Previously on Formy's Fortune...
We began our adventure on a boat in some nowhere ocean (but probably the pacific), salvaging some coffin from the water. Drake shows off his body in a skintight diving suit, and we're introduced to Elena Fisher - a no-nonsense journalist with attitude.
Drake finds his ancestor's diary, and with it, possible clues to El Dorado. With creepy old guy Sullivan in tow, the two ditch Elena and head to some jungle in Central America to discover more.
We're entering the game proper now!
Almost immediately, we learn about Sully's 'skills' with a barmaid in Lima. Because we were just dying to know how much Viagra it takes for him to get frisky with a woman half his age.
While enjoying the banter, I stumble upon the first treasure in the game (which Mr. Carny missed, for shame). Well, I say 'stumble', more 'playing with guide in hand so I don't miss any'. Moving past a beautiful waterfall, Nate and Sully enter some old ruin. These are some old ruins - way older than Sully initially estimates. More importantly, these conveniently placed pillars and ledges can only mean one thing - welcome to Introduction to Climbing 101!
Eventually we find out that the ground is hollow. After bagging another missed treasure, Nate keeps jumping, like a cool youth who's into parkour. While jumping, I wonder how long it takes for Drake to constantly keep resecuring his shirt over his belt buckle in just the right fashion.
After some more intense man on wall action, we knock a conveniently placed rock onto the hollow bit of ruin, uncovering an entrance. Exciting!
Unfortunately, the Spanish have picked clean all the gold that would obviously have been in this ruin, because all ancient civilisations apparently pooped gold all over the place. This upsets Sully, who was expecting gold laying practically everywhere, glistening so brightly you could probably see it from space.
The duo move on, past a chasm using another conveniently (sensing a pattern here?) placed explosive to knock over a pillar to get across. After opening a heavy door, we come across a brazier. Such a brazier looks astonishingly familiar to the brazier sketch in Drake's Journal; the macguffin comes to the rescue!
We use Sully's cigar to light the brazier, which is confirmed as being removable from his face This is perhaps the most interesting thing I've learned so far.
In either case, lighting the big brazier allows us to burn debris. This takes us to a larger room which involves jumping. Precarious jumping, as it turns out, as some of the handholds crumble away, almost as if it was, like, old. Crazy. Forgive me if there aren't pictures of those sort of events: kinda hard to remember to take an artsy action shot whilst on a crumbling ledge. Another explosive later, another brazier lit, another door opened. While walking about, I do like how 'Tomb Raider' like these settings are. Puzzles, elaborate lighting systems, suspiciously well preserved ruins... I can see why Mr. Carny likes this game so much.
Another room holds another puzzle, which I won't elaborate on because it's probably dull to read about. This reveals a lovely pit of water, which I dive into after raising the water level.
After reuniting with Sully, we meet some perfectly safe scaffolding.
Shockingly, I'm proved wrong. Thus begins a lovely madcap timed evacuation reminiscent of a good Crash Bandicoot game. It's only a short hop, but I loved rushing forward while scaffolding toppled behind me. It actually got me in the mood for the remakes of that series, actually. So, good practice, I'm sure.
A bit of revelation follows in the form of a cutscene. Turns out, El Dorado isn't a city of gold, but actually a man of gold. Which anyone with fluency in Spanish could tell you, but nevermind. Turns out The Road to El Dorado is actually pretty inaccurate.
The Spanish moved the statues using cut logs, so Nate and Sully endeavour to follow the trail. Moving through the underbrush, we come across a pretty stunning vista:
Most shockingly, there's a mysterious boat that's stranded on the river! Interesting! You might call it... a surprising find. Stay tuned to find out what's on that boat!