Quick Review: The Plucky Squire

The Plucky Squire is All Possible Futures first venture into the world of video game development. It is a 2D, and 3D, platforming puzzle game that was released on Playstation Plus for free Day 1, but will run you $29.99 on all other platforms. Is this new indie game a page-turner, or should the developers go back to the drawing board? 

The Story

In the game, you play as Plucky, a character in a picture book created by a boy named Sam. The evil Humgrump has figured out that he is the villain of the book and will stop at nothing to rule over Artia and stomp Plucky at every chance he gets. Along with his friends Violet and Thrash, and the help of the wizard Moonbeard, Plucky is set on a daring adventure to defeat the evil Humgrump and return the joy of creating books to his creator, Sam. 

The Plucky Squire also includes a narrator that reads the book to you as you play, and I found this to be a witty addition that helped liven the game as you play it. I will say, however, that the constant dialogue between characters can get a bit annoying. It feels as though the story is constantly stuttering as every page and level there is some bit of dialogue that stops the natural flow of the gameplay. Despite that, I found all 8 hours of the story to be whimsical and magical with a great little twist at the end that perfectly topped it off and made me excited for a possible sequel. 

Art Style

The Plucky Squire is extremely reminiscent of the old school 2D Legend of Zelda games, mixed with some of the newer ones like Link’s Awakening. I would say it also is a little like the original Pokémon games, which makes sense because the founders of All Possible Futures were developers for them. I found myself enjoying that top down approach as it felt like you were looking at a book as its events played out in front of you. The game then does something super cool, and will switch to 3D platforming with gameplay and art style that was clearly inspired by It Takes Two. The combination of 2D and 3D art is something that keeps the game interesting and there is a perfect balance between it as you play through the game. 

Combat

The majority of combat in The Plucky Squire is super basic. There are three attacks: sword, spin, and jump. Defeating enemies is relatively easy and you will seldom find yourself dying to them. That’s not to say that there aren’t some more difficult enemies, but they were definitely going for a more relaxed type of combat. Throughout the game, however, you will be faced with different bosses, all of them add a different form of combat. For example, one of the first boss fights has Plucky fighting a bear. Plucky is given some muscles and you have a boxing match with said bear. There are also instances where you will play as Violet or Thrash, and their combat is different as well. Thrash’s boss fights are rhythm type games, and Violet’s are like those matching games that your mom plays on her iPhone, remember that frog game where you had to match the colored marbles? 

Puzzles

The puzzles in The Plucky Squire are unique to say the least. As the game takes place in a book, the majority of puzzles involve you changing sentences to change objects in the book. For example, a sentence may say “The gate was closed ahead of Plucky.” Somewhere else on the same page there will be a sentence that says “The frog's mouth was open.” It is then your job to switch out “closed” with “open” to be able to progress further. The challenges get more complicated as you progress through the game, with multiple sentences needing to be changed, sometimes multiple times. It was a fresh take on puzzle solving that I found myself enjoying. 

The other kinds of puzzles are when you are in the 3D setting. Plucky is able to jump out of the book when there is a magical green vortex on the page. He can then use the gadgets that he has acquired throughout the story to manipulate the book, such as tilting the book, turning to previous pages, and even stamping the book to stop motion. I found this aspect of the game to also be enjoyable, but there could have been a little more to it. 

The only downside to the puzzles in the game is, although they do get complicated, they are pretty easy. Moreover, the ones that get a little more complicated are easily solvable as there are hints with every puzzle in the game through Mini Moonbeards that are placed on the pages. Although it was a breezy playthrough, I do wish that there was a little more of a challenge with the puzzles. 

Final Verdict

Overall, I enjoyed my time with The Plucky Squire. I thought that All Possible Futures did a great job in what they were trying to accomplish, which is making a story book come to life in the form of a video game. The game is super unique and whimsical and I found it very difficult to not enjoy even the low points of the game, such as the constant dialogue. Although the puzzles were a little easy, I feel like that fits the vibe of the game. Maybe it was just meant to be a game that you chill out with, enjoy the art, and laugh at the narrator’s many jokes. That’s not to say that there’s no room for improvement, but I am perfectly fine with giving this game a solid score of 8/10.