The Plucky Squire review

Whether or not it’s something we all believe in, we are all aware of the concept of love at first sight. With The Plucky Squire I fell in love at first trailer, which I suppose is the video game equivalent. I was delighted to list it as one of my most anticipated games of 2024 when last year was coming to a close, and everything that All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital has shown since then has only excited me more. The wait is finally over and The Plucky Squire has arrived, and I’m just as charmed as I’d hoped.

Jot is just your average fantasy hero, who spends his days thwarting the evil Humgrump and receiving adoration from the masses. Humgrump is sick of constantly getting a kicking from the good guys, and so decides he needs a new plan to rule the kingdom. After finding out their entire world actually takes place in a children’s book, this nasty so-and-so finds a way to kick Jot out of the pages and take the story for himself. It’s up to our hero to use his powers of sword and paper to save the day once more, with the help of a few friends along the way.

In the beginning The Plucky Squire starts off very simple. From a top down perspective you control Jot as he wanders through forests and fields, slicing up baddies as he goes. It’s rather reminiscent of a 2D Zelda game, albeit without all of the bells and whistles. Things start to switch up rather quickly though, with screens where the action switches to a side scrolling perspective, and then so much more.

As the world of The Plucky Squire is set in a book, words are a powerful tool you can take advantage of. Little bits of narration are left strewn about the environment, with certain words that can be removed and placed elsewhere. By doing this a bridge that is “destroyed” can become a bridge that’s “complete” allowing you to walk across with ease, or can change a huge frog blocking the path into a tiny frog that can be walked around. This leads to some seriously clever puzzles as the game progresses, and it’s always a whole lot of fun to experiment with different words.

The puzzles in the 2D world are really entertaining, but before long you’ll move into an exciting third dimension. Jot is still able to fight nasties and jump around environments in 3D, but he won’t be able to make his way through these sections without switching between dimensions. Paper drawings can be jumped into and traversed in these portions of the game, and this is implemented in a whole host of charming and impressive ways that I won’t spoil here.

Jumping in and out of The Plucky Squire book will help you solve plenty of puzzles, but as you progress you’ll unlock more powers that enable you to shift the world in a variety of different ways. The first of these will let you flip through pages (which are essentially individual screens) of the game, and access the different puzzle components you need. This is the first of multiple powers Jot gets access to, and each of them adds a layer of complexity to puzzles that are a blast to use.

Solving the somewhat literary puzzles of The Plucky Squire is pretty compelling, but it’s only one part of the game. This game has so many unique little mini games that pop up throughout, like the Punch-Out!! style boss fight with a honey badger that has been shown in trailers a few times. I won’t spoil any more of these special moments here, but I will say that this added a bit of variety and makes playing through Jot’s story a delight.

More than any other aspect of the game though, it’s the charm of The Plucky Squire that’s really the star of the show. Very few games manage to showcase this level of positivity and joy, from the story which houses a lovely message to the gorgeous, colourful visuals that never ceased to make me smile. When life is getting you down, this warm hug of a game is just the cure for those Monday morning blues.

The Plucky Squire is pretty much everything I wanted it to be, although I must admit the pacing of the game occasionally lets it down. There are a lot of story sections that interrupt the flow of the game, and when you just want to dive into some word puzzles or fight some bugs it can be a little irritating. The start of the game is especially slow too as you’re waiting for more mechanics to be introduced, and while the charm carried me through these opening hours with relative ease, I was more ready for things to get rolling.

The Plucky Squire is a joyous and charming game, with clever word based puzzles, dimension hopping fun, and a whole lot of variety that’ll keep you engaged right to the end of Jot’s story. Occasionally the pacing is a little slower than might be desired, but the pure positivity of this picture book adventure is simply undeniable.