Initial release date: 2024
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
License:Â proprietary license
Genres: Adventure game, Action game, Fighting game, Adventure
Developer:Â All Possible Futures
Publisher:Â Devolver Digital
Engine:Â Unreal Engine 4
A short, tough swordsman journeys across a beautiful, eccentric world to defeat the wicked wizard. Sounds familiar? Of course, but what’s the problem with that?
The Plucky Squire proudly displays its influences. It revels in its use of genre tropes and story beats, illuminating them with a dry jest as they pass. That is not to say that the game lacks its own shocks.
The Plucky Squire takes the classic top-down Zelda format and adds two key innovations. The first: lovely hand-drawn storybook-style levels brimming with charm. The second is a meta tale in which you really jump out of the book and interact with a three-dimensional universe on a little boy’s desk.
At first, these two approaches do not interact much, resulting in two distinct styles of play. The book features more typical Zelda-style gameplay, but the “Real World” includes 3D platforming-based puzzle solving. However, you will eventually be granted more control over when you leave the book and how you modify it.
It begins fairly simply, with the option to change pages and return to earlier ones to solve riddles, but the major method you solve puzzles is by changing the narrative of the book. You whack at the sentences describing the situation, extract the keyword, and replace them with others. This alters a crucial object in the picture, such as turning a large bug little or sleepy. Each modification is usually accompanied by a little visual comedy, and it’s a lot of fun to experiment with different words and see how they affect anything.
Outside the book, you primarily manipulate the book itself, but you periodically wander across the more disorganized desk. Fortunately, the owner is a budding artist, and you begin to engage with the other works of art on the desk. For example, you could hop into discarded paintings to cross platforms or become friends with a Magic the Gathering card.
The desk also features stealth segments in which you struggle to evade ravenous bugs that appear to take over the desk at night. These are uninteresting and aggravating; they lack depth and disrupt the game’s rhythm.
As the game progresses, you get a few additional abilities, as sword-wielding top-down games typically do, but the game will periodically provide you with a goofy mini-game. Each of them is extremely diverse, ranging from simply catching a fish to a full-fledged turn-based RPG encounter. The game uses this opportunity to showcase its style by making the characters extremely huge, expressive, and occasionally sleeveless and muscle bound.
This begs the question of whether they’re natty or not.
The Plucky Squire is a rather standard old-school Zelda game. It hits every note, right down to the traditional hero’s journey, but with a meta twist. However, the game also serves as a celebration of the stories that remain with us. The simple, foolish things we loved as children, the stories that inspired us to make our own art. You can sense that affection in practically every area of the game. Sure, there are a lot of copied ideas and notions, which may appear formulaic or cliche, but it recognizes this and embraces them. The Plucky Squire is here to remind us why we enjoy these clichés. Why every tale, no matter how tiny, matters.
Review Overview
Gameplay: 88%
Controls: 90%
Aesthetics: 92%
Content: 87%
Accessibility: 84%
Value: 86%
Overall: 88%
VERY GOOD!
Summary: The Plucky Squire is a fantastically imaginative and interesting adventure that flawlessly combines traditional 2D platforming with novel page-leaping elements. The gameplay is smooth, lively, and continuously unexpected, keeping players engaged with smart puzzles and exhilarating action. The controls are simple and responsive, enhancing immersion in the game’s unique setting. Visually, the game is a delight, with vivid, attractive graphics that pop off the screen like its hero. The content is broad and diverse, offering hours of adventure and discovery. Accessibility is strong, but more customization possibilities might increase inclusion. Overall, this is an amazing adventure that pushes the boundaries of its genre.