brave squareWhich we can translate into Italian as “the brave companion”. He is the hero of the children’s book. He is famous throughout the kingdom of Mojo for defeating the wizard Brontolomeo (again and again). Everyone appreciates his exploits, except for the wizard himself, who, upon discovering the nature of the world they find themselves in, decides to eliminate his opponent by expelling him from the book. The risk is enormous: not only does Goot, the protagonist’s real name, risk not being able to defeat the wizard, but also that the child who owns the book will no longer appreciate the story being told, thus ending his cradle. career as a writer.
Story for children
This, in general terms, is the story that forms the background to what we can define as Zelda where characters become aware of themselves and their nature.gaining the ability to break the fourth wall by storming into reality (the office of the book owner), then Moving from a hand-drawn 2D world to a fully 3D worldIf we will, the story itself isn’t particularly original (it’s certainly not the first time the characters have left their books, so to speak), but it’s the possibilities offered by the video game medium that make it truly unique.
Plucky Square shone throughout the two and a half hours it took us to finish the version provided by Devolver Digital, which ended upon reaching one of the adventure’s central locations. It was a continuous surprise.a veritable spectacle of tricks, with new mechanics constantly introduced to take advantage of the very specific scenario. At first, it feels like a simple Zelda clone, with Jot smashing bushes with his sword, rolling and hitting enemies in order to stack combos. We are constantly confronted with the fact that we are following a children’s story, since the levels are built on the pages of a book, literally flipped through as we change areas, but everything follows fairly predictable paths.
Multifaceted game
But soon the gameplay begins to change. We encountered the first platforming stages, in which the camera changes completely, framing the action from the side rather than from above, and dealt with some puzzles, which required us to change the words of some sentences to overcome certain obstacles. Let’s take an example to illustrate: from the phrase “broken bridge” we took the word “broken” and replaced it with the word “solid” (taken from another phrase in the area), thus turning the collapsed bridge into a new and useful one. One that could be crossed. In fact, we also did much more than that, such as confronting a boss in a sequence reminiscent of Punch-Out!!, buying upgrades for the hero (for example the ability to throw a sword) and meeting other characters, up to the first confrontation with the magician at the top of the tower, who eventually banished him from the book.
From here Plucky Squire evolved and transformed even more, because We have gained the ability to enter and exit the folder.And also browse it (literally) using magic portals to change reality. So the gameplay is enriched not only by the 3D stages, but also by a series of puzzles and tricks that exploit these constant transformations, which occur in real time, in a fascinating way (we don’t know how to define it otherwise). Let’s go back for example to the word puzzles, which over the hours of play not only became more complex, but also began to exploit the possibility of getting out of the book, so that in some cases we had to recover words from previous pages to solve the puzzles on the following pages (Plucky Squire can carry items when he jumps between worlds).
Frankly, we are struggling. List of all inventions by the authors of All Possible Futures Seen in very few hours of play. For example, the 3D stages themselves are created to take advantage of the dual reality in which the adventure takes place, with Jot able to use portals to enter other graphics on the desk as well, to the point that one of the final bosses is accessed by inserting a sort of Magic The Gathering card, in a comparison to the Japanese RPG style, with a hint of Undertale. From here we get a magical arc that gives life to a new minigame in the original volume, where we have to quickly beat up insects in a sort of on-rails shooter.
The item we liked the most is: The nature through which transitions from the two-dimensional world to the three-dimensional world are managed.As the transformations continue, we come to perceive the two levels of reality as one and begin to think accordingly. The game systems themselves flow between the two, constantly enriching themselves with new elements. To make everything more flexible in theory, the developers have entrusted the explanation of the basic mechanics to simple (completely skippable) tags, and then left it to the player to understand the advanced variants. Always suggests in some way the design of the maps.In short, Plucky Squire is really a Zelda clone, but with its own strong and truly unique identity. It takes many elements from the Nintendo series, but adds many of its own, freeing itself from its source of inspiration.
Without over-judging, since we were not able to experience the entire game, The Plucky Squire seems to be one of those titles that conveys the joy of video games on all levels, thanks to a creativity that goes beyond mere production and technical issues (thank God we advised ourselves not to over-judgment…). Honestly, after playing it, we put it at the top of our wish list and added a very serious candidate to the list of potential games of the year. It also left us with a great desire to continue the adventure. In short, it seems that the years of waiting since the first announcement will pay off, at least from what our impressions have been so far. At this point we just have to wait until September 17 for the final version, which will clarify any doubts and who knows if Gut and his companions will even know they are inside a video game.
“Unable to type with boxing gloves on. Freelance organizer. Avid analyst. Friendly troublemaker. Bacon junkie.”
