The latest side-scrolling platform adventure to grace the iOS powered iPad and iPhone is a little known gem of a game called Leo’s Fortune, bringing a whole new, slightly random character to the computer games world. With a unique movement engine building off the genius of previous unique platform hits like Badland and Limbo, it’s a whole lot of fun as you scoot your way through the 20 main levels and 4 bonus games.
At £2.99 it’s not exactly the cheapest iOS game on the market to review, considering the likes of Angry Birds is just 69p, but the price is in line with the games mentioned above and other graphically impressive platform games like Sonic 4 Episode II, so it feels about right. The most important thing about iPad and iPhone games in general is value for money and while Leo’s Fortune is a little on the short side, it makes up for that with a whole lot of fun and we fully expect new additions to the game with later updates.
Storyline
The storyline is a simple piece of brilliance that sets things up easily, while building out in complexity and thoughtfulness as the game develops. You play Leo, a vaguely Russian furry ball of a creature with big blue eyes and a resplendent mustache.
Leo was previously known as Leopold the Golden and Leopold the Fortunate thanks to his vast wealth and engineering might, but when he wakes up to find all of his hold stolen he sets off to hunt it down, leaving a little note for his wife Matilda. His suspicions take him in the direction of his luckless relatives, Cousin Victor, Aunt Olga and Uncle Sergej, who have all fallen on hard times, having once been very fortunate themselves in the past.
It makes for an absorbingly cute tale as you go from land to land in search of your gold, ruling out relative suspects as you go. However, it’s also a genius and simple allegory on the vices of greed, suspicion and heartless production that’ll leave feeling fuzzier than Leo fuzzy bits by the end of it all.
Gameplay
While it’s a simple side scrolling platform game at heart, Leo’s Fortune draws on a unique slant on the genre, not least of all because the central character is fundamentally a furry, legless ball of Russian determination. Moving around to begin with is simply a case of skimming left or right on the touch screen with the thumb of your left hand to make Leo glide in either direction. A simple flick up with your right hand thumb will propel him into an odd flinging jump, and you can flick downwards to send him shooting back to earth, which is useful for building up speed or using springboards to fire yourself high into the air.
However, as the game gets going you learn a range of moves that build off Leo’s ability to inflate, a bit like a fuzzed-up blow fish with a wicked tash. This allows you to float down to the ground with a bit more grace and timing so that you can get past longer jumps, pick up hard to reach coins and avoid obstacles as you drift down ravines. He can also move objects, push switches, catch himself in a tight spot and bounce off walls if it’s timed just right and you’ll need to master them all if you’re going to complete the game.
The construction of the levels combines brilliantly with Leo’s unusual move set to make a challenging and rewarding experience that involves all manner of environments and obstacles. Each area has a different landscape, but they’re all filled with long drops, deadly machinery, spikes of doom and dangerous wheels of torment to keep the gameplay exciting.
This is added to by the need to collect all of the coins, suffer zero fatalities and complete the level within a set time to pick up the stars you need to unlock the bonus games. This is a considerable feet considering the fact that we died 52 times on the most difficult level when we first gave it a go, so getting that down to zero takes a lot of skill.
On the down side, there aren’t all that many levels, but even when you’ve made it through to the excellent end of the game, you’ll still have all of the stars to try to earn to complete the game 100%, so there’s an element of game lifetime extension as a result. This is boosted when you complete the main adventure and unlock the extreme Hardcore version of the game, which requires you to make through every level without suffering a single fatality, a bit like the Survival mode of Zombi U.
Graphics
Visually the game is beautiful from start to finish, whether it’s the level construction, character animation in the game or the mesmerising cut scenes that setup the story development as you progress. Everything is crafted with an impressive mix of quirky cuteness, pseudo-realism and cartoon-live animation to deliver a very unique style of graphics that has only Rayman Legends as a potential parallel.
The scene scroll variants are stunning as they move at a different pace to give the illusion of 3D as you hurl your way through the levels. This is added to by the sheer detail of everything from the rocks and cliffs to the coins, lush green fields, snow covered trees or factory surroundings. However, our personal favourite has got to be the looming and mysterious presence of the massive mechanical Apparatus in the background of certain levels.
The animation is crisp and faultless and it all combines to deliver the kind of sumptuous experience that’s well worth the £2.99 price tag. Hopefully there’ll be a whole lot more of Leo and his financial woes still to come.
Leo’s Fortune iOS review: 4.4/5
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