- Publisher: Devolver Digital
- Release Date: Sep 17, 2024
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
- Unscored
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire brings us back to our childhood, when we were still learning about videogames. Despite its ambitious premise, the game makes you fall in love with it with innocence and simplicity, remembering us why we even like games after all.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire combines 2D action-adventure with 3D platforming for a 4th wall breaking good time while serving as a family-friendly love letter to the art and literature that creatively inspires us.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a phenomenal game from a debut studio and is an absolute must-play.
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Sep 17, 2024All Possible Futures has created a wonderfully creative game with The Plucky Squire. The book itself is colourful and filled with fun little puzzles, which answers you find by jumping to other pages. Meanwhile, the 3D-world on the desk is incredibly detailed. The transition between these two worlds is quick and smooth, offering a combination of unique gameplay for young and old.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire’s a charming, inventive, and utterly delightful adventure that deserves a place in every gamer’s collection. Whether you’re drawn to its unique mechanics, captivating story, or simply the joy of exploring a beautifully crafted world, this game offers something special for everyone. Don’t miss out on this enchanting journey—The Kingdom of Mojo needs their hero!
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Sep 17, 2024From the first moment I saw The Plucky Squire, I knew it was something special. Every trailer, every preview – right up to actually playing the game, it has delivered on every frolicsome promise that All Possible Futures showcased to us. The technology on display in bringing the book to life is so appreciable that you can’t help but gush about it to anyone within arms reach – it’s just slathered in that special something that elevates a game from being ‘just another notch’ on your interactive media bedpost, and instead reserves a spot in the hallowed halls of games you will love talking about and referencing for years to come.
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Sep 17, 2024Thanks to a spectacular puzzle design, a visual style that mixes two-dimensional art with super-realistic 3D graphics, music that fills your ears at all times, as well as a story that might seem simple at first, but quickly overflows and touches on complex themes of the human condition, The Plucky Squire becomes one of the most special experiences we have been able to enjoy in 2024 and of course, another great example of why independent video game development remains crucial to the well-being of this special form of entertainment. All Possible Futures and Devolver Digital managed to live up to what was initially promised and the great expectations that were generated, delivering a true must-have that will undoubtedly be on many lists of the best of the year.
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Oct 3, 2024A game of not one, not two, but many tricks. A book as a platform for gaming adventures is a great idea and an abundant source of interesting gameplay mechanics, which the developers at APF willingly snatched, offering a title that is fresh and strikes emotional chords.
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Sep 19, 2024The Plucky Squire is a delightful action platformer with a brilliant hook that feels like witchcraft the first time you see it and continues to be absolutely magical throughout. It tells a heartfelt tale about the power of art and creativity, set within a bright and beautiful world packed with wit and whimsy that the whole family will enjoy.
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Sep 18, 2024Charming, comedic, and uplifting. The Plucky Squire tells a fantastic hero's journey that works as both an excellent game and a picture book.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is absolutely a rewarding journey for players wanting a diverse, creative experience that celebrates the interactive medium. While its gameplay and puzzles never border on too difficult or complex, its implementation of so many unique elements are striking in both consistency and variety. Be drawn in by its stunning artistry and stay for the incredible adventure.
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Sep 17, 2024A fantastic fairytale journey full of creative ideas and a story that touches the heart.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire does a lot of things right. It juxtaposes a delightful animation style and fun game mechanics with childlike wonder and an unsubtle but well-delivered set of life lessons. The most remarkable achievement, however, is not to be found in a review, but somewhere in my heart. With every page and puzzle, I forgot more and more about the world around me. And there, in the land of Mojo, I was ten years old again for a moment.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is Toy Story meets your favorite childhood book. It does so with all the love and gratitude possible for those stories that inspired us as kids to become who we are today, thanks to the courage of their heroes, their cleverness, and their ability to speak directly to our hearts. But it’s also a fantastic video game, brimming with ideas, aesthetic and gameplay inventions, that knows how to connect two worlds excellently, blending them into a single unforgettable adventure.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire manages to expertly craft an adorably interesting story full of lovable characters, enjoyable narration, and near-perfect parallels between its 2D and 3D worlds. While some parts need just a bit more polish, it exceeded my already high expectations and gave me nearly a dozen hours of laughs, fun, and mental exercise. Plus, well, seeing its cast of cute little characters suddenly turn into buff badasses is a great bonus.
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Sep 17, 2024The 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.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is charming, offering an involving story and enjoyable gameplay with unique hooks, even if it takes some time to open up.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is an adorable adventure for everyone to enjoy. It has some issues, like glitches and a less than stellar story, but plucky really is the right word to describe the game. It's technically ambitious and impressively varied, making it easy to forgive its shortcomings.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a brilliantly creative little game that will hook you with its unique presentation and phenomenally full-of-life art and reel you in with nostalgic gameplay and great characters. It is fun for all ages. I struggle to think of anyone who won’t find at least one thing they enjoy about The Plucky Squire, making it a game that is definitely worth checking out if it’s on your radar.
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Sep 17, 2024It hauls you along its journey with a bright spark in its eye, and it shows you sights you’ll have rarely seen in other games. For that, it should be applauded. There’s so little that’s new under the sun, but The Plucky Squire has earned the right to claim this accolade. In its bright-eyed approach to platforming, and its inventive nature, it’s an enthralling and smile-inducing triumph.
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Sep 17, 2024One of the central focuses of The Plucky Squire's story is that it's a tale that inspires hope in all of the children who read it. I'm hopeful that this game will inspire any would-be developer who plays it, because it's a true expression of what's possible through gaming.
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Sep 17, 2024We've been absolutely spoiled by excellent platforming games recently, and The Plucky Squire is up there with the best of them. Controlling Jot in this fourth-wall-breaking adventure is an utter delight. It's a shame a few bugs persist, but they're not quite enough to stop The Plucky Squire being one of the highlights of the year so far.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire oozes creativity and charm on every page. It stands aside Balatro and Animal Well as one of the best indie games of the year.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a game oozing with charm and positivity, and the clever word and book based puzzles will keep you gripped from start to finish.
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Sep 17, 2024I'm not normally the type for “artsyfartsy” indie games, I mainly like fast-paced, hard action. But The Plucky Spire interested me because of its innovative game mechanics and its proximity to the classic The Legend of Zelda games. Apart from the fast-paced, hard action, this is one of my only weaknesses. And I couldn't forgive myself for not taking the plunge. Sure, the challenge is different, and you could probably play through most of the game with a blindfold on. But the overall experience is just so incredibly endearing and refreshing that I simply couldn't stop playing. The only point of criticism for me as a person without any sense of rhythm: the boss battles against the giant eagle, who throws objects that you have to catch with drumsticks as Krass, almost drove me to despair. But I'm sure it's a piece of cake for more musically gifted people.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire was truly a delightful and charming adventure, filled to the brim with clever jokes, beautiful graphics and a range of fun gameplay mechanics. It does not overstay its welcome, and instead offers a polished experience from start to finish. Even though it sometimes holds the players hands a bit too much for my taste, I had a fantastic time and wish I could play it for the first time again.
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Sep 17, 2024Hooking me right from the start and eliciting pure joy all the way to the end, The Plucky Squire has gone the extra mile in rewriting what should be expected out of an action-adventure such as this. By drawing from classic inspirations and adding its own spin on things, this is a game that leverages its creativity in all the good ways and ultimately writes a happy ending not just for Jot and his friends, but hopefully, also for the future of its creators.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is one of the indie surprises of 2024, a great game in both form and content, with original ideas (like entering and exiting pages) and a superb staging. It can be criticized for tending to repeat ideas, but everything it does, it does very well and with a good dose of fun along the way.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is evidently a game created with the younger generations in mind: it’s easy to approach, never particularly complex, and the most challenging parts, well, they’re not very challenging in the first place, but just in case they can be easily skipped. This isn’t a bad thing or a criticism: it’s a great game that even adults that just want to have a fun time in a beatifully drawn 2D world can easily enjoy. Just make sure you’re not looking for something that might put your skills to the test.
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Sep 19, 2024The Plucky Squire is possibly the most beautiful game of the year. It is also an interactive children's book. Its fantasy story with knights, wizards and sorcerers, and its low difficulty, makes it perfect to enjoy in the company of children. While everyone can copy Mario and Zelda, few can copy the magic. That's why The Plucky Squire shines, because while we play we smile, it makes us happy. And there is nothing that can compare with that.
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Sep 18, 2024In all, The Plucky Squire is a very delightful game with a lovely concept, a warm awareness of itself and the tropes it is interacting with, all wrapped in a gorgeous visual design that makes both parts of the game an absolute delight to witness. There is some slowdown in some areas when they are specifically cluttered with people and interactable objects, but even with that in mind, jumping into the pages of The Plucky Squire is sure to be an enjoyable time for many aspiring adventurers.
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Sep 17, 2024Quotation forthcoming.
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Sep 26, 2024A smart and silly spin on 3D platformers and 2D classics that’s delightful from start to finish.
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Sep 18, 2024The Plucky Squire is an exceptional experience that I would recommend to most gamers. While the build-up is a bit slow and the story portions break up the gameplay a little too much, the title is still a worthwhile experience. As one might expect from a book though, the replay value feels a bit limited with this game. I don’t know that I would want to experience the early portions of the game again, but chapter selection does help to alleviate that issue. Overall, The Plucky Squire is one of the best indie titles of the year so far, and we would recommend giving it a shot.
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Sep 17, 2024A stylish, distinctive, and intriguing action-adventure platformer. It's not challenging, long, or mechanically deep, but it oozes magic from every 2D or 3D pore.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire has a very slow start with excessive dialogue and over-tutorialisation, but once you get past that, it becomes an incredible, dimension-shifting adventure you shouldn't miss out on.
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Sep 17, 2024A quirky and vibrant storybook adventure with so much to offer that you won’t want to put this lighthearted tale down.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a light-hearted experience that always manages to put a smile on the player's face with its surprises. Although it is more linear than desired, the game constantly plays with our expectations and reinvents its mechanics in an ingenious and fun way.
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Sep 23, 2024It was said that the Fearless Squire would be a hero remembered for generations to come, and in a way, so it has proven. The bravery of Jot is the kind found in those rare games that dare to be bold and original, standing out in a vast sea of creations content merely to drift, avoiding the depths by surrendering to the currents. The playful tenderness of this unlikely hero, though it may not always fulfill its lofty ambitions in the realm of play, still shines through in a journey that uplifts not only those who join Jot in the quest to topple the wicked Humpgrump, but the very essence of the game itself. And if this be not a heroic feat worthy of legend, dear children, then what, pray tell, could be?
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Sep 23, 2024The Plucky Squire is a game that deserves to be played by those who enjoy innovation and imagination in video games, despite its weaknesses. It is a reminder of why indie games are so important to the industry, as they bring freshness and new ideas to an ever-evolving medium.
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Sep 18, 2024The Plucky Squire might be the most imaginative indie game you'll play this year. What if a character could step out of their storybook and change their world? The game answers this question through a delightful journey. Although the story and combat feel somewhat simplistic and don't fully live up to the creative premise, the overall experience remains enjoyable.
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Oct 24, 2024Overall, “The Plucky Squire” is an amazing, imaginative experience that showcases the magic of storytelling in a way that’s rarely seen in games. Its unique 2D-to-3D mechanic is more than a novelty; it’s a fundamental part of the gameplay that enhances the experience, making it both memorable and enjoyable. The game’s art, music, and concept come together beautifully, creating a world that feels alive and inviting. While it has minor flaws, such as occasional difficulty spikes and some graphical glitches, these issues are small in comparison to the charm and creativity on display. For players seeking a fresh, story-driven experience, “The Plucky Squire” is a must-play that will leave you smiling from start to finish.
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Oct 3, 2024There’s a lot to enjoy about The Plucky Squire. It really is a gorgeous game, the art design is stellar, the voiceover work for the narrator is well done, and again it just nails the storybook presentation so well. While the puzzles aren’t particularly hard, they are inventive, making use of the 2D to 3D space extremely well. There’s certainly room for improvement in The Plucky Squire, but at the same time I think it’s a game worth checking out when you get the chance.
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Sep 26, 2024The Plucky Squire is an extremely playful platformer that bombards you with one creative idea after another. Surprise, surprise… it works! It's the creativity in puzzles and environmental interactions that makes this adventure in a children's book truly special. Never mind the bland combat or the stretched-out final third. The Plucky Squire is a whimsical tale that warms the heart.
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Sep 22, 2024They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it can be hard not to when the cover is as pretty as this one is. Still, once you get past the wonderful style of The Plucky Squire, you’ll find a game that has a lot of creativity, at least when it comes to its puzzles and exploration. Other aspects of the game are less successful, but they aren’t poorly executed; they just tend to feel a bit generic. It would have been fantastic if the developers had brought the same creativity to all aspects of this game, but anyone who enjoys thinking their way through their adventure should absolutely check it out.
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Sep 19, 2024The Plucky Squire is a moon-shot of a concept, and as the hours go by, it becomes clear that it’s trying to say something truly interesting about the importance of storytelling and the power of narrative. I would recommend seasoned players approach the first few hours with patience, as it takes a hot minute to find its pace. As the game evolves it becomes highly rewarding, even if the controls are a little finicky at times. The Plucky Squire is heartening, funny and impressive to behold: not flawless, but still a treasure of a title.
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Sep 19, 2024With its aesthetics, tone, and gameplay, The Plucky Squire is a near-perfect game for younger kids, and I'd recommend it without hesitation. Add to that the boatload of charm, and it's very much a title that a parent can enjoy as much as their child does. It lacks the bite of a Zelda game, so if you need your games to be difficult, then this likely isn't for you. However, if you're just looking for the video game version of reading a charming storybook, then The Plucky Squire knocks it out of the park.
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Sep 19, 2024Those looking for a deep challenge won't find it in The Plucky Squire, but any gamer looking for something fun and charming will be entertained by the story of Jot and his friends. Despite its lack of difficulty, it's easy to think that most users will want to finish the story once they've started. Its creativity and level designs go a long way in turning something mediocre into something artfully enjoyable. Be it for the children who remember their parents reading stories to them or for the parents who remember reading to their kids, both will find a bounty of nostalgic adventure in The Plucky Squire.
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Sep 18, 2024The Plucky Squire is a gorgeous, entertaining adventure that will keep you hooked until the final page. While lacking in challenge, the creative set-pieces, beautiful visuals, and mini-games do the heavy lifting.
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Sep 18, 2024In short, The Plucky Squire is a triumph, and if it looks fun to you and you don’t mind the slightly shorter runtime, you will find it to be delightful. And you will, I am certain, want to see how Jot’s adventure plays out. It’s a simple trick done without shame but with genuine warmth, and in the end, what more can you ask for from any video game?
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Sep 18, 2024The Plucky Squire is a love letter to childhood, to books and stories, but also to the merchandising worlds and toys that surround them. As such, it serves as a reminder of the important roles these worlds played in our development. Not only of the adventures we made with "Masters of the Universe", Marshall Bravestarr or Rainbow Brite, but how these worlds made us as well.
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Sep 17, 2024Even if it loses some of its lustre in its final stretch, it's impossible to deny the magic and charm of The Plucky Squire. Full of surprises, charming moments and homages to classics, it goes beyond a simple tribute to the games that inspired it and still manages to be genuinely funny, for adults and children alike.
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Sep 17, 2024Of course, if you’re just here for a fun linear adventure, you’ll have a blast. The Plucky Squire is an imaginative romp full of joy and wonder despite how much it holds your hand in the process.
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Sep 17, 2024Plucky Squire is a charming adventure that lacks just a “little something” to make it truly magical. Packed with visual and gameplay discoveries, All Possible Futures' software doesn't take enough time to delve into its universe, its characters and its 3D phases, which are well integrated into the rest of Jolt' epic. These shortcomings prevent the journey from being a memorable one, but make no mistake: this is still a very fine videogame tale, calibrated for the whole family.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is thoroughly cosy, with characters, worlds and experiences that ooze charm.
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Sep 17, 2024If we put aside for a moment the fact that this is a rather short experience, what we have here is a stunning indie game that does what it wants to do very well which makes the overall experience you will get from it a successful one, and personally I think it is one of the sweetest surprises of 2024.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a charming, funny and beautiful action-adventure. It oozes creativity and merges 2D- and 3D-gameplay to a clever action-plattformer. While the game does have issues regarding controls and pacing, the overall experience is great.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is charm personified, and is impossible not to welcome into your heart. It’s a lovingly made sunny day of a game, a throwback to the classics with enough modern touches and genuinely original ideas to ensure it stands on its own two feet. Don’t leave this one on the shelf, whatever you do.
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Sep 17, 2024It's the perfect game for Gen X parents (any parents, really) looking to introduce their younger kids to gaming, with heaps of '80s music and movie references to keep them amused while watching their kids play before they're inevitably called upon to tackle a puzzle or two when Minibeard's on break. Of course, it's also great for big kids who just want to bliss out for a while on some creatively validating childhood nostalgia, complete with glow sticks and an epic trance DJ wizard.
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Sep 17, 2024An ingenious puzzle-platformer that takes players from a children's book and out into the wider world around it.
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Sep 17, 2024The whole third act will especially leave you smiling like a fool, because at its core, The Plucky Squire is good, simple fun. It presents an earnest story with enough twists, fun references, and jokes to keep you looking for more, and it inspires us all to be more than we are.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire may be one of the most exceptionally presented video games in recent memory. In moving from the 2D space to the 3D space, a sense of wonder is created that’s unrivalled by the vast majority of other releases. That sense of wonderment is captured in the storytelling as well, which leans on the charm of children’s fiction. Perhaps a little too scared to create complex depth to the puzzles or gameplay, more mature audiences may find the game lacking in some regard. However, that doesn’t stop the title from being widely appealing and an absolute delight from prologue to epilogue.
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Sep 17, 2024Once the story finally starts delivering on its themes in the back half of the adventure and Jot obtains all of his storybook-manipulating abilities, The Plucky Squire is a joy. We’re entering a postmodern era for the video game industry where the art itself can start discussing what came before, who made it, and why it was made. The Plucky Squire finds itself standing tall in the middle of that trend. It's a must-play if you want to understand why game developers, artists, or any kind of creator makes things in spite of so many forces trying to blot their work out.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is an example of playful and imaginative creativity that we rarely see outside of Nintendo or games like Astro Bot. Unfortunately, it doesn't reach the same heights as similar games.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire gives you simple combat and clever puzzles, all wrapped up in two gorgeously colorful art styles that stand out from anything I’ve played in a long time, with a story that made me smile at every turn.
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Sep 17, 2024While The Plucky Squire could have benefited from being fleshed out even just a little bit more, it still provides a unique genre-hopping adventure, one that perfectly captures a feeling of a childlike wonder in Jot and the land of Mojo.
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Sep 17, 2024A real breath of fresh air, The Plucky Squire leaves us wanting to see more original ideas in its short lifetime.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a game that shines with its impeccable art direction, gracefully blending different styles that celebrate the world of video games with each new mechanic. While it has some issues with pacing and a length that can make it feel repetitive, it continues to impress with its creativity on every page of the book.
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Sep 17, 2024While it could serve to offer more of a challenge and some quests feel a little rote, the times when The Plucky Squire twists genre convention and blends 2D and 3D puzzles are a sparkle of imagination in the genre. Every level feels fresh, the puzzles are satisfying, and it’s all wrapped up in that gorgeous art style that put the game on so many people’s radars.
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VideoGamerSep 17, 2024Endlessly creative and playful, The Plucky Squire's effortless hop between intertwined 2D and 3D worlds is an ode to the illustrated delights of storybooks.
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Game World Navigator MagazineDec 20, 2024Since the story is told in-game via a book, and its main character can pop out into the “real” world to interact with said book, designers got really creative with puzzles. For example, you can replace adjectives to change the properties of an item, or lift a page to make objects on an illustration fall where you want them to. [Issue#265, p.80]
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a game clearly made with a serious amount of love for the wonderful medium of glorious interactivity that is video games. And for it being the first title from development team All Possible Futures, it’s a staggering achievement in art, design and ideas. It’s just a shame the gameplay didn’t get as much attention as the nostalgia it so skilfully indulges.
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Sep 17, 2024While both Astro Bot and The Plucky Squire are about creativity and joy, the latter manages to get in its own way in comparison. The result is jarring.
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Mar 25, 2025Jot’s big adventure is presented as a children’s story, and it’s hard not to feel like a kid playing it in the best and worst ways.
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Sep 18, 2024The Plucky Squire has a nice art style and some clever tricks with shifting between two different perspectives on the world, though ultimately this storybook will appeal to younger players the most.
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Edge MagazineOct 3, 2024It's a testament to the strength of the core concept, then, that The Plucky Squire remains as entertaining as it does. [Issue#403, p.108]
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Sep 17, 2024It’s not that it needed to be longer, as it would outstay its welcome and short games are 100% fine by me, but perhaps some adjustable upwards difficulty, or breaking out the mini-games into their own unlocked sections – while they’re quite derivative, they’re well realised for the most part — or a way to encourage just a few more puzzle variant solves wouldn’t have gone astray here too.
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is a short but charming Zelda-like filled to the brim with ideas and creative twists. Had we not gotten stuck on multiple occasions due to bugs, with the final time costing us our playthrough, we'd recommend it wholeheartedly.
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Sep 17, 2024Once upon a time there was a little hero who, wanting to be appreciated by all, arranged himself in the manner of the lords of his time. Charming as a prince, he invented specialties with eloquence, “a mind as sharp as a fist” he promised. But behind his pleasant features, our adventurer had a hard time hiding his limits. “Stop trying to swell up, or you will die” a lady who saw through his game said to him. That day, he understood: if he did not become a new revered ambassador, he would remain this valiant little esteemed page.
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Sep 17, 2024When the credits rolled, the writer immediately thought: if I had a daughter or a son, I would recommend them to play The Plucky Squire with me. While not a brilliant production in every aspect, we are faced with a title aware of its potential, and for this very reason it wisely decides to focus on what it does best. The 3D sections, undoubtedly the weakest of the game, seem almost disfigured when compared to the 2D ones; a real shame, especially if we consider their playful potential.
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Sep 17, 2024The essential excitement of turning the page to discover what's next is so powerfully represented in The Plucky Squire, and the game retains this energy into its final chapters, even while otherwise lacking notable tension or danger. It’s an entertainingly busy book to play through, but it's a pity that many of The Plucky Squire’s best ideas are ultimately underexplored.
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Sep 17, 2024Although the game was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the actual gameplay elements of it, the story just didn't grab me. Initially, I was also deterred by the massively contrasting art styles and the finicky menus. Overall, the game is a pleasant experience, appropriate for gamers of all ages. If the story had some more flashy dramatics, it may have pulled me in earlier. The Plucky Squire is very evidently a product made with a lot of love, and you can tell that from the level of polish it has.
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Sep 17, 2024In the end, the title’s glittering potential was blotted out by its somber execution.
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Nov 12, 2024I wish All Possible Futures luck in their future ventures, but here, in today’s hyper-crowded indie scene, there are dozens and dozens of games that deserve to be plucked up ahead of this Squire.
| This publication does not provide a score for their reviews. | |
| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
| These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation. | |
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire is all about that lineage of art, inspiration, and creation. The most important role Jot fills as the hero of his book isn’t that of Humgrump’s vanquisher, rather it is his ability to inspire the kid whose desk his book sits on to create something of their own. Every person has a story about what game made them fall in love with the medium, and there is a chance that The Plucky Squire becomes that for some kid that plays it—the thing that will push them to create. How can you not be romantic about video games?
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Sep 17, 2024The Plucky Squire can’t compete on either count. It’s a fantastic concept but a lackluster design that neither surprises players nor meaningfully empowers them. It’s a classic example of a game that must have made for a thrilling half-hour demo at the pitching stage, but that never quite found itself in production. For all its borderline-smug jollity and borderline-twee sense of wonder, and for all the careful craft and evident effort that went into its making, it lacks inspiration in itself, and engenders none in the player. The light bulb is there, but it never pops on.
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Sep 17, 2024I do feel a bit bad about ragging on The Plucky Squire, a game that's ultimately a fairly fun, inoffensive time and absolutely meant for people who aren't as ailing as me. Its energy is great and upbeat and lovely - a perfect balm in the face of today's horribleness. But I do think it suffers from trying to do lots of things and getting a bit lost within them (for what it's worth, I think it would've done better fleshing out the word-chopping ability, as it really can feel magical sometimes). The combat is fine, the platforming is fine, mostly everything feels just fine. And necessary restrictions on your ability usage means that you're always hunting for a one-note solution, as opposed to feeling like you're really altering the narrative. Even games 'meant for kids' still have those deeper layers beneath the simplistic surfaces, where the creativity of teens aren't underestimated and the oldies can flex their mastery muscles. Scratch away the ink and I don't think there's much beneath The Plucky Squire, sadly.
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