Pokemon Legends: Arceus | Back to base ★★★★

The very last Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a nice combination of the classic mechanics of this venerable franchise, immersed in an open world with a sympathetic adventure at the key. Relaxation guaranteed.

Karim Benessaieh
The Press

Nintendo has tried many things with its Pokémon since 1996. But augmented reality of Pokemon Go to the most recent Pokémon Sword and Sparkling diamondthe basic concept has always remained the same: catch and study as many pokémons as possible, trapping them in a Poké Ball or fighting them until they pass out.

Starting point

After the pokemons that turned into giants or took on unusual shapes, we return to the classics with Pokemon Legends: Arceus, which hits shelves this Friday for the Nintendo Switch. You play from the outset a little boy or a little girl, Akari or Rei, who has fallen from a spatiotemporal fault in the old region of Hisui, the one that later became Sinnoh, familiar to many Pokemon fans. The inhabitants of this Japanese medieval-looking village are terrified by these hundreds of mysterious beasts that fly, jump or crawl on the ground called pokémons. Your mission is to catch them, fight them and bring your observations back to Professor Lavender to earn points.

The goal of this adventure is to learn more about a fabulous pokemon, Arceus.

The development of this register of pokémons, called Pokédex, is your main goal. Each pokemon has its grid and it is not enough to catch it to complete the mission. Depending on the pokemon breeds, you have to catch bigger ones, get them to use a specific weapon, make them evolve or surprise them in different forms.

A selection of Pokemon you have caught become your allies, which you can send into battle. The more your pokédex progresses, the more experience you accumulate and your allies become stronger. Along the way, on these ultra-colorful hills and rivers of the Hisui region, you must collect Heals, Cherry Berries, Noigrum Gnawed and other Perennial Buds to heal your Pokemon and craft various items, including the Poké Balls essential for hunting, but also other items. other variants with varying powers.

Refreshing

For connoisseurs of this universe, we return here to the essential, without flafla and without dizzying animations. You must choose from your stable of pokémons the one that is most suitable for the animal you want to catch, which varies between the three types fire, grass and water. The blows are dealt alternately, you must choose the most suitable skill at the right time or decide to withdraw and heal your fighter if he is overwhelmed.

The adventure is charming, very refreshing and does not let you get lost between thousands of possibilities. The guides are clear, between the main and secondary missions where you are essentially asked to bring a pokemon or a specific ingredient to a villager. For the fans, a slew of new pokemon, which we cannot name, have been added to the adventure.

As is often the case for this franchise, we use the same codes, this time adding a more sophisticated graphic design, which in some respects recalls The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The dialogues are transcribed and not spoken, as usual.

This latest installment seems to have struck a balance between easy-to-manage ground rules and good challenges. At first, you will have no difficulty defeating pokemon with your basic stable. But the missions expand, you have to find rarer ingredients, and some fights are frankly demanding. You will have to use all your talent to manage your pokemon, make them use the right skill at the right time and avoid overly powerful enemies.

For the fans

The charm, once again, is that everything is good-natured. You don’t die in a Pokémon game, you fall asleep or you’re knocked out The space created here by the Game Freak studio is magnificent. This is clearly a game to be savored slowly: the repetition and sometimes overflowing number of missions to complete to complete the pokédex can make it boring if abused.

And let’s remember the obvious: if pokemon leave you cold and you are looking for more challenging and surprising adventures, this game, like those of the franchise in general, is not for you.

But if you want to go back to the roots of this strange mythology that has delighted hundreds of millions of players over more than two decades, Pokemon Legends: Arceus is the treatment for you.