Review of “The Plucky Squire” – IGN

• September 18, 2024
• Madellina Monica
• popnews

While inside the story's beautifully animated depictions of beaches, villages, and mountaintops, Jot can manipulate the book's text to alter his reality and overcome obstacles. Need a closed gate you can open? Jot can literally take the word “open” from another sentence in the book and insert it into the prose in front of the closed gate. It plays like a (significantly) lighter version of the rule manipulation of Baba Is You, and it's fun to experiment with different combinations of nouns and adjectives to see how the world reacts, like turning a tiny frog into a giant frog just to see if it works. (Spoiler: It worked.) It's not the the most flexible system – each scenario using this concept contains only a handful of legal words for Jot to swap out – but it's still a really impressive mechanic, and one that the developers use in several clever ways throughout the adventure. Using the power of language, I filled a drained moat with water, turned sturdy pillars into crumbling ones to hurl them at an enemy blocking my path, and much more.

Wordplay is just one clever way The Plucky Squire takes advantage of its fairy tale setting. Jot can also pop out of the book, transforming from an adorable hand-drawn 2D character into a fully 3D version of himself, reminiscent of the toy-like look of the Link's Awakening remake and the upcoming Echoes of Wisdom. Outside of the book, Jot can play God and directly manipulate the world within it, with abilities like tilting the book on its page to move blocks around, or even flipping back to a previous page to grab a word or item he needs on the current page. Flipping back through the pages to find The Plucky Squire's optional hidden collectibles also led to some cool “aha!” moments, and I could see myself going back to grab the ones I'd missed. The book's myriad uses forced me to zoom out and think about the tools at my disposal, and The Plucky Squire hits some fantastic puzzle-solving high points in these sections.

The only problem is how many clues The Plucky Squire constantly gives you. Before I could solve most of the puzzles, Jot's lovable companions Violet, Thrash, and Moonbeard would have an entire conversation about what you need to do. This inclusion is even more confusing when you consider The Plucky Squire's well-implemented optional hint system, where a recurring character who is practically always there tells you exactly what to do next when you ask for help. It's frustrating that the developers give away too much information through mandatory dialogue rather than leaving it up to the hint system, leaving experienced players to try to piece it all together without help.

In fact, talkativeness is a problem throughout The Plucky Squire. Characters are always stopping to have long conversations about what to do next, and although the dialogue is well-written, I found myself wanting to skim over these long sequences to get back to the action. The constant over-explanations of Jot's mission to defeat the evil Humgrump is one reason The Plucky Squire is aimed squarely at a younger audience, but the witty humor and lighthearted tone just about save it from becoming a major detriment.

The outside world extends well beyond the pages as Jot explores Sam's bedroom to find new abilities to interact with his book. These exploration sections are a wonderful break from the enigmatic nature of the storybook, and Sam's bedroom is a pleasure to wander around. As you'd expect from a boy's room, toys and LEGO bricks are lying around everywhere, and Jot jumps over playing cards and building blocks to find his next upgrade. In these sections, Jot can jump between sticky notes and children's drawings, making the whole thing feel like a creative take on A Link Between Worlds' wall-merging mechanic. There are a few minor technical issues in the real world – I noticed some flickering shadows, and I experienced a bad crash – but for the most part, The Plucky Squire looked and ran great on the PlayStation 5.

Combat works the same whether Jot appears in the book or not. He can swing his sword, throw it at his enemies like a boomerang, and perform powerful jumping and spinning attacks. These moves can all be upgraded in shops that pop up throughout the land of Mojo, where you spend money obtained – fittingly – primarily by cutting grass. The sword combat is simple, fun, and rarely challenging, but for a game that focuses primarily on puzzles, I don't mind that the fights are simple bouts you have to get through on your way to the next big puzzle.

The Plucky Squire is also constantly working to mix things up. There are plenty of 2D platforming segments throughout the book's pages, and sometimes the book is flipped vertically to give things a new perspective. But The Plucky Squire really flexes its creative muscles in the mini-game segments that pop up periodically throughout Jot's journey. There are homages to things like Punch-Out!!, rhythm games, shmups, and more that I won't spoil here. Whether you're uppercutting a honey badger or fighting aliens while flying around in a toy box, each mini-game here is so charming and fun, and I loved seeing how the developers mixed up the art style and character designs for each individual game.

While the first five hours of the roughly eight-hour campaign feature a great mix of storybook, real world, and minigames, it's jarring when The Plucky Squire completely loses its stride in the final act. First, Jot loses all of his abilities and you're forced to go through a very generic stealth section to restore all of the powers you've already collected throughout the game. It'd be like if Metroid Samus ripped away all of your upgrades just before the final boss and forced you to collect the Morph Ball and Grapple Beam a second time. Worse, this section takes place in a completely monochrome world that sucks all of the joy and color out of Sam's bedroom, turning it into a dull march across tired ground. This section doesn't last all that long, but it's followed by The Plucky Squire's final dungeon, a repetitive march through identical rooms along with a rhythm stealth minigame that I had to repeat three times. After facing a final boss that also took a phase too long, I was already done before the credits even started rolling. That's a shame, because The Plucky Squire is so entertaining most of the time, but the final third unfortunately leaves a bitter aftertaste.