Plucky Squire, The Review (Xbox Series X)

STAFF REVIEW of Plucky Squire, The (Xbox Series X)

Friday, October 18, 2024.
by Adam Dileva

I remember when I first saw the announcement trailer for The Plucky Squire back in 2022 and instantly put it on my wishlist. I started following its development closely, as it looked absolutely adorable with its hand drawn style. Developed by All Possible Futures and published by Devolver Digital, The Plucky Squire follows the tale of Jot alongside his friends, who not only happen to be hand drawn characters in a children’s novel, but is also able to leave the bounds of the 2D pages and jump into the real 3D world.

The Plucky Squire plays just as my childhood imagination used to envision my favorite characters would do if they were able to leap out of their storybook pages. Being able to jump back and forth between the pages and out to the ‘real’ world makes for some interesting mechanics as a game, but also simply fun to see and play.

Even though the target audience is clearly younger gamers, that didn’t dampen my enjoyment as an adult. Sure it was a bit easy, but I was smiling throughout my playthrough at how adorable it all was. If you have quite young gamers wanting to play, there’s a Story or Adventure more, and you're also able to toggle not taking any damage, or defeating enemies in a single hit if you want. I took it for what it was and simply enjoyed a colorful tale with amusing characters trying to right some wrongs and stop the bad guy.

In the Land of Mojo, The Plucky Squire, known as Jot to his friends, is a young hero armed with a sword that happens to have a quill tip for the blade. The Plucky Squire is known throughout the land as a hero since he has a number of his own children’s books, as well as plenty of tie-in merchandise.

Alongside his friends, Jot will be fighting against the evil wizard, Humgrump, once he realizes that he’s actually the villain of this book. Knowing that Humgrump can never win against Jot, he finds a way to literally kick Jot out of the book without a way to return, thus changing the story to how he wants. With Jot gone from the pages, Humgrump can rewrite his story however he wants, but the problem with this is that Sam, the child’s room owner in real life who read The Plucky Squire, will fail to be inspired and make his own cartoons and drawings when he becomes older.

With Humgrump able to send minions out to the real world to as well to stop Jot, our hero will need to be quick thinking and rely on his friends to defeat Humgrump once more. The most entertaining of Jot’s help is a grand wizard named Moonbeard. Not only is he cool with his sunglasses, but he’s a DJ as well. He’s the one that helps Jot and friend the most in their journey to stop Humgrump, adding a few laughs along the way. It’s a cute story and the 2D to 3D shifts really make it feel like you’re at times coming out the book into Sam’s bedroom, then diving back into the book before turning the next page.

The Plucky Squire opens up once the pages do, having Jot navigate across the 2D pages, something akin to classic Legend of Zelda. As you reach the edges of the pages, the book flips to the next page, placing you in the next area or having a moment for narration and accompanying cutscene. Even though it’s 2D, it’s colored so vividly and wonderfully hand drawn that it really does make you smile and appearing like a children’s book. Keep in mind this book is inside Sam’s bedroom, so it’s got a layer of complexity as you’ll soon be jumping between the two worlds.

Traversing in the 2D pages is simple enough. You are able to attack and dodge, though when Jot is pushed out of the pages by Humgrump, then the gameplay changes to a 3D platformer for the most part. The mixing of 2D and 3D worlds is where The Plucky Squire shines best, having to do some light puzzle solving that has you thinking outside the book.

As bright and colorful as exploring the book is, I quite enjoyed running around Sam’s bedroom as Jot, making it feel like something right out of Toy Story, as the smallest ordinary objects may now be impassable. There are some friendly arrow signs to help guide you to the right direction, so you can’t really get all that lost in the much larger environment. There’s also times where you’ll hop back into a 2D world, but instead of Jot’s book, it’ll be across multiple drawings on some sticky notes, or even sidescrolling on a mug sitting on the desk. There are plenty of hidden objects to find in both worlds, unlocking concept art for you to see how the game progressed during development.

Green swirl portals are how you know you can enter or leave your current 2D or 3D world. Simply holding a button will have Jot magically jump between the worlds, but can only be done at these specific points. Given that the game is meant for a younger audience, there’s quite a bit of hand holding throughout. It’s not really possible to get lost in this linear adventure, and after completing a page or two you’ll get some dialogue and a story page before going to the next few pages to play. If you do need a hint of what to do there are mini versions of Moonbeard scattered throughout, not telling you explicitly what to do, but not quite vague enough where you’ll still be confused either. Think of him like a built in hint system for the puzzles.

Bosses were the highlight, as each battle completely changes the gameplay into the form of a minigame that is like old classic games. For example, the first boss, a mean honey badger, had Jot tear off his sleeves and all of a sudden be buff so that they could box, like classic Punch-Out. Another boss was musical based, and one of the more interesting ones was a RPG battle inside of a Magic card. I don’t want to give them all away as they were quite unique and part of the enjoyment to see what type of battle the next boss would be. They changed up the formula at just the right times to avoid the gameplay becoming stale for how easy it is.

Combat is quite simplistic and shouldn’t pose much of a challenge. You’re able to turn on invincibility or one-hit kills if you have someone younger playing or someone that wants to simply get through the story, but you shouldn’t really need to outside of that. Jot can also toss his sword, having it not only attack enemies from afar, but also hit switches, and able to be recalled back to him like a boomerang. You’ll eventually be able to spend your currency on skill upgrades and even a new 360 spin slash. Affording all the upgrades by the end wasn’t difficult as long as you manage to whack all the bushes and trees for hidden money, just as Link taught us all those years ago.

Puzzles are where The Plucky Squire really feel unique, as you’ll need to not only move blocks in the 2D world, but sometimes also change the words on the page. For example, maybe there’s a spot you can’t access because a gate is CLOSED. Find elsewhere on the page where maybe the word OPEN is. Whack these special words and Jot can pick them up and carry them, placing them elsewhere on the page. Placing OPEN beside the gate sentence will have the gate magically open, and it’s simple to see how these puzzles operate. You’ll have another layer as the adventure goes on, dealing with multiple words or bringing them out of the book to flip pages and place elsewhere. These puzzles were fun but not frequent enough.

Puzzles will need a little more thought when Jot gets special stamps that can alter the pages in the book, but from the real world. Maybe there’s a spinning blade that you and your friends want to pass, but can’t because of the danger. Jot can jump out of the pages, use his ‘Stop’ stamp on the blades, and just like that, the blades are stopped inside the book. There’s another stamp you get later on that I don’t want to spoil, but it’s the same premise of altering the 2D world from the outside 3D one. These puzzles become creative, and once you’re able to tilt pages, you can make certain items like a railcar move along tracks depending on which page you tilt and lift. For some reason there seemed to be a small lag between ‘grabbing’ the book and being able to flip or tilt the pages, and I constantly had to think of which way I wanted to turn the pages.

The Plucky Squire’s visual aesthetic is really what made me smile. The 2D storybook looks just like books I used to read to my young daughter, and the ‘real’ 3D world really does look like a young kid’s room with toys and knick knacks scattered everywhere. Jot being able to traverse both worlds really gives it a whimsical feeling, as I know I’ve imagined characters from my novels growing up as a kid doing the same thing when I’m not looking, like Toy Story. Everything is so bright, colorful and vibrant that it’s really hard to not appreciate it and smile with how wholesome it is. The audio is done just as well, with a lighthearted soundtrack outshined by the excellent narration by Philip Bretherton that perfectly fits every page. My only complaint is that I wish there was more narration, like commentary on what Jot was doing possibly when playing.

While it’s intended for a younger audience, that didn’t stop me from enjoying every minute of the seven or so hours it took me to reach its final page as a full grown adult. While it may have not been a challenge in the slightest, it was a wonderful adventure full of humor, wonderful artwork, adorable characters and some really interesting gameplay. It’s clear The Plucky Squire was made with a lot of love and care, and I’m glad to have helped Jot along in his wondrous adventure.

**The Plucky Squire was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 9.0 / 10
Gameplay: 9.0 / 10
Visuals: 9.5 / 10
Sound: 8.5 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Plucky Squire, The (Xbox Series X)

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