The Plucky Squireis packed full of creative ideas, all captured on the pages of the storybook we work through during the story. Each of the games levels are presented as chapters in the story, with clear themes and ideas included in each.
Throughout most of these levels, you’ll find yourself springing in and out of the pages of the book and learning about more and more different ways to interact with the world around you. While The Plucky Squire is enjoyable from beginning to end, there are some chapters that are clearly better than others, so which chapter is the best?
9Chapter 3
Moonbeard
Moonbeard is one of the most fun characters to interact with throughout The Plucky Squire, but the chapter that is named after him unfortunately doesn’t match this. The level essentially acts as an extended tutorial on how to interact with the world inside and outside the book and how these elements intermingle.
It’s important that you learn these lessons since they’re vital to enjoying the rest of the game, but it really didn’t need to be its own chapter and easily could’ve just been tacked onto the end of the previous chapter or the start of the next one.
8Chapter 1
Some Serious Beeswax
The start of The Plucky Squire does a perfect job of setting the status quo for Jot’s usual day-to-day life, and it’s a great way to establish the norm that is quickly going to be destroyed. The level plays like atypical 2D Zelda gameand ends with a Punch Out inspired boss fight.
While we get to grips with how this portion of the game works, we learn more about the characters ad get used to the game’s unique style of presentation and narration. While its a functional start to the game, it really only gets better after this.
7Chapter 5
Artia
You’ll spend the first half of The Plucky Squire working your way to the capital of Mojo, Artia, and it’s a rewarding setting to explore when you finally reach it. The vibrant double-page spread is packed with details to find, and you’ll need to scour every corner to get all of Umber’s pigs back in his pen.
Exploring this setting is a lot of fun, and you’ll have a little break in the outside world to learn how to tilt the pages of the book, but otherwise, this level is a little more basic. You’ll spend some time exploring Artia, but once you’re done, the chapter is pretty much over.
6Chapter 9
The Magnificent Humgrump
The Plucky Squire’s finale has some of the best ideas featured in the game, and the switch-up in narration and style to match Humgrump is a nice dedication to detail. However, the level is incredibly long, and it definitely could’ve been paced a little tighter.
In between enjoyable and creative puzzles, you’ll fight against hordes of enemies, which is one of the areas where The Plucky Squire lacks, thanks to its relatively simplistic combat. It also doesn’t help that the first three phases of Humgrump’s boss encounter are just slightly harder re-skins of other bosses, which is disappointing since it detracts slightly from his impressive final form.
5Chapter 8
Clash At the Castle
One of the biggest weaknesses of The Plucky Squire as a whole is the uneven pacing between levels. While some are too long, and it can get tiring (see Chapter 9), others are too brief to sink your teeth into, like Chapter 3, as well as 8.
Getting to fight against a boss as Violet is enjoyable and feels like a great bookend to her arc, but other than that, this chapter really doesn’t have much else of substance other than leading into Chapter 9. If this chapter and the one following it balanced each other’s runtime, the end of the game would’ve been much better paced.
4Chapter 2
Tome Tower
After reuniting our trio of heroes at the end of the previous chapter, it’s great to see the three interact throughout the game’s enjoyable second level. This is where we really get to grips with the level of variety in The Plucky Squire, with 2D platforming featuring heavily alongside the standard Zelda-inspired gameplay, and thenfinally thrust into the 3D ‘real world’.
While the end of this chapter is not the strongest outer world portion of the game, it’s a fun stealth-focused section that will help you learn how this version of the game controls while also making you feel powerless compared to the world inside the game, further immersing you in the adventure.
3Chapter 7
Beach Battle Boogie
Beach Battle Boogie is one of the longer chapters in The Plucky Squire, but it is paced perfectly to ensure that you don’t get bored and uses some inventive ideas to keep you on your toes.
You’ll have to leave the invaded beaches of the main level to explore the dinosaur-themed desk world to collect the bomb stamp, which lets you destroy certain items inside the book from the outside. This is used in some fun ways, but compared to some of the other abilities, it feels a little less inspired, holding this level back from going any higher.
2Chapter 4
A Treacherous Trail
The Plucky Squire really comes into its own in the fourth chapter, where our trio of heroes goes off the beaten path to get to Artia. By this point, you’ll know how to get outside and back into the book with ease, and there are some more complex puzzles that test this skill.
Now you’re comfortable in the world of The Plucky Squire, the game is happy to challenge you to think outside the box, and this level displays in both its wordplay puzzles as well as a fun exploration outside the book to get a bow and arrow in a turn-based battle of wits against an elven trading card.
1Chapter 6
Very Metal
Exploring Thrash’s home territory after leaving Artia is where The Plucky Squire really shines, with you being deep enough in the game that you can be challenged with creative wordplay, puzzles, and combat too.
This is also where you unlock the pause stamp, one of the more creative (if not slightly under-utilized) abilities, as well as venture into the outside world empowered with a jetpack to have some of the more open-ended 3D exploration. This is also where we get some of the more creative boss encounters, withThrash’s rhythmic abilitiesbeing tested.
