It’s 1935 and Dr. Emily Jones is at a Mexican Archaeological Museum. Upon discovering an ancient stone tablet Emily realises this is more thanIt’s 1935 and Dr. Emily Jones is at a Mexican Archaeological Museum. Upon discovering an ancient stone tablet Emily realises this is more than just a piece of history but a map to an Aztec City. As Emily journeys to this lost site she realises she may have the opportunity to find the treasures of Montezuma. Help Emily on her quest to solve the riddles of the stone tablets and discover Montezuma’s lost treasures!
The Treasures of Montezuma (2006) was an attempt to ride the success of the match-3 puzzle genre that PopCap Games had with the Bejeweled series in the early 2000’s. The latter series wasn’t exactly the first to do what it did but it made sense in the casual game market to always copy what your competitors do. An earlier attempt had also seen success with iWin’s Jewel Quest series. So how did Treasures (no pun intended) match up to its main copycat rival at the time? Pretty good it must be said. You have the ability to shuffle gems on the board twice. Sometimes doing that is helpful, sometimes not. It’s possible to activate various power-ups on the board by making certain matches which can be upgraded over each game once a star is collected. In these instances some strategic thinking is required and I find it’s always best to put everything into time related power-ups as you’ll need them. There’s the usual annoying time limit which can be reset slightly using power-ups. Apart from that there’s a confusing achievements system which never tells you what you need to achieve while some bonus games can be played they’re infrequent to the point of pointless. The game is not as punishing as the Jewel Quest series thank goodness and while Emily’s story is functional at best rather than exciting it’s also less filled with the kind of moronic moments Rupert and co excel at. It’s not going to overthrow PopCap’s series any time but unlike iWin’s efforts Treasures does the important thing of being accessible to people who want a challenge, not a game that’s more frustrating than fun even if the difficulty in Treasures ramps up a little too fast for my liking. If there is any criticism I can find is that the game engine is sometimes not responsive enough to swapping gems, something I imagine is rectified in the sequels. Treasures first game was developed by Visual Shape who judging by their lack of credits either shut up shop not too long after this release or were bought and integrated into Alawar Entertainment since the publisher got someone else to continue this game series.
Alawar’s The Treasures of Montezuma is hardly original but against the Jewel Quest series it wins through simplicity and a fair difficulty. It’s also not filled with annoying characters. The Treasures series might have better entries later on but this first game is enjoyable entertainment if that’s your thing. The Jewel Quest series won the popularity stakes but Treasures ended up winning in quality.… Expand
