The Plucky Squire’s Storybook Adventures Are Charming But Paper-Thin
Some games cut a mean vertical slice, and The Plucky Squire is a perfect example. When it was announced over two years ago by publisher Devolver Digital, its promotional trailers were met with some degree of awe: we watched as a little swordsman cut their way through top-down action in a vibrant picture book before leaping from the page into the “real world” rendered in 3D. There was a breakneck montage of different gameplay styles as the protagonist jumped between settings and genres, showcasing a Punch Out-inspired brawl, alien-blasting ‘shmup sequences, and more. In short, it looked like a delightful amalgamation of several eras of gaming, wrapped in a reality-hopping conceit that saw our hero moving fluidly between different art styles, gameplay modes, and backdrops.
Having finally played through the game, I can say that The Plucky Squire both met and undershot my expectations. On the one hand, it very much delivers on its premise, letting you spring from the flat pages of a storybook into a three-dimensional outside world, your actions in one setting impacting the other. However, despite being a mostly breezy time, the game’s lackluster battles and focus on one-off diversions over deeper mechanics ultimately make it feel like this tome could have used a few more revisions.
As alluded to, the story follows Jot, the hero of an in-universe children’s picture book called “The Plucky Squire.” Part writer, part sword fighter, he spends his days besting the evil wizard Humgrump before cataloging his exploits in a widely read series (which I assume shares the same title as the book and game). But one day, everything goes off script after Humgrump gets his hands on a “meta magic” staff, which he uses to expel our protagonist from the book and into the real world. From here, Jot travels between reality and fiction to stop the wizard’s plot.
It’s this element of hopping between settings where the game largely lives up to its promise. Inside the book, the land of Mojo is presented via bright colors and adorable character designs that convincingly capture the tone of an endearing children’s story. This world is well-presented, but when Jot gets the ability to jump out of these pages via portals, things begin to feel truly unique as he seamlessly vaults from the top-down presentation of a 2D backdrop to the 3D world outside. Here, in reality, “The Plucky Squire” book rests on a kid’s messy desk that’s buried in sketches you can dive into. There’s a bit of a Toy Story aspect going on, and part of the narrative framing is that Jot needs to defeat Humgrump and fix this story before his reader, Sam, gets sick of a tale where the bad guy wins, derailing the child from a promising future career in illustration. Oh, that, and if the kid stops reading, Jot’s world and everyone in it will cease to exist because there isn’t someone to perceive them (how very George Berkley).
Although you can only travel between the book and reality at fixed junctures, specifically glowing green meta magic portals, you’ll constantly be doing so, and these transitions are so fluid that it never gets old to see our plucky protagonist leaping from parchment. While there is a lot of Legend of Zelda influence here, both in the top-down action inside the book and in sequences where you dive into sidescrolling 2D backdrops like in A Link Between Worlds, the game’s entire conceit is quite novel and not quite like anything I’ve seen elsewhere. And more than just being a cool gimmick, many of the game’s best puzzles make great use of this concept.
For instance, you acquire items that let you manipulate the picture book from the outside by flipping its pages to return to previous scenes, tilting it to move objects around, or using stamps to alter and destroy what’s inside. Along the way, you’ll weave in and out of the fictional world at different exits and entry points to outsmart pressure plates and other obstacles in satisfying challenges. One of the best touches here is that many puzzles revolve around swapping around descriptive words found on these pages—swap out an adjective to turn a small frog into a big one or alter a noun to transform a block into a goblin. While this mechanic doesn’t offer Scribblenauts levels of wordsmithing flexibility, it sets up cleverly constructed scenarios that are a blast to solve.
And as you hopscotch between realms to solve these kinds of trials, you’ll also encounter plenty of genre-switching minigames. For instance, there’s a magic duel styled after Puzzle Bobble, a rhythm stealth sequence with shades of Beat Sneak Bandit, an Altered Beast referencing beat ’em up sequence, and more. As is often the case with these kinds of asides, they are a bit of a mixed bag, but thankfully, at worst, they’re only mildly tedious, such as with the shoot ’em up sequence, and at best, they can be quite fun like the previously mentioned orb launching wizard showdown.
However, while these minigames are mostly competently constructed, they get at The Plucky Squire’s biggest problem: while it has a breadth of gimmicks, it lacks depth in any particular area. To be fair, the game is spinning a lot of plates. Its main gameplay loop in the picture book is centered around a top-down perspective, but in the outside world, it’s a slightly more open-ended 3D action game where you’ll dive into sketches presented like a 2D platformer. And, of course, there are all those retro game referencing sequences that each play quite differently.
While it’s fine that these genre-switch moments aren’t as deep or polished as their points of inspiration, the biggest issue is that the stretches between these novel moments were frequently lacking because they felt a bit undercooked. For instance, battling bad guys in the picture book feels way too simple, which is a bit of an issue because you’ll be doing a lot of it. These old-school Legend of Zelda-styled sequences control perfectly well—the hit-stop on your attacks makes blows feel crunchy, and the controls are responsive and tight—but your enemies are so easy to overcome that you can basically mash the same three-hit combo over and over while barely dodging and come out largely unharmed. There isn’t enough variety or challenge in these opponents, and although you can unlock a few moves like a sword toss, jump attack, and a charged spin, mindlessly spamming sword swings was often the quickest way to end these dull encounters.
It’s a strange situation because while the moves feel relatively polished, the game’s focus is clearly on other elements; most boss fights are minigames, and all of the items you find are either temporary or for manipulating the book from the outside, meaning these scuffles barely evolve past the game’s opening minutes. All of this would be more forgivable if engaging in swordplay was optional, but things are deeply linear, and you’re often forced to cut down waves of cronies to proceed. Since the brief minigames don’t actually make up that much playtime, I was in these tedious battles more than I’d like.
On top of this, there’s also a sparseness to much of the writing, which you’ll be hearing a lot of because the narrator pauses the action to monologue every few pages, slowing things down. In some ways, it feels that this tale is a bit too good at emulating what many people (perhaps unfairly) imagine children’s storybooks are like, and there’s just not much more going on here besides a fairly boilerplate story of good vs. evil. There are some mild wrinkles around Jot’s friend Violet, who becomes obsessed with the idea they’re all living in a piece of fiction, and the last stretch of the game has a clever change-up with some solid gags, but its characters and setting are so flat that this tale comes across like an insubstantial read.
In many ways, The Plucky Squire gave me exactly what I wanted from its core premise. It lets you seamlessly hop between a delightfully presented fairy tale and the world outside these pages, making great use of meta elements through reality-bending puzzles and genre-switching detours. The art style is cute, and everything is presented with charm. However, while it makes for a pleasant experience upfront, it ultimately wears out its welcome due to overly simplistic battles and storytelling that lacks depth. This game may take place in a picture book, but I wish it were a tad less paper-thin.
The Plucky Squire was developed by All Possible Futures and published by Devolver Digital. Our review is based on the PC version. It is also available for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.
Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant Games and TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to playing and watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves film, creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to, and dreaming of the day he finally gets through all the Like a Dragon games. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11.