Lace up your sneakers and fasten your seatbelt, The Plucky Squire is one of those indie games that come to change the dynamics of the gaming universe and to touch the hearts of players who are fans of new styles. Developed by All Possible Futures and published by Devolver Digital, the game surprises with such creativity combined with a completely drawn and very charismatic universe.

The concept is totally innovative, we will live an adventure with our hero Jot who has the ability to travel between the 2D and 3D worlds, breaking the fourth wall. That's right, Jot is the main character of a children's book, where good always triumphs over evil, but here, the creators wanted to make an exception.
 

In this perspective, now comes the 'twist', in this tale, the villain tired of losing literally expels our hero from the book (to the 3D dimension), who needs to alternate between the two worlds frequently to complete the story and defeat Humgrump, the evil wizard. Imagine, what would happen to children's stories if the villain won? This is exemplified in the game, as the narrative suggests that the owner of the book, a child named Adam, could have his future affected (I won't say how, to pique your curiosity) if Jot cannot defeat his enemy.

That said, The Brave Squire universe is very charming and uniquely charismatic, as a lover of the gaming world and a review writer, I was fortunate to find in this game a great surprise and I affirm: mark on your calendar the day September 17, 2024, the release date of a great indie game.
 

A tale as it should be

As mentioned, we will experience the story of a character from a book who knows that he is just a character, got confused? Imagine living in a simulation and discovering that, all the actions of your life were not actually your choices, what would your reaction be? Despite seeming crazy, the developers also thought about this, it is common for Jot's friends to comment on such facts, that they are actually just characters from a book and even revolt a little about it.

In this context, there are many concepts that touch on the main story itself, serving as an example of both this questioning of the characters and the child owner of the book, however, great care was taken so that these narratives do not spoil the main line, which remains solid from start to finish.
 

That said, in our main story, let's start with a 2D gameplay, which for those who have not read anything about the game, tend to think that the rest will follow this way. We will experience the life of Jot, the great squire of the Kingdom of Mana and writer of legendary tales about his battles. To follow the narrative, we will have omnipotent narration and also writings on the pages (shown in the next image), these words will also be frequently inserted in the gameplay to be used to solve puzzles.

Building on that, this is another of the creative and interesting facts, in many moments the two universes (2D and 3D) will be used to complement each other, thus the biggest puzzles of Jot's adventure will be solved by manipulating elements between dimensions to progress. In addition, as usually happens in these heroic tales, our story will be divided into chapters with the game itself giving the possibility of redoing each stage more than once. A good alternative, since there are those who like to finish to then explore all collectibles besides being able to switch between the two available difficulties.

A great warrior

In addition to exploring creativity in this magical and VERY colorful universe, care was taken so that the game mechanics did not become repetitive and tiresome, thus, in addition to the different puzzles as mentioned earlier, a simple battle system was created for the fights that arise during the chapters against basic monsters: we will be able to strike with Jot's sword, as well as evolve skills and learn new maneuvers, like the spinning attack. This evolution system is entirely based on buying new skills, which will be done with an NPC in the form of a little shop, still, we can earn money by eliminating our enemies and destroying many and hitting trees.

However, this will not be the only combat system we will encounter, right at the beginning, in one of the first 'bosses', we face a dynamic totally alternative to the one mentioned. In this one, we are face to face with a huge badger being forced to strike and dodge punches. Personally, I really liked this surprising way of introducing new combat models, and a little spoiler: among the bosses encountered, these mechanics are not repeated, showing a great variety of systems and a concern to break away from the routine.

Regarding the missions themselves, although sometimes feeling that the difficulty level is a bit low, considering the battles and puzzles to be solved, the immersion delivered to the player is so great that it is common to spend hours without even realizing that time has passed. Besides that, something that bothered me was the lack of function of the other characters in the story, with the exception of Jot's wizard neighbor who assists several times with his tips, his friends who accompany him on adventures only show usefulness after a few good hours of gameplay (although each of them has their own arc, I still find it insufficient), I mean, in combat most of the time they just watch, considering that for the most part they are a witch and a troll accompanying us, it is expected that they can help in combat, besides rarely performing any other action or giving any clues in a puzzle.
 

The marriage between creativity and charisma

Not only the way of thinking about the game, like the plot, mechanics, and gameplay had great expertise from the developers, but the entire created universe has a great charm: all the arts are meticulously drawn, while in 2D remaining as a children's story and, when switching to 3D, showing a completely different world but without altering the idea of childish, this, of course, without alienating players who will most of the time be above that age.

It is charming to see arts and at the same time satisfying to play, much for what I mentioned at the beginning, being different from everything we know, I confess that it even expanded my view of games a little. Sometimes, innovation can cause strangeness, but not in this case, the different approach combined with great creativity is the highlight of The Plucky Squire.

Moreover, the audio feedback is also excellent, especially regarding the legendary narration, in addition to the ambient sounds and the music that cannot be missed. It seems easy to praise here, right? But that's the truth, as I said earlier, I have high hopes for this game and I think it is worth your curiosity and trust, it was certainly one of the positive surprises of the year 2024.

The Plucky Squire will be available on September 17, 2024 for PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series, and Microsoft Windows.

We thank the PR team of Devolver Digital for making The Plucky Squire available for us.