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It’s always great to see a game go back to the old days. That time when all we needed was a charming adventure and not a mess of live service shenanigans. But The Plucky Squire brings more than that. It is a full-on fourth-wall-breaking journey packed with incredible humor, simple yet memorable gameplay, and one of the best “dimension-traveling” gimmicks I’ve seen. Just the first four chapters of The Plucky Squire’s adventure were enough to hook me and make me feel this is one of the most unique games of this year.
Seeking a Happily Ever After
At a glance, The Plucky Squire starts like your run-of-the-mill tale. You’re already a full-fledged hero, and people won’t stop reminding you. Wherever you go, you are THE Plucky Squire—the defender of innocents, the basher of goblins, and the savior of The Land of Mojo. However, everything takes a turn during one of your usual errands. When helping the wisest and slickest wizard, Moonbeard, your enemy of old, Humgrump finds the most catastrophic magic of all, that of fourth-wall-breaking proportions.
And thus, our hero gets flung out of the pages of his storybook and discovers he’s nothing more than a children’s book protagonist. Now, it’s up to him to use this newly found magic to return to the book, stop Humgrump, and save his epic tale. And while the premise might sound a bit simple, I fell in love with it. It reminded me how specific characters played an impactful role during our childhood and inspired us into the type of people we are today–precisely what The Plucky Squire is.
A Dimensional-Hopping Voyage
The plot I mentioned sets the stage for one of the most unique gimmicks I’ve seen in a game recently. Since The Plucky Squire is now out of his 2D comfort zone, he has to explore his owner’s bug-infested 3D desk. This makes way for interesting gameplay mechanics, such as moving objects from one dimension to the other to solve puzzles.
Speaking of puzzles, despite the light-hearted look of The Plucky Squire, these are some of the best brain-teasers I’ve played in years. It took me a while to solve several puzzles, which just shows how rusty I am at them and how we desperately need more games that give us a reason to think outside the box.
For instance, when inside the book, you can use words that appear in sentences to change the scenery. During one puzzle, I had to remove a bloated bug blocking our heroes’ path. To do so, I had to swap the word “huge” for another one, thus transforming this insect. This applies to both environments, by the way. In more than one case, I had to take words out of the book. I then moved them across the 3D desk and found another access in the storybook as I flipped the pages. While there is an NPC that can help you, solving them without support is extremely rewarding.
Lastly, for those looking for a bit of combat in the game, it exists, albeit a bit simple. For normal combat, you wield a sword that can perform a normal four-hit combo. After you upgrade your weapon, you can throw it like a boomerang and even perform a spinning attack. However, the boss fights were the highlight as all of them were mini-games. One put me in a boxing match against a honey badger, and the other disguised the Squire as Rambo as he shot bugs with a bow. It sounds simple on paper, but how these instances look makes each encounter an unforgettable blast.
One Journey I Can’t Wait to Finish
Out of the games I’ve played this year, a few have evoked what The Plucky Squire did, mainly the feeling of wanting to see our hero reach his journey’s end. Beyond the superb art style and lovable characters, it is a story with heart. A storybook character who wants to save the book’s plot to inspire his owner to become an artist. If that isn’t endearing, I don’t know what is. Once I saw the screen that told me I had finished my preview, I actually yelled because I wanted more. And nowadays, few games make me react like that.
The Plucky Squire already looks like a flawless game with terrific humor, a unique art style, and engaging gameplay mechanics. How will the journey unfold as we delve deeper into it? I don’t know, but I can’t wait to find out. All I know is that I’ll keep my eye out for the day I can return to The Land of Mojo and stop Humgrump’s nefarious plans.
