Charming. Whimsical. Magical. Three words you are likely to encounter when reading any review of The Plucky Squire – as in the game, not the small person. He is a pest and a nuisance. A space invader with no respect for journalistic boundaries. According to his own accounts, he is the hero of the story. The saviour of the land who effortlessly transfers from 2D storybook to 3D realms. Battling the evil magician, Humgrump, and his goblin minions with his trusty sword may be how he made his name, but in reality, he is an irritating little…
…as I was saying, before I was so rudely irrupted. Jot, the titular “Plucky Squire”, may fancy himself as the inspirational hero of this story, but if you pay attention to how this story plays out, you will learn that it is ultimately Tim that is the more important character of this story this whole time. Yes, Jot battles his way across the pages of the storybook land of Mojo with his friends, Violet (the trainee Mage) and Thrash (a metal-loving mountain troll) and are aided by their friendly neighbourhood DJ-ing wizard, Moonbeard – But it was only when the malicious, moody mage, Humgrump realised that their whole world is contained in a child’s storybook, that Jot breaks free of these confines – and, as an accidental side effect of being ejected from Mojo by Humgrump’s magic, Jot finds that he can now move from the pages of the storybook and into the “real world” of the 3D adventures on the desk of the book’s owner, Sam. An accidental hero at best!
Any amount of investigation will clearly show you that Jot is an unreliable narrator. To hear his account of his adventures, he is a buff, hulked-out hero, but this is a complete fantasy – in reality, he is a diminutive little sprite, and I have the screenshots to prove it. It was me who battled my way through mini-games – be it boxing honeybadgers, firing arrows at swarms of insects, rhythmically beating birds, mixing potions in a Bubble Bobble-style puzzle game or shooting my way around a tin while taking a jetpack joyride. To hear Jot’s re-telling, you would be forgiven to think it was all him – but I can sensationally and exclusively reveal that it was actually me in control of Jot and his friends this whole time. It was I that was pushing his buttons! Jot never even picked up a controller. He only just found out he is in a book; I don’t think he is ready to find out he is also in a video game.
To break back into the real world for a moment – the mini-games are generally well realised and feel as high quality as the rest of the game. They often take the place of traditional end-of-level boss fights and are well spaced out, don’t tend to outstay their welcome and act as a nice way to break up the gameplay. If I was to be super critical then I would have preferred that some of the mini-games that were repeated earlier on would not have been repeated in favour of others – but that may be a personal preference for shooting over rhythm games. It would also have been nice if there had been an intermediary level between the early and late game versions – but if one of my bigger criticisms of the game is that it would have been nice if we had a bit more of it and my other is to concentrate more on my personal tastes, then it can’t be too bad. You can also skip any of the mini-games at any point, with the only minor penalty being that you don’t get to see the screens associated with victory.
The effect of jumping between the storybook and real world never gets old. Every time you do this throughout the game, it feels magical – literally like fantasy turned into reality! It feels impactful every single time. With the aid of other tools that you collect throughout the game, such as a stamp that creates bombs in the storybook environment or gloves that allow you to manipulate the pages of the book themselves – you are tasked with solving puzzles and finding the path through the storybook with intelligently designed puzzles that while pretty easy to solve overall, still do a great job of player empowerment – making you feel like you are the real hero of this story.
Likewise, combat is not too challenging. You do feel a bit squishy, which adds a bit more tension, but the game is very generous with the heart pieces that heal you back up – I am not sure I ever died in combat. I can understand wanting to add to the overall accessibility, but given that there is an even less challenging story mode and a plethora of accessibility options, it would have been nice to unlock a more challenging mode once the game had been completed. The combat is fine, but the unlockable combat moves feel (probably deliberately) unnecessary without combat ever being too threatening.
I played on PS5, and it performed pretty well – although I did have a couple of small glitches that required reloading a previous save to get around. The save system does allow for this well though. I have heard (from BRB’s Coleman) that it may not perform as well in max settings on Steam Deck and I imagine that it would need to be graphically toned down to work well on Switch – which is only noteworthy as the storybook setting seems like it would pair well with a handheld environment – but it might be best to experience this on something more substantial to ensure the optimal adventure.
It took me around eleven and a half hours to complete the game overall. Bouncing around between the environments and minigames helps keep the gameplay feeling fresh throughout. Change in environments – both between the storybook realms and in jumping from storybook to “real world” desk aid the sense of progression and add to the variety. The comedic change in tone of the storybook near the end of the story adds to this even further. The launch price of £24.99 does seem a little on the steep side, but not excessively so. There is a bit of replay value with collectables hidden throughout the worlds in the form of well-presented concept art and glitchbirds (which are in themselves explained by one of the concept art details.) If you can get over the biased, big-headed title character, there is a lot to like, especially when getting to the truth of the real hero here.
