The indie landscape this year has been amazing, with releases large and small. And when it comes to anticipated releases, The Plucky Squire is definitely at the top of a lot of lists. With the co-founders being designers associated with Pokรฉmon and The Swords of Ditto, the visuals were already sure to hook players. But what about the other aspects of the game? Will the charm be backed up by the story and gameplay?
Story
The game opens up much like a storybook. Our hero Jot lives in the land of Mojo, ruled by Queen Chroma, and everyone is happy and content. That is, everyone except for Humgrump, the nefarious sorcerer. And while his other plans have been thwarted by Jot and his friends, this time he has an ace up his sleeve. While you’re out running errands, Humgrump has tapped into a well of strange magic, that allows him to control the story. And since Jot can’t just let him get his way, it’s up to him to save the day.
The rest of the story is standard in its layout. As you traverse each of the different lands of Mojo, you must help its inhabitants from Humgrump’s forces. This isn’t just with defeating the forces in battle, but also manipulating the sentences of the story to change the environment around you. It’s an interesting mechanic that unfortunately isn’t expanded on more, resulting in puzzles that are easy to spot right away.
But overall, the writing isn’t much to write home about. There aren’t any side quests, removing an aspect of developing the side characters and the world in general. While the side characters do occasionally get their moments in the spotlight, they end up back at the wayside once it’s Jot’s time to shine. And even with Jot in general, there’s not much going for him outside of him being the designated hero and someone who likes writing. The moments are cute and much like a children’s storybook, with not much depth to explore.
Gameplay
The Plucky Squire is an action-adventure platformer where you control Jot where you navigate across Mojo in search of Humgrump. As you progress through the story, you’ll explore not just Mojo, but also the world outside of the storybook (specifically, the desk where the book is kept). You’ll gain tools that allow you to manipulate the story around you, whether it’s changing sentences to moving large items across the page. There are plenty of battles to take on, both with grunts and bosses that will span several game genres.
Combat and Exploration
The combat for The Plucky Squire is action based, with your main weapon being your sword. At the start, you only have one attack type, but as you continue along and collect lightbulbs (which act as your currency), you’ll be able to buy other sword abilities to use in battle. Lightbulbs can be collected from monsters, but the majority of them will be found by attacking trees and bushes. The sword abilities that you collect are useful in their own way, specifically the sword throw that gives you a long range attack. But at the end of the day, your standard attack is typically more than enough to clear through enemies.
Combat acts the same in and outside of the storybook, although there are some moments outside of the book where you won’t have your weapon. In these cases, you will have to use stealth to navigate around until you reach your end goal. If you’re discovered by the enemy, you’ll automatically die and be taken back to the beginning of the area. When navigating in the outside world, there are some places where you can easily traverse by climbing up items. But there are some areas that are too high up for you to reach. In these moments, you’ll find a green portal on a piece of paper, which allows you to jump into the 2D dimension.
Boss Battles
Boss battles are handled differently from regular battles. Instead of action combat, you’ll be thrown into completely different genres that you’ll need to overcome. Since the boss battles are the only time that you can play these other genres, there’s not much variety to the battles. What you see is what you get. Even in the times when the type of genre returns, outside of a uptick in difficulty, the battles operate the same. That being said, the different modes are satisfactory. Getting to punch enemies as if you’re in Punch-Out, shooting enemies out of the sky with a laser gun, or hitting projectiles back at enemies in tune with the beat is a blast. It’s not often that games will draw in other genres, but The Plucky Squire did so in a way that was fun to engage in.
Puzzles
The puzzles in The Plucky Squire are simplistic most of the time. When you come up to a puzzle room, you’ll usually see Minibeard hanging in one of the corners, ready to give a hint should you need it. Otherwise, you’re free to go about solving the puzzle. There are two types of puzzles that you’ll encounter throughout your time in the game: changing sentences in order to generate different environmental items and interacting with larger items on the page using your manipulation powers. As you uncover new areas, sentences will appear that describe the scenes around you. Some words are highlighted by a green text, letting you know that you’ll be able to interact with the word. Words can be removed from a sentence and placed in another sentence, completely changing the meaning and as a result, changing the scene around you. What was once water surrounding you can turn into lava, or ice, or a forest. A tall flower can change into a small flower, and so forth.
As for manipulating larger items using your book manipulation powers, some items are too big to interact with. After a while, you’ll be able to tilt the book, which can slid larger items across to the other side of the book. But along with that, you’ll also unlock the ability to drop bombs, or freeze an item (to either stop it from moving if it currently is or prevent it from moving whenever you tilt the book). While all of the features don’t result in more difficult puzzles, they do offer some changes to playing the game that keep it relatively fresh.
Aesthetics
The Plucky Squire’s strongest suit is its aesthetics. The game uses a mixture of 2D and 3D assets to tell its story and both look great. Of course, taking into account the Switch’s limitations, the 3D areas aren’t as impressive looking as they could be. The colors in the 2D areas are bright and vibrant, with the designs of the enemies and heroes bringing the charm. When it comes to the desk, every time that you navigate out of the book, a new layout awaits you as Sam (the desk’s owner) creates new locations for you to traverse. It’s great seeing the unique use of materials to create the new environments.
Music and Voice Acting
There is partial voice acting in the game, in the form of the narrator. The narrator only speaks for pivotal story moments, where the entire page is fully illustrated. Otherwise, during the puzzle segments, there is no voice acting. But regardless, the narrator did a fantastic job, with great inflection as the story progresses. As for the music, there is a heavy use of chimes and guitar. A lot of the tunes are upbeat and happy-go-lucky, similar to something you’d hear in a Nintendo title. Each of the songs feel as though they blend into the next leaving behind a feeling of a large amalgamation of tracks rather than any one song sticking out too much.
Performance and Bugs
Unfortunately, the performance of The Plucky Squire isn’t the greatest on the Switch. There is noticeable slow down, both during cutscenes and during battle. During cutscenes, the text will lag out while the audio plays as normal, usually resulting in the page turning before the text finishes typing out.
Along with lagging, there are noticeable bugs that can potentially stop your progress altogether. Cutscenes freezing, abilities that you’ve purchased being taken away and requiring another purchase, and portals not opening when they should are just some of the bugs encountered. It does appear that the team is aware of the multiple bugs, with a support account available on Twitter to report any issues. But in the cases where you don’t want to wait, there is a save history function that can be accessed when first opening the game and continuing from your last save. If you find that the game freezes during key cutscenes, selecting a past save history file may clear up any issues.
Conclusion
The Plucky Squire was an indie game that was really anticipated, if the build up in the weeks prior to its release says anything. While the visual presentation of the game is lovely, the multitude of bugs and simplicity of the story and gameplay do take the wind out of its sails. In its current state, it may be better to wait a bit until the kinks have been worked out, and perhaps look to other systems when it comes to performance. But if you choose to move on ahead, you’re still in for a treat regardless.
The Plucky Squire gets a 7/10.
