Jewel Mysteries HD: The Lost Treasures Review

Jewel Mysteries HD: The Lost Treasures is a pretty straight forward Match Three game, which means it might pass the time reasonably well, but it turns tedious after a short time.

There's no real story behind the events of the game, despite its main mode being called a Story Mode. Instead, players must complete a series of Match Three puzzles before being given a basic jigsaw puzzle to solve in order to proceed to the next stage. In each case, levels can be skipped but that's quite against the point of the game, really. Presented with a series of different images, it's possible to accrue some quite substantial combos, as well as use power-ups such as bombs and the ability to connect different types of shapes together. Such power-ups can be purchased too through the acquisition of coins, either from within the game or via an in-app purchase.

The problem is that it's just not overly interesting after a time. There's little evolution to the game, meaning there's no real change to the gameplay. Instead, the time limit might be a little tighter or the gems that need clearing, a little more obtuse, but it's still ultimately the same throughout the 100+ levels. There's a Blitz mode which adds a little more panache as players can compete with others' high scores, via Game Center, but it doesn't quite have the verve of something like Bejeweled Blitz.

Jewel Mysteries HD: The Lost Treasures has all the relevant elements of a potentially successful Match Three game, but keeping so closely to the basic formula is damaging, too. For free, it's quite entertaining, for a time, but I really can't see why anyone would spend any money on the many in-app purchases available. It just doesn't have a significant draw to make it worthwhile.