The Plucky Squire is a game about…a plucky squire. Hero of a series of children’s books he is a goodhearted warrior who, along with his friends and a kind wizard who acts sort of like their teacher, battles an evil wizard and his minions to maintain peace and harmony in the land. It's a fun little indie title that's a sort of linear top-down Zelda clone whose big gimmick is that it takes place in one of the aforementioned picture books, which the main character can leave from time to time. This means that there are some fun puzzles involving changing the words on a page to change the environment (such as replacing the word "huge" with "tiny" to shrink an object) and there are 3D levels where you exit the book and go out on to the owner's desk. It's cute, simple, and reasonably polished, with some nice narration, pleasant visuals, and decently clever writing.

When I started The Plucky Squire it was September. I was enjoying it.

On October 1st I put it down because I wanted to play spooky games that month.

When I picked it back up again it was November 11th. Two things had happened. The first is that I had played The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. That gave me a reminder of what a true top-down Zelda, with all the richness of Hyrule and that Nintendo polish, plus the freedom of the new more creative era of Zelda. The second, well, the second is the big thing that has cast a pall over the United States and the future of the world.

Dipping back into the Plucky Squire I found myself playing a game that felt smaller and shallower than it initially had. I chafed at its linearity and the fact that all of its puzzles only have one (or sometimes two) solutions and are mostly about figuring out what the developers want you to do rather than approaching challenges with a broad set of tools like in recent Zelda. I found the combat simplistic and the enemy variety lacking. The previously charming story about the importance of imagination and childhood wonder rang hollow after such a stark reminder that all too often the real world rewards the worst people and gives them free rein to do truly horrible things. The game is all about how the Plucky Squire defeats the evil wizard Humgrump despite his enormous reality-bending powers. In real life evil doesn’t need magic to triumph, just a compliant media and angry, fearful, population.

But that’s not The Plucky Squire’s fault. It’s a very polished game with a lot of cute, if not revolutionary, ideas. Your character can pop out of the storybook and manipulate it as a physical object. You can go off adventuring on the owner’s table and fight 3D representatives of the cute little sprite monsters. There are minigame boss fights that emulate rhythm games or even Punchout, and even stealth sections that don’t entirely suck. There are art collectables to be found and upgrades to moves to be bought (though they don't change the gameplay very much.) It’s a very well-made product and it does some creative things with the top-down Zelda formula.

The story’s not bad either. It’s got cute jokes and decent, if simple, characterization. There are moments of respite to try and give the game decent pacing. The fantasy setting has enough twists to keep it at least a little fresh, and it is very tonally consistent, managing both a metanarrative and a sincere in game story at the same time without either harming the other.

But when I think back to my time with the Plucky Squire it’s not so much the game’s theme of all the joy being drained from the storybook by an evil wizard that comes to mind, as my own experience of my fun with the game being drained by external circumstances. I had an okay time with it and didn’t come to hate it, but I was kind of glad when it ended and haven’t gone back for the platinum even though I’m not too far from it.

So much of media experience is dictated by where the consumer is in their life when they come into contact with it. There’s the old saying that the best band in the world is the one you first heard when you were 14, or the way that people have nostalgia for their childhood games disproportionate to their actual quality. But while the magic of childhood has a profound influence, so can the vicissitudes of adult life. Not just major life or world events but even what you were playing beforehand or whether you were feeling under the weather when you went through a game. The Plucky Squire didn’t change, my mindset did, and it made me like it less. Unfortunately there’s no magic wand I can wave to reverse that. All I can do is close this chapter and move on to the next.

Great write-up, duder. I feel this. I've been in states of mind that made me much less appreciative (or negative) of what I was experiencing. And unfortunately I've only been fully cognisant of it in retrospect. Though I've also had the reverse: one of the reasons some of my recent faves (Souls) have made a indellible mark on me is that they came to me at a (increasingly weird) time in my life when I needed them the most.

I was initially pretty excited for this, but ended up not picking it up. At this point there are so many games I'd prioritize... Maybe one to get when it's cheaper.

Hey, hope you're doing well. And happy holidays! If applicable.

@manburger: Thanks for reading. You definitely can have mindsets that enhance a game as well, and I have experienced that too. I think a lot of nostalgia comes from there.

I got it for "free" off PlayStation Plus. I think it's probably worth it on a sale but honestly at $30 it's a tough ask IMO. It's not very long, not very replayable, and is a somewhat forgettable experience, at least as an adult. Comparing it even to something like Penny's Big Breakaway, which I didn't love either, it's a tough ask. At least that game has a ton of replay value if you get into it, and I think is more interesting overall.

There is a lot to play right now. I'm getting to the point where I'm realizing that there's no way I'm going to get through everything I want to by the end of the year. That doesn't really matter and it happens every year, but still. Also for some reason I've been playing the Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster, so I'm not even spending my time "wisely," though to be fair I'm mostly enjoying that.

I'm doing okay I guess. I think that it's very hard to be doing well right now if you're paying attention. The things that are going to happen in the near future are...not good.

Great write-up. I was very hyped up for this game when I saw the trailers and shared it with my friends. I will admit, the lukewarm response it got kinda cooled my enthusiasm a bit and I've opted to wait for a sale if I ever buy it at all. Also, I've been so deep into World of Warcraft the past few months that I have hardly touched anything else unless it's Vampire Survivors or Balatro on my phone.