The Plucky Squire is a recreation that can rightly obtain loads of consideration for its eye-catching visible gimmick, which merges the worlds of 2D and 3D artwork round a intelligent story hook. However extra than simply its whizbang artistry, The Plucky Squire is a recreation that takes full benefit of its premise–telling a kid-friendly and heartfelt story, filling its well-realized world with lovable characters, and delivering fixed surprises. It’s a reminder, appropriately, to by no means choose a guide by its cowl.
You play as Jot, the titular “Plucky Squire” in a sequence of kids’s books of the identical title. The sequence of image books is in style sufficient to have impressed a big fan base and merch, which is completely plausible given how playful and welcoming it’s. Whereas Jot himself is the basic silent protagonist, the encompassing forged of characters are exuberant and steadily humorous, and the world of Mojo itself, which the characters occupy, is colourful and imaginative.
Over time, the sport reveals itself in layers of complexity. You start enjoying by means of what seems to be a normal top-down journey recreation, with the neat visible flourish that display adjustments and cutscenes are marked by turning pages of the guide. Earlier than lengthy although, the guide’s recurring villain, Humgrump, reveals his dastardly plan: the power to kick Jot out of the guide altogether. You are ejected forcefully out of the guide and into the true world. That reveals the second layer, as Jot finds his approach again into the guide after which features the ability to leap out and in at will, utilizing particular “Metamagic” portals. When he jumps out of the guide he roams across the desk of Sam, a 10-year-old boy who loves the Plucky Squire books.
I can not overstate how magical and seamless the transition feels between the 2 realities. When Jot and his mates are occupying the guide, there’s a beautiful 2D visible language that may be at house in a real-life image guide, complemented by clean animations and diversified behaviors that convey all of the characters to life. When Jot jumps out of the guide, he magically transforms right into a Rankin-Bass mannequin of his 2D self, and the angle shifts downward for a better look. The 2 artwork types look lovely in their very own proper, whereas additionally being visually cohesive with one another. As you achieve extra skills you are capable of convey issues from the surface world again into the guide with you, they usually have their very own related transition to the 2D airplane.
The story of a protagonist being ousted from his personal guide, then discovering his approach again and chasing after the villain, can be compelling sufficient by itself. However The Plucky Squire provides additional emotional heft by establishing early that you simply’re not simply combating for the destiny of your individual storybook. You are Sam’s favourite guide, his favourite hero, and also you encourage him to attract his personal characters and picture his personal worlds. You’ll be able to see proof of how a lot he loves Jot and the world of Mojo throughout his room if you discover his desk. If Humgrump wins, it is not simply Jot’s world in danger, however Sam’s future as a budding artist and author as properly.
Structurally, The Plucky Squire behaves like a mash-up of a 2D and a couple of.5D Zelda recreation, albeit with puzzle components that revolve across the book-jumping gimmick, as you may steadily have to leap out and in of the guide to govern your surroundings. Since it is a story guide, your actions are continually being narrated, and generally even the phrases on the pages themselves have to be manipulated for puzzle fixing.
One second chances are you’ll be rearranging the phrases on the web page to alter an impassable barrier right into a damaged gate. A couple of minutes later and also you’re hopping exterior of the guide, looking for an object that may make it easier to contained in the story. Generally you may must flip again just a few pages to discover a lacking phrase you must full a word-puzzle. Sometimes the guide will even change perspective, turning on its aspect to current a chunk of the stage that’s extra vertically oriented.
Your skill to govern the guide will get more and more complex–eventually you’ll be able to tilt the guide to let objects inside it slide round, freeze sure items of the surroundings to maintain them from shifting, and even shut the guide to switch an object from one web page to a different. The puzzle options hit a candy spot of tickling your mind with out venturing too far into the overly taxing or irritating. In case you do get caught, there’s nearly all the time a touch totem close by that can level you in the suitable course with out totally spelling out the answer.
The trace system is Minibeard, a miniaturized simulacrum of your wizard mentor, Moonbeard. In the true world he manifests as a chunk of merch: a My Talkin’ Minibeard doll. Your different mates, a younger witch in coaching named Violet and a rock-and-roll mountain troll named Thrash, spherical out the principle forged. The land of Mojo has the surreal, comical stylings of a present like Journey Time, with enjoyable little touches all through to present it a way of character and place. Town of Artia, the royal heart of Mojo, shouldn’t be solely composed of inventive instruments like paintbrushes, but in addition stuffed with characters who visually reference well-known artistic endeavors like Edvard Munch’s The Scream or The Son of Man by Magritte. The mountain trolls are old-school metal-heads, and so lots of the timber of their surroundings take the form of throwing horns. Each time I assumed I had seen the whole lot the world of Mojo needed to provide, it threw a brand new shock that made me smile.
Gallery
That is true for the gameplay as properly. The Plucky Squire takes full benefit of its meta-breaking premise to introduce a great deal of selection that break up the pacing. In a single early instance, you must enterprise exterior the guide to discover a bow from a close-by elven huntress, solely to find that the one you are looking for resides in a Magic The Gathering-like CCG card. So that you leap into the cardboard and interact in a easy turn-based RPG battle to earn her bow. This solely occurs as soon as within the recreation, after which it is off to the subsequent exercise. At one other level, you leap right into a spaceship mug and the sport briefly turns right into a side-scrolling shoot-em-up. Jot and his mates participate in boss battles that resemble Punch-Out, a color-matching puzzle recreation, and a rhythm recreation. It is style tourism, however every of them is so well-crafted that they are greater than welcome as breathers for the principle journey.
The result’s a recreation that feels anchored safely in basic Zelda-like mechanics, whereas additionally permitting itself to be bursting with new concepts and artistic touches that make the world energetic and distinct. These concepts proceed proper up till the ultimate boss encounter, which introduces yet one more new gameplay kind that feels wholly totally different from the whole lot that got here earlier than. This could be a dangerous proposition, as usually video games that enterprise too far exterior their core mechanics on the very finish can really feel tacked on or missing confidence in a finale. Fortunately, The Plucky Squire put simply as a lot care and craftsmanship into this because it did its different style experiments, serving to it to really feel just like the end result of a grand storybook journey.
The Plucky Squire is a joyful story about creativity and inspiration that’s itself each inventive and steadily impressed. On this planet of the sport, The Plucky Squire is a beloved franchise and in style character with a number of entries in his long-running sequence. Right here in the true world, he deserves to be a star too, and I can solely hope that is the beginning of his success story.