With great vigour and enthusiasm, the writer of this review sprang into action to get his thoughts down on the proverbial page. Feeling inspired by his time playing The Plucky Squire, the writer was bursting with passion, glee, and the childlike wonderment instilled into him during every minute of the game’s playtime. With endearing storytelling and one of the best concepts seen in recent gaming memory, the writer was enamoured and eager to share his thoughts in greater depth and detail.

The Plucky Squire comes to us from the creative minds at All Possible Futures, a team whose ambitions and skills seemingly defy the studio’s young 5-year history. With talent found here in Australia and internationally, the appropriately named studio has a very bright future indeed, as their debut game excels in many facets. Held back by only minor imperfections, The Plucky Squire is comfortably one of the most enjoyable family-friendly titles to release this year.

The game sees you play as ‘Jot’, aka The Plucky Squire. Jot sets out on a mission to defeat the evil ‘Humgrump’ who in traditional bad-guy fashion wants to rule the adorable world of Mojo. Jot, alongside his cohort of friends and admirers, sets out on a mission to thwart Humgrump’s dastardly plan. Where things get more interesting and more unique beyond the fairly expected plot is in the game’s presentation. Everything is narrated and depicted as a children’s storybook. Jot literally walks across the pages of a book in his quests as words appear around him, chronicling his adventures as they happen. The art is quaint and appropriate, with the spine of the book creating a fold that suitably distorts objects at its centre. Cutscenes play out with moderately animated images across multiple panels and pages, each turn of a page signifying a progression from one scene to the next.

Whilst the game’s storybook presentation is exceptional, the real magic happens when Jot gets squeezed out of the pages and into the real world—on the desk of a child’s bedroom. In this moment, this fourth-wall-breaking title goes from great to extraordinary. The detail and lighting of the “real world” is so pleasing and the contrasting yet complimentary art styles show a dedication and artistic prowess rarely seen within the medium. Leaping from the 2D pages of the book to the 3D world the book occupies is nothing short of remarkable and an absolute delight to behold. The narrative keeps up in this regard too, as the characters of the book start realising they are in a book and the evil Humpgrump starts to try and rewrite the ending in his favour.

The writer reflected on his thoughts, moving his attention from the game’s artistic merit to the gameplay offerings. 

The Plucky Squire is a fairly traditional action/adventure romp, save for the transitions from 2D to 3D. With sword in hand, our daring hero pluckily swats at the foes on-screen, rolling out of their attacks and landing the killing blow. Combat evolves over the course of the game as you purchase upgrades for our protagonist. Throwing your sword becomes a possibility, with a satisfying boomerang effect allowing the weapon to return right back into your hands. Reminiscent of God of War (2018), the weapon can lodge into walls and be returned at the push of a button. Further into the game you unlock a spin attack, something admittedly a little more situational in effectiveness, but enjoyable nonetheless. Other upgrades can be purchased to passively increase your damage, with the game’s lightbulb resource found by exploring and attacking bushes and the like around you.

There’s a nice reward system for being thorough in your exploration efforts. Not only do you receive more lightbulbs for more upgrades, but you can also discover secrets that lead to collectibles in the form of art or hidden creatures. It’s all very charming.

Puzzles in The Plucky Squire evolve nicely throughout the experience. Some early examples include moving around the words on the storybook page to help tell a new story. This clever interaction is thematically very strong, as you literally rewrite your own story to your advantage. Later in the game you’ll be able to flip the pages of the book or stamp the book to ‘pause’ moving elements. More interactions like these unlock further into the experience, allowing you to play around with the game’s mechanics and open up new possibilities. It’s all very impressive but also unfortunately somewhat shallow. Take the rearranging word mechanic, for instance. Whilst the idea opens up so much interesting potential, the execution ends up feeling super safe or basic. I was waiting for more depth to be added here, but even late-game puzzles felt really linear with the game funnelling you down a single solution path.

The same critique laid out above can be applied to many of the game’s puzzles. The Plucky Squire doesn’t take notes from releases like Baba Is You, with any appearance of complexity and a network of choice ultimately being a facade for something much more direct. It’s in this regard that The Plucky Squire falters most, slightly too afraid to do anything too challenging or intricate. It’s a shame, but ultimately a comparatively small detractor from the title’s monumental achievements.

With his thoughts laid out on the page, the writer took his final musings, pondering his overall impressions of the game at hand. How could one encapsulate such a multi-faceted experience into a succinct and digestible summation? “I know!”, he exclaimed. “Bullet points!”.