Normally after I finish a game that I truly enjoyed fully, as has been the case with Hogwart's Legacy I am going to be super-critical of anything that I play so keep that in mind while you are reading this.
I do feel though, that I am being quite objective with my analysis of this game because while it is good, and cute, and innovative, it has certain mechanics that are really funny and fun the first couple of times that you do them, but after a while you start to ask yourself, "is this really all that this game is?" and unfortunately in the case of The Plucky Squire, yes, that is all that this game is.
This is a tale of adventure against an evil wizard that seeks to take over the land that is oh so typical in stories but in this particular case you are literally taking part in the adventures that happen inside of a book that is written for children. You play the role of a squire named "Jot" who suddenly becomes accidentally aware of the fact that he is a character in a children's illustrated novel and his mission is not just to complete what would be the expected path of a character in such a book, but to work against savage forces that exist in the material world that are working against the books ever being written in the first place.
It's an interesting concept, jumping in and out of a book to complete the mission and I will admit that I was captivated for a while at the originality of this type of game that continually breaks the 4th wall to communicate with the outside world. That lasted about 3 hours and 40% of the overall gameplay before each level just started to feel as though it was a more complicated re-iteration of the level that came before, unfortunately.
They do have some innovative things that will be throwbacks to people who have been alive as long as I have though, such as this early sequence where you have to box with a honey badger and the gameplay is essentially the same thing as Mike Tyson's Punch Out from the late 80's.
You can see the edges of the book that you are fighting in right here and that is a constant part of the overall theme of the story. Later on, actually quite soon after this battle, you are introduced to jumping out of the book and entering the desk area of the illustrator, that is a child (or so it is indicated) that creates these stories in the first place. These levels are also quite innovative and visually appealing, as they are done in a completely different graphical style than the turn-page version of the story that you have been a part of up to this point.
There are other, more dangerous and difficult to overcome foes out there such as beetles that are kept as pets by the illustrator and you must sneak around them since you have no real way of fighting them. It's all really fun and interesting and I was enjoying it.
Then the stuff that I initially did like, but later grew to loathe, started to kick in.
There are certain words that are moveable in various pages of the book that Jot finds himself in, and when you move them the dynamics of the are that he is in will change. In the above example you have to move the word "open" from another part of the page to this gate in order for it to open. This is a creative way of doing a game indeed and I thoroughly enjoy how it was presented and executed in game. The issue is that in order for these to be accomplishable by a wide range of ages, including those whose native language might not be English, the puzzles become increasingly tedious where you have to exit the "book world" and then walk over to the other side of a page with a word in your hands in order to do something like open a large gate. It's fun at first, but then it just becomes something that is taking a bunch of time for the sake of taking a bunch of time.
Combat in the game is extremely simplistic and as a not-so-great gamer this doesn't necessarily displease me, there doesn't seem to be much reason to ever get particularly good at it. Maybe I am forming this opinion because the experience I had in Hogwart's was complicated enough to keep you engaged but also at the same time incredibly understandable and not too demanding in the fast-twitch muscle environment.
In The Plucky Squire you are taking hits that are basically unavoidable in a back and forth exchange of blows that you are totally meant to be able to easily survive.. after which point a heart that completely refills your health will be offered up as a reward for said battle.
They try their best to mix things up by doing things like briefly giving you a bow and arrow and putting you in a "shooting gallery" sort of combat situation and this stays interesting for just about the amount of time you are subjected to it. I think it was a wise choice on their part to have this happen only once because by the time you defeat the "bug boss" you are dead tired of the repetitive nature of this sort of thing.
This game is a story that isn't intended to be particularly challenging at any point in time. This is fine by me because one of my favorite games of all time is What Remains of Edith Finch where you really couldn't lose. However, in that story-game, the story was so compelling that you felt really entranced by it and seriously wanted to continue forth where as in Plucky I kind of felt like I kept playing merely because of the fact that I had downloaded the game and now had a feeling of obligation to see it through to the end.
I failed in my objective to see it through to the end because of many aspects but mostly because I'm ok with repetitive gameplay if it is fun. This wasn't really fun and at a certain point at about 3 hours of gameplay I was just continuing forth only to see what sort of videogame nostalgia throwback they were going to include next.
Honestly, if this is the only reason that I am playing something, I would rather watch a YouTube video of someone doing it for me, which is precisely what I did in order to see the game come to its rather obvious conclusion.
In the end the only thing I can really say about this game is that it is an interesting concept that is reasonably well-executed but in the end it just couldn't hold my interest because certain aspects of it, such as combat, were just a bit too reptitive and simplistic to keep me captivated. I am sure there are many other people that feel the same way.
The Plucky Squire is a great example of an indie company trying to do something different and succeeding at doing exactly that, but in the end most people are going to quickly tire of how it all pans out.
I tapped after 3 hours and honestly, would be a bit upset if I had paid for it. It is currently free with a PS-Plus membership and is available for very little money on PC, Xbox, and Switch. I wouldn't recommend that anyone actually pay any money for this though and instead maybe watch a video or two online, especially if you have limited funds.