When I first saw The Plucky Squire revealed a couple years ago, I was immediately intrigued by its unique premise. A game that features a story book character that has to jump between his book and the real world, all with a very charming art style gave me high hopes. Thankfully the game does not disappoint and is one of the standout indie games of the year.
The game sees you play as Jot, the titular Plucky Squire and the hero of a series of popular children’s books. His stories inspire many across the world as he constantly defeats the evil sorcerer Humpgrump. One day however, Humpgrump finds out that they are in a book and uses the knowledge to oust Jot from the book and take over. Jot journeys through the real world and his own to set things right.
Pros
Immediately the game’s art style stands out. It’s drawn like a very well illustrated children’s story with an art style that reminds me a bit of Adventure time when you’re within the book. That changes when you go to the real world as things take the appearance of a kid’s art studio mixed with a toy box. The game takes a similar appearance that the remake of Link’s awakening did as Jot and other characters look like little toys when entering the real world.
You also do occasionally enter other stories which changes up the art style even more. Sometimes Jot will take the appearance of the land he enters while other times he keeps his original style which will create a clash of graphical styles. This also happens as Humpgrump starts bringing in pieces from other stories. The differing art styles are all done in a way so they all mesh together pretty well however. From start to finish, The Plucky Squire is a visual treat all around and to go with the game’s visuals is a great soundtrack to boot. It can change from being very lively to brooding and features everything from metal guitar solos to tropical party music.
Just like any good story, the game is filled with very likeable characters. Jot is a silent protagonist but, he’s accompanied by his two best friends, Violet an artist wizard in training and my personal favorite character Thrash who’s a metal head mountain troll. Although The Plucky Squire isn’t a long game, we see a good deal of development between these two characters as things go on. Themes of self doubt, growth, overcoming fears are explored as their arcs go on among other things and I enjoyed seeing the trio’s journey unfold.
Other characters include Moonbeard, a wizard DJ who frequently breaks the 4th wall and was aware that the world they live in is fictional before most others. He functions as a comic relief character but also proves to have a lot of wisdom as well.
The Plucky Squire doesn’t just get by on its visuals and characters alone as the gameplay is fun as well. At its core the game functions like a traditional Zelda game, most notably reminding me of A link between worlds. One of the game’s key mechanics sees Jot jumping in and out of the story as well as jumping into various backdrops when he enters the real world. This is similar to Link’s ability to go into the backgrounds in a link between worlds but, The Plucky Squire uses the ability for a bit more than that.
Jot uses his abilities to manipulate his book as necessary. This can range from flipping the pages to reveal new pathways or tilting the book itself to remove obstacles among other abilities. The abilities are primarily used for puzzle solving and thankfully the puzzles in large part are pretty fun to complete. I’m someone who doesn’t like puzzles at all and I never found myself getting frustrated even on a few of the harder ones. On top of moving the book, Jot can even manipulate the words of the story itself which is also another puzzle solving element. I think the best part about these elements is the game does well not to overuse any of them. It keeps things from getting repetitive.
Combat is what you’d expect from a Zelda style game. Jot is equipped with a sword and can throw it, perform a spin attack as well as a dive slash. However, the game does well to change up gameplay much like it does it’s art style. Outside of the top down perspective the game will occasionally switch to a 2D puzzle platformer for some sections and some of these net jot a temporary weapon.
It gets even more varied as The Plucky Squire introduces more unique concepts such as rhythm based stealth sections. During some boss fights, Jot will randomly get extremely muscular and he may find himself doing things such as having to beat a honey badger in a punch out style boxing match. Some of the bosses are also fought with Violet and thrash and these range from a Vs style poyo poyo to a rhythm based pong game.
It was a great change of pace for the game and honestly I couldn’t stop laughing whenever Jot got inexplicably ripped out of nowhere.
Cons
So the only true drawback with the Plucky Squire is the game is very easy. I can count on one hand how many times I did die and all of those were due to 1 hit traps that caught me off guard at first. It’s not too short for the kind of game it is but the lack of challenge may leave some gamers wanting more. Other than that there were some occasional performance issues with slowdown but nothing too bad to where it killed the game.
Final Thoughts
The Plucky Squire may not be very hard but that’s a small drawback due to how charming and fun the game is overall. An enjoyable story, great visuals, fun and varied gameplay and a colorful cast of characters make this another great example of the creativity indie game developers often bring to the table.
The Plucky Squire was reviewed on PC, and releases on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and Nintendo Switch on September 17th 2024
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