Players join Leo in his quest to reclaim the gold that was taken from him. He’s a furry little blue fellow with an incredible mustache. Seriously, he could compete with Mario. Anyway, players take control of Leo in this little platforming indie gem and will traverse a variety of levels to reach the end goal, Leo’s gold. You’ll quickly understand why the game is called
Leo’s Fortune.
Leo’s Fortune boasts simple gameplay as a platformer. As Leo, players must navigate their way through the twists of the various stages present in the game. To get started, all you must do is select a stage from the overhead map. The game is broken up into five chapters with four levels along with a bonus level. Bonus levels are locked and can be unlocked by gaining a certain amount of stars. You gain stars by completing the objectives in each of the four main missions per chapter. Don’t worry, they’re nothing fancy. Each level has three stars and you can earn a star by either collecting all of the gold coins in a level, never dying in a level or getting the correct time completion on a level. I could get the first one consistently, but the second two are a bit more difficult, at least for me. Perhaps you’ll have better luck than me, but in my rush for the timer star, I made mistakes and lost out on the no death star as well.
If you’re wondering what the stars do, they unlock special bonus stages in the chapters. Each chapter’s bonus stage takes a certain number of stars and the amount increases as you go through the chapters. The bonus stages have their own special objective where you must complete as many laps as possible on the stage before the time expires. The more laps you can do, the better. You’ll also net a higher spot on the leaderboards the more laps you can complete. Laps are tracked as you make your way through the stage, but not only by total laps completed. The game also tracks how far into a lap you are. Think of it like partial credit for giving it a shot. The partial laps even help towards your final score, so it’s always worth it to go as far as you can even when the timer is about to expire.
Once you dive into the stages, you’ll find that the game itself is not very difficult at all. Like a standard platformer, you simply must run and jump your way to victory. Players control Leo with the Left Analog Stick and can jump with the (A) button. You can control Leo’s speed precisely with how much pressure you put on the stick, and this will be crucial for getting faster completion time, as well as solving certain puzzles later on. As you rush for the finish, you’ll be met with different puzzles and obstacles you must get past in order to progress. Obstacles will include things like bottomless pits or spiked surfaces. Fall down a pit or touch a hazardous surface and Leo will be taken to the last safe area he was in. Basically, it’s a checkpoint, and by safe area, I mean platform or surface immediately before the trap you met an untimely end on. The puzzles aren’t too difficult, and you’ll know you hit one when Leo says something like "a puzzle to tease my brain" or something. I think it’s a nifty little feature, so you can know you hit a puzzle and should look out for solutions.
You won’t be working co-op with others in Leo’s Fortune, but you can challenge your friends for higher scores on the leaderboards. When you start the game, you’ll see the leaderboard icon to the right of the screen on the main screen. This will show you where you rank in the world, as well as who some of the best Leo’s Fortune players are. For regular stages, you’ll see the completion time. For the bonus stages, you’ll see the amount of laps a player could complete within the time limit. Make sure you familiarize yourself with the layout of a level so you can get to the top, too.
