The Plucky Squire Review Every Trick in the Book

Free Download Plucky Squire Review – Every Trick In The Book

The Plucky Squire is a joyful, beautifully visualized adventure game, bursting with inventive ideas that will make you feel like a kid again

The Plucky Squire Review is a game that will rightly receive a lot of attention for its eye-catching visual gimmick. Which merges the worlds of 2D and 3D art around a clever story hook. But more than just its whizbang artistry, The Plucky Squire is a game that takes full advantage of its premise–telling a kid-friendly and heartfelt story, filling its well-realized world with lovable characters, and delivering constant surprises. It is a reminder, appropriately, to never judge a book by its cover.

You play as Jot, the titular “Plucky Squire” in a series of children’s books of the same name. The series of picture books is popular enough to have inspired a large fan base and merch, which is absolutely believable given how playful and inviting it is. While Jot himself is the classic silent protagonist, the surrounding cast of characters are exuberant and frequently funny, and the world of Mojo itself, which the characters occupy, is colorful and imaginative.

Over time, the game reveals itself in layers of complexity. You begin playing through what appears to be a standard top-down adventure game, with the neat visual flourish that screen changes and cutscenes are marked by turning pages of the book. Before long though, the book’s recurring villain, Humgrump, reveals his dastardly plan: the ability to kick Jot out of the book altogether. You’re ejected forcefully out of the book and into the real world. That reveals the second layer, as Jot finds his way back into the book and then gains the power to jump in and out at will, using special “Metamagic” portals. When he jumps out of the book he roams around the desk of Sam, a 10-year-old boy who loves the Plucky Squire books.

I can’t overstate how magical and seamless the transition feels between the two realities. When Jot and his friends are occupying the book, there is a lovely 2D visual language that would be at home in a real-life picture book, complemented by smooth animations and varied behaviors that bring all the characters to life. When Jot jumps out of the book, he magically transforms into a Rankin-Bass model of his 2D self, and the perspective shifts downward for a closer look. The two art styles look beautiful in their own right, while also being visually cohesive with each other. As you gain more abilities you’re able to bring things from the outside world back into the book with you, and they have their own similar transition to the 2D plane.

That’s true for the gameplay as well. The Plucky Squire takes full advantage of its meta-breaking premise to introduce loads of variety that break up the pacing. In one early example, you need to venture outside the book to find a bow from a nearby elven huntress, only to discover that the one you’re searching for resides in a Magic The Gathering-like CCG card. So you leap into the card and engage in a simple turn-based RPG battle to earn her bow. This only happens once in the game, and then it’s off to the next activity.

The Plucky Squire is a joyful story about creativity and inspiration that is itself both creative and frequently inspired. In the world of the game, The Plucky Squire is a beloved franchise and popular character with multiple entries in his long-running series. Here in the real world, he deserves to be a star too, and I can only hope this is the start of his success story.