Plucky Squire Book Review

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You need to know

What is this? A charming 2D Zelda-style game that seamlessly transitions into a 3D platformer.
Release date September 17, 2024
Expect to be paid $30/£25
Developer All possible futures
Publisher Return
Rated on Gigabyte G5 (Nvidia RTX 4060, Intel Core i5 12500H, 16 GB DDR4-3200)
Steam deck Verified
To combine Official website

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Kids these days don’t know how good they’ve got it. Sure, the planet’s burning and they’ll spend most of their futures taking care of me in a nursing home while I blab about how good I was in Balatro, but do you… seen games they’re getting lately? In my day, kids’ games were grim 3D platform movies – no magical book adventures with genuine love and care that imaginatively reference 2D Zelda but also have plenty of their own personality. Bah!

You play as Jot, the titular squire and star of a series of children’s books in which you foil the nefarious plans of a real-life wizard bastard named Humgrump. The game starts out as a gorgeously animated 2D storybook. You have an upgradeable sword that delightfully makes words like POW and WHAM appear when you hit enemies with it – that’s the vibe.

After a brief spell of fighting monsters, you’re soon introduced to the adorable friends Jota, Violet, and Thrash, as well as the scene-stealing Moonbeard, a music-loving mentor who lends a helping hand with some of the game’s best lines. The customary lithe combat, puzzles, and platforming are elevated by attractive presentation, a sweet-voiced narrator, and cute little details like how every screen change is literally a fresh page.

Ah, but The Plucky Squire has bigger aspirations than being “just” a pretty 2D game. As you’re about to save the day for the umpteenth time, Humgrump reveals that he’s done The Truman Show and discovered that they’re both characters from a children’s book that he always loses at. So naturally Humgrump makes the only logical decision and casts a spell that banishes you from the book entirely. Suddenly, the game changes as you’re brutally ejected from the 2D book and transformed into a fully 3D platformer set on a desk that holds the book.

It’s a great hook, as Jot now has to deal with platforms made of Lego bricks, obstacle courses made of stationary materials (not stationary), and one of the best uses of real-world aesthetics in a 3D platformer since the excellent It Takes Two. You’re soon introduced to a affable bookworm who teaches you how to get back into a storybook, but honestly, just wandering through these arts and crafts levels full of cute touches like oh christ, those giant beetles have to be avoided, why, why, why?!

(Photo credit: All Possible Futures, Devolver Digital)

Arghhh! What’s something so sinister doing here? And come to think of it, what was that name we saw in the opening credits? It’s our horrible aged friend Devolver Digital! Didn’t we pass some kind of law that says Hotline Miami publishers can Never Publish a game for kids? Sounds like something we should have done. But surprisingly, it’s a combination that works. You can see the influence of Devolver in the edged writing and those awful terrifying beetles, which gives the game just enough of an edge to keep its fairytale setting from becoming unbearably cute. And while the game has a tendency to babble, the dialogue is witty and clever, without any of the smug or idle humor of, say, a DreamWorks production. It’s consistently hysterical, and one of the most heartfelt games I’ve ever played, even if its giant beetles make me want to groan and throw things at it.

Jot eventually finds tools that allow him to manipulate the storybook, in the form of a stamp that can freeze objects on the page, a bomb stamp that can blow things up and will likely get you banned from the library, and the power to “tilt” the book, essentially lifting the page so objects slide across it. There are some awesome puzzles here that have you constantly jumping in and out of the book to solve the puzzles, and while it can be a little complex at times, there are enough certain sections where you’re left on your own to figure things out.

I think my favorite power might be the ability to manipulate the text of the book itself. You can operate your sword to knock certain words out of sentences, and then replace them to change things. For example, change “a metal crate was blocking the way” to “a broken crate was blocking the way.” What a broken idea! I mean, great idea! Honestly, I would play the entire game that way alone.

(Photo credit: All Possible Futures, Devolver Digital)

Squire prefers a more confused approach, constantly mixing things up rather than delving into a single mechanic. It would be more disappointing if it didn’t keep the pace up and the ideas weren’t as fun. It references other games well for quick quips or pleasant surprises with variety, like the rhythm combat section in a massive metal-obsessed mountain community or the brief jetpack-powered shooter on the side of a coffee mug. The stealth section, where you play as a mouse that munches on the Crypt of the Necrodancer, of all things, is just one of many unexpected but welcome surprises. I’ve had to search for the bow and arrow in a lot of games, but this is the first one I remember getting my hands on while fighting a Magic the Gathering card in a turn-based RPG interlude.

Here’s a good way to see if this is for you: Imagine that you don’t like a game where at some point two characters stop talking about the nature of their reality to look outside the book and wave hello to you. I… I can’t. This is too cute. Please let me get back to reviewing awful FPSs about livid boys who fill aliens with more livid bullets.

(Photo credit: All Possible Futures, Devolver Digital)

It may be a little unstable or sometimes Very glitches, such as when it refused to load my save file and ultimately wiped it from the face of the Earth. This is by no means a minor issue, though I hope it can be attributed to the pre-release build (I haven’t seen anyone report a similar mishap in other reviews, and a patch full of fixes has already been released). The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if he deleted the save in the hopes of not discovering that the mostly brilliant climax of this game for kids (children!) ends by introducing our impressionable, impressionable youth to irredeemable sin surprising boss fights in the second phase (boo!). That said, maybe keep an eye on the developer reviews/updates on Steam to see where the PC version is if you don’t want to risk not seeing the story through to the end.

That frustration aside, it’s a great idea executed with real style. Jot is the star of the Plucky Squire book series. Given his excellent debut, I’d like to see him become the star of the game series as well.

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