Mobile Gaming: Uncharted Fortune Hunter
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Playstation Mobile Inc.
Platform: Android, iOS
A review by Amelia Wellman
Uncharted Fortune Hunter is an original action-puzzle adventure from Playstation Mobile Inc that follows Nathan Drake’s continued pursuit to uncover the long-lost treasures of history’s most notorious pirates, adventurers, and thieves! Use your smarts to survive and solve over 200 deadly puzzle chambers, partner with Sully to maintain a continued supply of valuable smuggled loot, unlock rewards and costumes, and much more!
The gameplay of Uncharted Fortune Hunter is simple. You have a main map that you move through in a linear way of one level at a time. Each level is a grid like puzzle that you have to navigate Nate through. Just touch Nate and drag your finger in a continuous line to where you’d like him to go. The end goal is to grab the treasure and get out of there.
Things like crumbling floor tiles, dart traps, and switches are thrown in to up the difficulty as the levels progress, and with four main worlds to explore, lots of treasure to find in each, and over 200 levels, you’ve got a lot of hours of Nathan Drake with Uncharted Fortune Hunter.
There are also rewards in each level that will extend playtime with replay. Things like finding some of the in-game currency (known as Mystical Orbs) and completing each puzzle in under a certain amount of moves. Doing that will earn you a key that you can use to open loot that Sully has.
There’s something else that will extend your playtime and, unfortunately, it’s not a good thing. It’s the loading screens. They are a pain in the ass to the highest degree! Are they the worst loading screens I’ve ever seen? No, not even close. But when the puzzles can be finished in ten seconds and then I’m waiting ten seconds on a loading screen? It’s obnoxious. The little sketches during the loading screens are charming, but they’re not enough!
It’s a good thing the animation offers some distraction with how great it is to look at! It’s smooth and colourful and fun to interact with. The characters are very stylized but retain what makes them the characters we know from their running-and-gunning Playstation games. It’s just fun! And there are costumes you can buy with the in-game gold coins you pick up. The variants of Nate’s main game costumes all the way to a pirate Nate are available. The costumes are definitely pricey and might prove to be a grind to save up enough coins, but I’m seriously tempted to keep playing to get mime Nathan Drake!
Uncharted Fortune Hunter is a free to download and free to play game that offers some in-game purchases but has no in-game ads. There are items called a Mystical Orbs that bypasses difficult levels for you, four orbs at a time. You can earn them slowly through levels or spend $2.49 for 20, all the way up to $12.51 for 150 of them. You can also buy a treasure map for $1.24 that will reveal the location of all treasures on the map you’re currently playing.
Be warned, completionists and perfectionists alike, the type of puzzles in Uncharted Fortune Hunter are ones that could leave you frustrated and desperate to move on because it might hit your blind spot. Maybe you can’t work out how to get past a rotating dart trap or can’t get your number of moves down to earn the key; it’ll be four Mystical Orbs to move on if you take the pay to win route and we all know things like that can stack up fast.
The Verdict
Check it out. I can’t say that I was endlessly entertained by Uncharted Fortune Hunter but if you’re looking for a mobile puzzle game with a recognizable and fun property attached to it, Uncharted Fortune Hunter is worth checking out for the interesting style, smooth animations, and Nate and Sully’s witty banter!
