General Information
You know the sorts of things from their back catalogue, the likes of Hotline Miami, Enter The Gungeon, and so on. However, with this delightful kid's adventure from All Possible Futures, there's no hidden dark side or difficulty at all. And it's worth mentioning this early doors here, to make it crystal clear from the get-go that this is a game that's resolutely for young kids - or young kids playing with a parent or adult. This isn't some secretly violent thing, or fiendishly difficult or clever romp in the vein of Tunic (with which it shares some similarities at times). It's relaxed, straightforward and not massively long at around 13 hours for a playthrough.
We've had discussions during our review period that it's a little hand-holdy in places - it's hand-holdy in all the places - because of just how linear and fixed and shuffled along its path you are. It also plays it very safe with its combat and its upgrades. You can easily best any foe by mashing just one of Jot's small set of moves (attack, charged attack, sword throw), and minigames (including some boss battle sections) can even be skipped from the menu if you're finding them too challenging.
But then, you see, the real reason we've all been so excited about The Plucky Squire, is that it's built around this fantastic-looking mechanic that sees you jump from the pages of a kid's storybook into the "real" world, and back again. It looked so incredibly good, and clever, in its pre-release trailers that we just couldn't wait to get our hands on the full thing. Which is nice, as it turns out, because All Possible Futures has done a stellar job in realizing its rather lofty ambitions here.
Assuming the role of Jot, the titular Plucky Squire, we're introduced to a world where you are the star of a series of children's books, a well-known hero with fans in every corner of every title in which you've appeared. Of course, as soon as we arrive on the scene, the evil Humgrump, a green wizard straight out of 1980's kids TV, arrives and boots you into the real world so he can take over. Boo to that man!
Alongside a bunch of new pals, a wizard called Moonbeard (and his mini-me sidekick), you must come to terms with the fact your world isn't quite as it seemed. From here you'll grapple with a bunch of new abilities as you switch instantly between bounding across the pages of the game's beautiful picture-book pages, and clambering around in the fantastically tactile and drably-realistic three-dimensional world outside of the whimsical story realm.
Portals can be discovered on most pages of your book, once Jot has figured out how to get back inside, and these allow you to switch perspectives, jumping out of a page to turn back to an earlier section and so on. This feeds into rearranging sentences on the pages you pass through, a fun mechanic that allows you to remove specific words and replace them with others that you find to solve puzzles and continue on your way. Maybe you'll need to shrink a LARGE enemy down to a SMALL size, or find some way to fix a BROKEN bridge. That sort of thing.
Over the course of The Plucky Squire, you'll also gain the use of various stamps which can be used to stop time, blow things up and so on by going outside of the book and stamping pages with a great big stampy stamper. These skills are then combined with very light exploration, simple combat and environmental puzzles to clever effect as the game's designers go to town with flashy sequences of play that have you meld into walls via portals, turn pages to move objects around, tilt the entire book and a few other bits and pieces that we don't want to spoil here because gaining new powers is the most exciting bit!
It all feels great to play, as rigidly structured as it is, and it looks just as fantastic as it did in all of the pre-release trailers that got us so excited for it in the first place. If you're a younger player, or a guardian looking for something to play with a child, you're 100% in for a great time. Facts. It doesn't do anything new, it plays it incredibly safe mechanically, but it works well regardless because that party piece mechanic of switching between real and book modes is so beautifully done.
No matter how many times you jump in and out of your book and onto the real-world desk of Sam (we'll let you discover the slight but effective story for yourself), it feels like a great big treat, like a kind of magic that only videogames get to do this well. We love the art style - anyone who read Meg and Mog growing up will likely love it too - and there are nice little nods to artists (hi Banxy!) and things like that for adults to chuckle at, as their child invariably mills around in circles and walks off the edges of things. Listen. As long as you're enjoying yourself, that's all that matters, kids.
And so we've got a game that nails its flashy core mechanic. It also nails the whole kid's book vibe with perfect art, fantastic narration and a story that's got an actual point that should, hopefully, teach youngsters something about art and writing and the power of (non-AI) words. Some will likely be disappointed that it's all so on-rails, that the moments that let you jump into scraps of paper or sail across the sky via some bunting, are mostly very linear, and that the puzzles and combat never get anywhere near challenging.
However, when judged for the intended audience, this is a hard game to pick holes in. It could have been a little more devious and gotten away with it early doors, and the same sorts of puzzles get used way too often, but it's constantly thrilling to look at, there's always another cool visual flourish to enjoy around every corner. Oh, and it even ends strongly! Yup, it's got a few surprises up its great big wizard's sleeves for those who stay the course.
Finally, and in terms of performance, we had a few issues here and there with this PC version of the game. Nothing major overall, but there were some stutters at times during scraps (on a new RTX 4070ti rig) and we had a few bugs that froze the game and forced some reboots on one or two occasions. Hopefully this stuff will be a non-issue (or patched already) on Xbox, and we'll be sure to update this review with thoughts on that once we've spent time with it.
Conclusion
The Plucky Squire is a delightful kids adventure with a fun and unique core mechanic that's been realized incredibly well. Jumping in and out of Jot's storybook to explore the "real" world, engage in light puzzles and face off against Humgrump's minions is a constant delight and, even though the game is never as challenging or as devious as we'd have liked, it's got a ton of heart. A must-play for kids, then, and a breezily nice time for any adults playing alongside them.
