GamerEscape

This is not the first time that I have done a full review for a game that I already previewed, but The Plucky Squire feels a bit different. It turns out that there was actually more momentum behind this title than I had previously thought, which is something I’m glad to see! This is a neat little game, it deserves the buzz around it, I enjoyed it when I previewed it. And if I had to review it based solely on that preview, I would be broadly positive!

So if you have not read the preview, I encourage you to do so now to get an idea of the game from that. Now, the question becomes whether or not the game manages to live up to the potential of those early impressions, or whether it kind of deflates with the full game available. Which one is it? Read on to find out!

Down to the Squire

So one of the things that I noted in my preview was that the story stays light, breezy, and fun. That is definitely true in the full game as well, and while that’s a benefit, it’s also a bit of a drawback. But I’m not sure if the drawback is with the game itself or with me. Let me explain.

Everything that I explained in the preview remains true. You are Jot, the eponymous Plucky Squire, who is on a quest to defeat the evil wizard Humpgrump. He’s a jerk, and he has found a way to make Jot jump from the page into a much larger world, resulting in some puzzles where you need to rearrange words to create new meanings, cases where Jot must adventure around a remarkably tactile and well-realized desk, and so forth. There’s a bit of text about the power of imagination in there, the importance of having fantasies and myths and stories.

If you are a seasoned hand at video game narratives, you are probably waiting for The Twist, when you suddenly find out that this story has more dimensions to it. I was definitely waiting for it… but it never really happened.

That’s not to say that the plot is dumb, but more that it’s almost a law of the universe that a lot of media that’s aimed at being kid-appropriate is actually more made for adults. Pixar films are appropriate for kids in the broad strokes, for example, but generally speaking most of them are really much more aimed at adults and the subtleties of the plot are targeting adults with extra subtext and the like. The Plucky Squire looks like it might be pulling that trick… but the rug never gets pulled out from under you. The story remains what it looks like. It’s a story about the heroic squire Jot trying to save his world, and that’s all.

Does that make the story bad? Well, no. It does mean that part of me is wondering if the story is pulling its punches or I’m missing a layer of subtext, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. It is, in fact, a fun enough story where as an adult, you are enjoying it as something that pulls narrative tricks without being about those narrative tricks. It references a larger world you are familiar with, but rather than making that the important part, that’s just the aesthetic similarity. So it feels a little like there was more symbolism the game could rely upon, but it’s not a failing that it doesn’t.

We’re up all night to get Plucky

The initial preview made it a little hard to get a full sense of the gameplay of The Plucky Squire. There was a basic Zelda-esque gameplay loop for the open world segments, but there was also the very puzzle-based gameplay around that, even when you got to the bosses. Which of these two elements is more important?

The puzzles. The full game makes that the answer. It’s a puzzle-based game with the Zelda-esque parts as glue. That is the kind of game it wants to be.

Is that a problem? Not at all. In fact, I would argue the game is actually better once you start understanding that as a core part of the game. The little minigames wherein Jot skips into doing something else are not diversions from the main gameplay, they are the main gameplay. But when it would be boring to just have you walk around for a bit, there’s enough meat to the action-adventure top-down experience (or occasionally side-scrolling experience) to flesh that out.

Honestly, I think that experience could have carried the game to an extent… but I also appreciate that it doesn’t have to. The general feeling of the game is enhanced substantially by the fact that each little bespoke segment is just complicated enough to carry along to the next bit. While there are a couple annoying minigames in there (why mandatory stealth sequences, why) the game also does let you skip them very quickly before they start to grate on you. Control is always in your hands.

Honestly, the fact that the game can just go into wild diversions is both part of the fun and part of what keeps it engaging. Every time the top-down hack-and-slash gets a little tedious, you’re suddenly doing something totally different, and the game difficulty is pitched at a good level of being hard enough to require attention but easy enough to stay fun. I had a blast.

Hard Squired

I don’t have much to add to what I said about the graphics or music in the preview. Short version? They’re outstanding. Long version? More words that sum up to “they’re outstanding.” But I do want to note a couple of gripes with the game that do bring down my enjoyment just a touch.

First of all… the game has wonderful voice-acted narration and lovely page-turning animations for when you go through this stuff that’s a delight… the first time. Subsequent times, it gets just plain annoying. And while you can easily skip minigames, you can’t skip those parts. This isn’t a horrible flaw, but we are not playing a visual novel here where the reading is the experience. It’s kind of annoying in ways that it doesn’t need to be, an unforced error that can often make the game feel a bit padded if you just want to replay something.

And you might really want to replay something, because the game is short. It does have some longevity in its sections that allow you to collect various items or pick things up through the adventure, but that really is padding, and it’s not going to be the most compelling form of gameplay no matter how you slice it. Now, considering how fun the game is, I can’t be angry about its length; it’s so rare for a game to nearly perfectly nail the ratio of having just enough new tricks and experiences so as to stay fun without overstaying its welcome. But it is worth considering that this is not a game whose overall playtime is measured in weeks. If you want something that bulky, I’m sure something else released on Steam. This is a light romp, and that’s what it wants to be.

Pluck Up

The Plucky Squire is not my game of the year pick. But I can totally understand why people would have it as their pick, because… like… well, look at that review. This is a game that takes you on a romp, and while you can leverage some complaints against it, it never overstays its welcome, never fails to provide fun to the player, and never wastes your time. The minor gripes I have with it are just that: minor gripes.

In short, The Plucky Squire is a triumph, and if it looks fun to you and you don’t mind the slightly shorter runtime, you will find it to be delightful. And you will, I am certain, want to see how Jot’s adventure plays out. It’s a simple trick done without shame but with genuine warmth, and in the end, what more can you ask for from any video game?

~ Final Score: 8/10 ~

Review copy provided by Devolver Digital for purposes of evaluation. All screenshots courtesy of Devolver Digital.