I had to drop bombs from the 3D realm into the 2D realm so they’d land on pressure pads that would unlock doors or generate platforms from the walls. In short: I tried using my special Stop Stamp to freeze a platform in place, so when I returned to 2D realm I could hop onto it and exit the level. Nope, didn’t work. Instead I’d overlooked a different bit with a box I could use to activate another plate. I thought my solution was better!
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Devolver Digital
There are other times where the solution is a bit open-ended, like “Go and find someone”, and so you whip out your mental clipboard and tick off what abilities youthinkthe game doesn’t want you to use. In the end, I became reliant on this ever-present mini Moonbeard who gives you strong hints to solve each puzzle, because I’d fear I’d overstep each puzzle’s specific win conditions with my own solutions. Or simply because I didn’t trust the game’s cues.
Not to bang on about it, but seriously, there were a few too many times I simply didn’t pick up on the solution the game was feeding me. I’d acquire an ability and it wouldn’t immediately enter my internal toolkit, like how puzzlerCocoonbuilds them into your muscle memory with some cleverly crafted environmental hints. And don’t get me started on the number of puzzles that had me stumped because the swirly green portals that let you enter the 3D realm hadn’t appeared until I happened to wander close.
I do feel a bit bad about ragging on The Plucky Squire, a game that’s ultimately a fairly fun, inoffensive time and absolutely meant for people who aren’t as ailing as me. Its energy is great and upbeat and lovely - a perfect balm in the face of today’s horribleness. But I do think it suffers from trying to do lots of things and getting a bit lost within them (for what it’s worth, I think it would’ve done better fleshing out the word-chopping ability, as it really can feel magical sometimes). The combat is fine, the platforming is fine, mostly everything feels justfine. And necessary restrictions on your ability usage means that you’re always hunting for a one-note solution, as opposed to feeling like you’re really altering the narrative. Even games ‘meant for kids’ still have those deeper layers beneath the simplistic surfaces, where the creativity of teens aren’t underestimated and the oldies can flex their mastery muscles. Scratch away the ink and I don’t think there’s much beneath The Plucky Squire, sadly.
