It was in 2016 that Curious expedition has charmed many critics, including us, thanks to the talent of the Germans at Maschinen-mensch, who have laid down an extremely deep rogue-lite which made you embody a 19th century London explorer and sent you to different regions of the globe in order to glean ancient treasures and make friends (or not) with the natives, all without becoming a hammer. Curious Expedition 2 is therefore the continuation of this work. After a release at the beginning of the year on PC, the title was brought to Nintendo's hybrid in mid-August, for my greatest pleasure!
Given the solid foundations of the first part, the German studio did not need to reinvent the wheel. We therefore find most of the roguelite mechanics of the first episode. We must choose, from the outset, among 8 characters, which are neither more nor less than "personified" classes, then assemble his small crew after having selected a place to put our anchor to accomplish various objectives. Our fine team must also be composed with care, since each one will have particular talents which will facilitate certain tasks. Going on an adventure without a translator runs the risk of complicating the dialogue with the locals quite a bit, for example... Each choice must be made judiciously, although it is first and foremost a question of a style of play to be defined, in order to know the strengths and weaknesses of his team.
Once in play, the adventurers that we are will have to explore the unknown by advancing on a checkerboard that will gradually reveal itself. Each action will have an impact on the mental health of his group. Going deep into the jungle can have a fairly strong impact on the gauge, which we can somewhat compensate for by eating a good roast meat, or by going to a friendly village where we can rest peacefully. Certain spaces will trigger random events which will also have an impact on the crew members: the discovery of a wreck can be a great opportunity to find valuable treasure... but it may be too damaged to we venture to explore it. It's up to you to choose, and cross your fingers hoping for a lucky roll of the dice, in order to recover the treasure without too much hassle.
Since unfortunate dice rolls are not enough to satisfy the sadism of the studio, the latter has also added a system that apes very effectively Darkest Dungeon, namely, character traits ! To forget the horror of the tropical jungles, a character can become an alcoholic and unlock the "Alcoholism" trait, which has the consequence of reducing the loyalty of your sidekick if he does not get drunk regularly. There, we stay in the gentillet. It is also possible that a member of the crew suddenly becomes cannibalistic and eats one of your comrades during the night. Little joy to see this at dawn, with a stunned expedition leader and another totally terrified who would rather leave than be the next to end up in the stomach of our new Hannibal Lecter.
In other situations, the unlocked traits can be positive, but you spend so much time slapping each other that you end up as desperate as a crew member. We end up washed out, and amazed by the ability of the developers to punctuate their title with a whole bunch of random events. Each expedition is unique and will provide a lot of emotion.
Graphically, for those who remember the previous title of Maschinen-mensch, we have taken quite a step! Goodbye dubious pixelart, hello Belgian comics. The sets are inspired and detailed, and we will mainly pester the basic animations of the different protagonists. The Switch port is a real success and seemed to me more intuitive than the PC version.
I had skipped the first opus of The Curious Expedition, because of its somewhat off-putting graphic style and its somewhat obscure mechanics, but I'm delighted to have been able to try this sequel which made me discover a deep, rich title, and which has been able to occupy my insomnia for the past few years. weeks.
Nintendo Store - €19,99
