Hands on with The Plucky Squire - Preview
Since the reveal of The Plucky Squire, I have been waiting for the chance to play it, I have been fortunate to talk with some of the developers about the game over the past year and their excitement only fuelled my own. So now that I have finally gotten to play the game, is it shaping up to be a page turner or a story that should be shelved?
The Plucky Squire tells the tale of Jot, a hero from the world of Mojo and before we meet him, he has made a career out of defeating the evil wizard Humgrump and then writing books about his adventures. After a mini quest is conquered, something evil begins to brew on the horizon and that sends Jot and friends out to find the source and stop it. However before Jot can fight Humgrump, it is revealed that Jot’s world is that of a book, where he is the hero and now Humgrump has had enough. Using magic, Jot is booted out of the book and into the real world, which triggers an all-new adventure for him. Story wise, that is the setup, there are countless characters that you will meet, even across the start of the game, but the concept is very simple. There is nothing wrong with a simple story, but I can only hope that it gets more interesting as the game progresses.
Thankfully from the outset of the game, the gameplay was where I was having the most fun. Ignoring the early pages of the storybook, literally in this case, once I was able to start doing more than follow directions, things got fun. The easiest way to explain the game is, take a basic Legend of Zelda top down gameplay, mix in a little word puzzle and a dash of 3D Legend of Zelda when you leave the book, with a few extra genres mixed in for good measure. Where the twist for the game comes in, is with the transition to a 3d world. Now this is not the first game to do this, one example would be Super Paper Mario, which let Mario swap between 2D and 3D worlds, but this time it’s a completely different world. When you are in the 2D world, apart from things being flat, the world is made up of fantasy, goblins, talking bees, wizards and such. However the 3D world is loaded with paper clips, pencils and rubber bands, which strangely felt out of place to me.
While the earlier parts of the game were all contained within the 2D world, by the time chapter 4 rolled around, I was jumping in and out of the book like a pro. There was one puzzle, where I could see the solution, I had to replace a word, but I couldn’t see the word on the page I was in. Then I remembered where I had seen a word similar to what I needed, so a quick jump out of the book, flipping a few pages and then onto the one I needed and back to where I began. I am sure that later on in the game I will forget about that ability and get stuck for a few minutes, but without seamless the developers have made the popping between realms, I honestly doubt it. Solving the puzzle gave me a sense of satisfaction and while it was near the end of my preview time, I felt ready to take on more of the game.
It is really hard to describe how much joy I had playing The Plucky Squire, yes there are times when it felt more like a Play School game, but it still was loaded with charm. There is something just so satisfying about being able to pop out of the book and explore the ‘real’ world and then taking objects back into the book with you. Something I honestly can’t wait to see, is just how many homages to classic games are included, I mean it didn’t take long for Punch-Out to show up and I know there are more to come. While the full release is only weeks away at this point, the game can honestly not come soon enough, as Jot and his friends have written down a place in my heart.
The Plucky Squire is set to release on September 17 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and Switch. PlayStation Plus members can add the game to their library as part of their membership.
