The Plucky Squire is a British indie game that tries to merge Toy Story with Paper Mario feeling like a blast from the past. It is a very wholesome game whose art style makes you feel happy and nostalgic but is held back by the technical issues and bugs.

The premise of the game is that you're playing as the Plucky Squire Jot who lives in a storybook with his friends Violet and Thrash where he fights the evil sorcerer Humpgrump. Humpgrump took offence to finding out that he loses in every story he's in so Humpgrump gets the ability to manipulate objects in the storybook by bringing them into and out of the real world and does so by pushing Jot out of the book into the real world. Now its your job to stop him before he causes a time paradox in which Jot and his story disappears for good.

Now right away, the game's art style/graphics are easily the strongest part of the game as everything looks cute and adorable being hand drawn that it feels wholesome despite the stakes. The game does a very good job of merging artstyles while making sure that the storybook aesthetic is retained such as having minigames in the style of Saturday morning cartoons while making sure the artstyle does not overstay their welcome. The artstyle also works well with the gameplay by merging both 2D and 3D styles together to help solve puzzles in both worlds and exploring the desk. Honestly, my favourite thing was always wondering what the developers would go next with the setting.

The story is also very simple too and makes good use of the colourful palette to tell a story about why writing, music, and other forms of art make life worth experiencing with various pop-culture references but done in a manner that fits within the setting. Even the big twist is actually well done and uses the fact that the story is meta to up the stakes. My issue is that I wish the first 75% was cut back in half to make the twist more impactful while also giving more screen time and characterization to Violet and Thrash so they become as much of a main character as Jot earlier in the story.

The gameplay is rather simple which fits with the premise of the game being a simple kid's story about the hero vs the big bad as it's basically a mix of 2D and 2.5D Zelda games such as ALTTP and ALBW. However, the game is linear in nature with no real "Dungeons" as each chapter is a dungeon itself which may put off some people. You also have to solve puzzles by using the ability to being items from other storybooks or the real world into your own storybook as well as rearranging sentences on the storybook to create new items. This game also has minigames that take inspiration from other genres and games such as Rhythm Heaven, Punch-Out!, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and Bubble Bobble.

Combat in this game is simple as you basically have a regular sword slash and spin attack (gives you i-frames so very good) but Jot is able to throw his sword (which is more for puzzles than combat) and do a Ground-Pound with his sword which leaves you open to attack. Your friends Violet and Thrash also fight with you at certain points and they're capable of killing mooks on their own and won't die. You also gain the ability to jump and dodge-roll which does the job well. It really is just simple button mashing and works just as well.

In lieu of proper boss battles, almost all of the bosses are fought via minigames which I honestly liked because it allows the developers to make memorable boss fights inspired by other games. As a bonus, Jot and Thrash end up getting Ripped during those boss fight minigames which is fucking awesome while making sure the bosses don't feel like yet another boss you fought before in Zelda or Ys. If a boss minigame is too hard, you can just ask to skip it (which i did for one of the final boss minigames because it was luck based).

The puzzles go beyond simply being "Find object in 2D world and bring it to 3D & vice versa" as I would be spoiling the game but the game expects you to think outside the box and make use of the fact that you're in a storybook to solve puzzles. Remember the puzzle that you have to solve in Phantom Hourglass to open the Temple of Courage? This will become very helpful here.

The main problem is that this game suffers from a number of technical issues and glitches such as having characters that flicker in and out, freezing because I triggered an event flag in an unexpected place, or having to reload a past save because I softlocked myself. I was able to enjoy the game thankfully but this game needed a few months to help iron out the bugs and fix some softlocks caused by the player thinking outside of the box.

Lastly, I recommend going for all the collectibles in the game as the art pages you get help show how the game was developed and its legit interesting to see how different the pre-production conceptual stage was compared to the base game. It really makes you appreciate how much of a passion project this game was and as such, is worth a playthrough.

Overall, a great wholesome game to relax with but the devs have some tech issues they need to tidy up.