It is obviously no coincidence that Ubisoft chose this month of November 2018 to bring out Unknown Soldiers on Switch. For gamers of all ages, it's hard to find a better way to commemorate 100 years of the Armistice. Ubisoft Montpellier's game deals with the Great War with seriousness and lightness at the same time. With humor and emotion. Extremely narrative, sufficiently playful, and slightly educational, the adventure told is that of all the protagonists of the time, represented by the four heroes under our control. Karl, a German married to a Frenchwoman and forced to leave her adopted homeland to join the army of her native country. Emile, Karl's father-in-law, mobilized in French troops. Freddie, the American fighting voluntarily for Spain. And Anna, the Belgian nurse who came to the field to find her missing father. The paths of all these characters will regularly cross, giving the player the opportunity to take their destinies into their own hands. With star guest Walt, a dog who will occasionally come to lend a hand to our everyday heroes. The gameplay gives pride of place to not very difficult puzzles, the game mechanics leaving the spotlight to the narration. For more details, we invite you to reread our 2014 test, which we will not paraphrase here. After all, the game is almost identical, in substance and form, on all platforms. Even this Switch version does not upset anything, and that's good. We find with great pleasure the magnificent soundtrack (whose main theme recalls that of Amélie Poulain), the artistic direction inspired by comic strips (going so far as to replace the dialogues with pictorial diagrams), and the narration carried by the hoarse and soft voice of the late Marc Cassot (Bilbo Baggins and Albus Dumbledore in VF, it was him!).
PILE HAIR FOR THE 100 YEARS OF THE ARMISTICE
The Nintendo console is not quite like the others, and the port arriving four years late compared to the initial release of the game, the demanding players that we are are still entitled to expect some bonuses . If Ubisoft has been modest enough not to deck out the game with a subtitle like "definitive edition", this Switch version still has its little extras. Thus, it takes advantage of its touch screen to let the player choose between finger or joystick controls. The simple and very "point and click" gameplay ensures perfect maneuverability in both cases. In addition, offside bonuses are present in the form of a small animated comic strip entitled Dogs of the Trenches, and a digital artbook in landscape format of around twenty double pages. This is pleasing, as is the very good behavior of the game on the Switch, which has no problem displaying the 2D graphics from the UbiArt engine with fluidity. The only flaws in this version of Unknown Soldiers are only those inherited from the original game. Namely: a certain lack of challenge and a lifespan limited to seven or eight hours maximum (this explaining that). Finally, that those who have followed Unknown Soldiers since its announcement abandon all hope regarding George, the English aviator presented in the same way as the other heroes in the first trailer of the game, and whose adventures were cut before the release . The Switch version does not work miracles and does not offer us the additional chapter that some players have long hoped for (as free downloadable content) and dreaded (as hypothetical paid DLC). The story of Unknown Soldiers, like that of the Great War that inspired it, is now set in stone.
