A visually stunning indie adventure game with many retro gaming throwbacks, The Plucky Squire seems built specifically for me.
What Is It? Expectations are tough. The best case when you are highly anticipating a new game (or movie, TV show, book, etc…) is that the thing is actually really good. In that case, you don’t gain anything from having gone in with high expectations, you just feel relieved that they were met.
So, when a new indie studio led by industry veterans announced an action-adventure game where you can jump between 2D and 3D gameplay which also had numerous nods to retro gaming staples, I let my expectations go through the roof!
The game in question is not The Plucky Squire…just kidding, of course it is. This really had the makings of something right up my alley. As you probably have guessed by now, The Plucky Squire did not live up to my expectations, but that’s just fine, really.
You control the titular squire, Jot, helping to save the storybook he hails from from the evil villain Humgrump. The storybook portions of the game are in 2D and feature a bright, wonderful color palette that helps it jump off of the page. You will use your sword to defeat enemies and a variety of techniques to solve puzzles. A prominent puzzle type in the game is rearranging words on the page (you are in a storybook, remember) to adjust the scene and allow you to progress. This is a novel, fun puzzle style the first few times you see them, but it gets used the entire game without many variations on the theme.
Eventually Humgrump will cast you out of the book completely and you will find yourself in the 3D world, specifically in the room of the child who owns the book you were ejected from. The 3D portions look great but are fairly plain as far as gameplay goes, never really offering all that much in the way of variety. The best parts of the 3D world are when you temporarily transport into a small 2D section to advance. I really could not get enough of the 2D/3D transformations.
The game settles into a loop of a 2D section followed by a 3D section, it’s all mostly fine. There are occasions where you have to jump out to 3D in order to turn the page to solve a puzzle, these instances of creativity are where the game shines. It also shines in the mini games which are retro inspired. There is a shmup game, a rhythm dungeon game, a side-scroller action game, and a punch-out clone among others. These are really fun distractions which also feature the option to skip them as some can be a bit tougher.
The Best Part: The last portions of the game are loaded with the best minigames and a fantastic final boss fight. The game waits too long to expand on its own ideas, but when it all comes together at the end, you can see the real potential.
The Worst Part: The repetition without iteration. Pretty much every video game settles into a core gameplay loop, but most of them offer additions to the core loop as you get deeper to ensure things continue to feel fresh. I think The Plucky Squire intends the minigames to be those iterations, but they are so removed from the core game that they feel like exactly what they are; totally skippable gameplay breaks. I wish the game pushed both the puzzles and combat more throughout the game rather than relying on a really great initial concept to carry everything.
The Verdict: The Plucky Squire is a really great idea that implements its ideas well enough, but fails to rise above the basic concept. Being able to pop between 2D and 3D is a fantastic idea that needs to be explored more, but the usages here are so limited that it really does feel like a novelty. Add in that the 3D sections are not very exciting and that the game saves the bulk of its fun, new ideas for the very end…and you wind up with a game that is good, but falls short of what might have been.
Don’t get me wrong; “just” good games are totally fine, we probably need more of those in the gaming landscape. I just let my expectations get the best of me with this one so it felt like a bit more of a letdown than it should have. The Plucky Squire is fun and a good eight or nine hour adventure and if you go in without expectations you are very likely to have a good time.
How to Play: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Switch, PC
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