The Plucky Squire review

Our VerdictA smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.

Our Verdict

A smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.

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Need to Know

Kids today don’t know how good they’ve got it. Sure, the planet’s on fire and they’ll spend most of their future looking after me in a retirement home as I ramble about how good I used to be atBalatro, but have youseenthe games they’ve been getting lately? Back in my day, children’s games were dismal 3D platformer movie tie-ins—notmagical storybook adventures made with real love and care that ingeniously riff on 2D Zelda, yet also have tons of personality all of their own. Bah!

You play Jot, the titular squire and star of a series of children’s books in which you foil the dastardly plans of a right git of a wizard called Humgrump. At first, the game is a wonderfully animated 2D storybook. You’ve got an upgradable sword that delightfully makes words like POW and WHAM appear when you hit enemies with it—it’s that sort of vibe.

Ah, but The Plucky Squire has higher aspirations than being ‘just’ a gorgeous 2D game. As you’re about to save the day for the umpteenth time, Humgrump reveals he’s pulled a Truman Show and discovered that they’re both characters in a children’s book, one in which he always loses. So naturally, Humgrump takes the only logical course of action and casts a spell that banishes you from the book entirely. Suddenly the game transforms as you’re tossed rudely out of the 2D book and into a fully 3D platformer set on the desk where the book is being kept.

It’s a terrific hook, as Jot now has to deal with platforms made of lego, stationery (not stationary) obstacle courses, and some of the best use of a real-world aesthetic in a 3D platformer since the excellent It Takes Two. You soon meet a friendly bookworm who teaches you how to leap back into the storybook, but it’s honestly too much fun just wandering around these arts-and-craft levels full of cute touches likeoh Christ, giant beetles to avoid, why why why?!

(Image credit: All Possible Futures, Devolver Digital)

Jot just after defeating an angry beast in a boxing match in The Plucky Squire.

Arghhh! What’s something that grim doing here? And come to think of it, what was that name we saw in the opening credits? Why, it’s our horrible old friend Devolver Digital! Didn’t we pass some sort of law saying the publishers of Hotline Miami couldneverpublish a children’s game? It sounds like something we should have done. But amazingly, it’s a combo that works. You can see the Devolver influence in the sharp writing and those horriblehorriblebeetles, giving the game enough edge to stop its storybook setting becoming insufferably twee. And while it can tend to ramble, dialogue is witty and clever without any of the smug or lazy reference humour of, say, a Dreamworks production. It’s consistently hysterical and one of the most heartfelt games I’ve played, even if its giant beetles make me want to whimper and throw things at it.

Jot will eventually find tools that let him manipulate the storybook, in the form of a stamp that can freeze objects on the page, a bomb stamp that can blow things up and would likely get you banned from the library, and the power to ‘tilt’ the book, essentially lifting the page to make objects slide across it. There’s some terrific puzzling here, wherein you’re constantly leaping in and out of the book to solve conundrums, and while it’s occasionally a little hand-holdy, there’s enough confident stretches where you’re left to figure stuff out for yourself.

I think my favourite power might be the ability to manipulate the very text of the book itself. You can use your sword to bash certain words out of sentences and then replace them to change things. E.g. turning ‘a metal crate blocked the way’ into ‘a broken crate blocked the way’. What a broken idea! I mean, great idea! I’d honestly have played a whole game of just this.

(Image credit: All Possible Futures, Devolver Digital)

Jot seeing a group of rabbits playing music in The Plucky Squire.

Here’s a good way of testing whether this is for you: Imagine not liking a game wherein at one point two of the characters pause a conversation about the nature of their reality to look out of the book andwave hello to you.I… I can’t. It’s too charming. Let me go back to reviewing horrible FPS’ about angry boys filling aliens with even angrier bullets, I beg you.

(Image credit: All Possible Futures, Devolver Digital)

Jot talking to a game card with artwork of an elf ranger on it in The Plucky Squire.

That frustration aside, this is a great idea executed with true style. Jot is the star of the Plucky Squire series of books. Based on his excellent debut, I’d love him to become the star of a series of games too.

The Verdict85Read our review policyThe Plucky SquireA smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.

The Verdict

85Read our review policyThe Plucky SquireA smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.

85Read our review policy

The Plucky SquireA smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.

The Plucky Squire

A smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.

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Our Verdict#

Our Verdict