Leo’s Fortune is a side-scrolling platform adventure originally created for smartphones by the Swedish team 1337 & Senri. Your objective…to retrieve Leo’s stolen fortune.
You take control of Leopold, a blue-greenish fluffy moustached ball with a aristocrat russian accent, who one day, after arriving home, finds out that his entire fortune has been stolen, embarking on a journey to hunt down the cunning and mysterious thief that dared to steal his gold.
Taking Leo as your playable character, you travel through lush and handcrafted environments full of traps and physics-based puzzles, while following the trail of gold, left behind by the mysterious thief as you attempt to uncover the truth behind your stolen fortune.
Leo has two main abilities. One is jump related and every time you jump he will activate it automatically. This consists of Leo inflating himself and gaining the ability to glide. It’s useful to pass through gaps or to slowly descend in some levels and ascend when underwater. The other ability is basically a dive, which helps you activate some mechanics and gain more altitude when combined with the inflated jump and using certain elements of the levels.
The game features a total of 20 levels divided into five acts, with four levels in each. There are also four bonus levels on the first four acts, which are unlocked by gathering stars. These are earnt by fulfilling the three objectives of each level; gathering all the coins, completing the level without dying and finishing the level within the time limit set. You can earn them by repeating the levels, so you don’t need to fulfill all the star objectives in your first run through if you don’t want to. Completing the bonus levels won’t reward you with anything besides some achievements and these are unlocked by completing each one and fulfilling specific requirements, such as being able to complete a certain amount of laps or reaching the end of them within a certain time left.
In Leo’s Fortune you don’t have the basic life count system presented in other platform games, which means you can die as many times as you want, without fear of having to restart the level. If you hit an obstacle, get killed by a trap, or fall into the abyss, you will respawn slightly before the place where you died, without losing any of your hard gained progress. In fact, the only thing you are penalised for by dying is missing out on the “no fatalities” star which is granted at the end of each level if you complete it with zero deaths.
In general the story levels are very short, it will take you about five minutes to complete each one of them. Although they may be small don’t take them too gently because some of them come with some seriously tricky puzzles to complete, especially the latter ones. Some of the levels also have a secret Golden Cog to collect, which whilst not awarding you with anything in-game, besides some achievements, are a nice distraction to the task at hand. It’s always good to see some collectibles included!
Leo’s Fortune does not feature any kind of difficulty level, instead once you complete the game first time around, you will unlock a new mode call Hardcore. This is accessible from the main menu, and you don’t need to collect all the stars to unlock it. You won’t have any Coins or Golden Cogs to collect in Hardcore, with the only objective being to complete the 20 levels in a row without dying. According to the developers once you do it you will be rewarded with a special prize. I’ll let you find out this “special reward” all by yourself!
Graphically the game comes in the stunning 1080p HD resolution, and you can count on a set of beautiful and colourful hand-crafted level designs, that go from a mossy forest and arid deserts, to pirate cities and snowy mountains. Only the few cut-scenes that introduce you to the games story are in black in white, but even those follow the same design structure of the game itself.
The controls scheme is very simple; use left or right, either with the D-pad or the left analog stick, to move Leo around and then hit the A and X buttons. The right analog stick can also be used by tilting it up and down, to make Leo jump or dive through the levels. Sometimes the controls feel a bit tricky, but never too taxing.
In the sound department, the game in general has a smooth and relaxing feel, with interspersed sound effects of some of the traps laid over the unwinding music. Throughout the levels sometimes Leo shouts a line or two when facing a new puzzle or trap and the same happens after succeeded passing through them.
For those who like to hunt achievements and increase their gamerscore, Leo’s Fortune will be the game for you. Featuring a total of 37 achievements, granting you a full 1000GS in the process, in general the achievements are easy to obtain, with only the placement of one or two tricky ones maybe seeing you struggle to get the full compliment. But if that wasn’t the case, then the fun factor in gaining them wouldn’t be too high.
Overall then and Leo’s Fortune is a simple but delightful game that comes in just a bit on the short side.