The Plucky Squire review – heaps of creativity and magic

The Plucky Squire is literally the storybook version of an action adventure for PC and console. For the better part of the game, I play a plucky squire called Jot, wandering through the 2D storybook of his own life. That is until the villain Humgrump throws me out, enraged that he’s doomed to lose.

Outside the book, I find myself in a 3D kid’s room. This is the second major setting of the game. To put an end to Humgrump’s evil game and steer the story back onto the right track, I jump back and forth between the two worlds. It’s one of the most magical and creative adventures I’ve experienced in a long time.

Multi-layered puzzles

But Jot won’t be banned from his book for long. The magic Humgrump used rubs off on the squire, giving him the ability to jump in and out of the book wherever there’s a green spiral. He does this to interact with the book and to find certain objects in the kid’s room. The room belongs to the young illustrator of the book. If The Plucky Squire isn’t transformed back into its original form, he and an entire generation of children are in danger of losing their inspiration. Jot and his friends – Thrash, a mountain troll, and Violet, a trainee witch – can’t let that happen.

The game’s a combination of action-adventure and puzzle. The book world consists of various locations that together form the Land of Mojo. One by one, I cross the locations in search of Humgrump. I clear monsters out of the way with my sword and overcome obstacles. This is where the game gets tricky, starting with simple puzzles. In one instance, Jot can’t climb a wall because it’s too high. So I jump out of the book, look for a die and return to the book. I push the die in front of the wall and climb over it.

Later on, magic gloves allow me to turn the pages of the book. The puzzles often extend over several pages. Moonbeard, Jot’s sunglasses-wearing sorcerer, has left his drink at home. So I go back to his house, jump into the book and grab the drink from his bedside table.

Elsewhere, I need to figure out how to change written sentences describing scenes in the picture, as is usual in a picture book. At one point, for example, it says something like «a staircase leads upstairs». The green glow around the word «staircase» shows me that I can remove it with a sword stroke. Somewhere else, a stone blocks my way to a higher level and it says «there was a stone block here». So I replace the word «block» with «staircase» and turn it into a stone staircase that leads me to the upper floor.

As the book progresses, I can fold up the book halves, which makes for interesting physics games. The puzzles are refreshingly varied. Over the course of around ten hours of gameplay, they get trickier and trickier, but are never too much of a struggle. And if I do need help, there’s usually a mini Moonbeard around somewhere. The garden gnome version of Moonbeard gives me tips on solving the puzzles.

Regular mini-games, which provide a complete change of scenery, break up the action. I won’t spoil what they are, as the surprise element is one of the best things about the game.

Jumping in and out of the kid’s room

About two thirds of the game takes place in the book – including hopping in and out of it. The other third takes place in the kid’s room. On one occasion, I need a stamp. Unfortunately, it’s at the very top of a bookshelf. On the way there, I need to hide from giant bugs that populate the room. Later, Humpgrump uses his power to set these bugs on my heels outside the book as well.

There are puzzles to solve in the kid’s room, too. Usually, the game consists of smaller jump’n’run sections leading me over books, coloured pencils and toys. But there are 2D passages in this world, too. For instance, I jump into a book cover or rappel down some bunting to reach new places. All of this works flawlessly. The excursions into the 3D world, in which toys and other objects look real, are the perfect contrast to the hand-drawn 2D picture world.

Easy combat

The combat system isn’t quite as creative as the rest of the game. It consists of hitting and dodging. There’s no challenging combat and the game offers hearts in case you need to top up your health. If that’s still too tricky, there’s an easier difficulty level. Various accessibility settings are available, too.

The combat primarily serves to break up the puzzle passages. That’s not to say it’s not fun beating up bugs with mohawks or horned teacup monsters. In fact, throwing my sword and it hurting opponents on the way there and back never gets boring. What would be amazing is if my friends or kids could help me fight the battles in which Thrash and Violet take part.

I can improve my sword and learn two additional attacks with idea light bulbs that I find when mowing grass and killing enemies. That’s all fine, but the highlights are the boss fights where the perspective usually changes and the cute little Jot becomes a huge muscle man who fills an entire page of the book. One of the first fights is a Punch Out! boxing fight against a honey badger. At another point, I have to shoots arrows at flying bugs. In a later heavy metal world, there’s a rhythm game against a giant eagle who, of course, wears sunglasses and has a nose piercing beak piercing.

Speaking of heavy metal, the soundtrack’s fantastic. The metal world’s full of electric guitar music, which harbours another great surprise. In the medieval fantasy worlds, playful harps and lutes are the dominant instruments. Whenever Moonbeard’s the main character, fat hip-hop beats play in the background. The sound goes perfectly with the game and makes it all the more delightful.

The cute little heroes remind me of Link from the 2D versions of The Legend of Zelda. Despite their small size, the figures are very expressive. Especially in the page-filling illustrations, which are accompanied by a British narrator. To add to its magic, the game’s full of details. Stone gates make surprised faces when they open, the fighter mice wear little hats and the trees in the heavy metal world look like the sign of the horns 🤘. I tested the PC version, but the game’s surely great on consoles, too.

The Plucky Squire’s available for PC, Xbox Series X/S and is included in Game Pass. The game will be released on 17 September and was provided to me by Devolver._