PS Vita is the perfect platform for people on the go with short blocks of time to play games. The first free-to-play game on the platform is Treasures of Montezuma Blitz, the newest game based on the popular Treasures of Montezuma franchise. ToM has actually been around for years with its familiar match 3 gameplay, but each generation of the game has added new challenge and power-ups. This was one of the main things we wanted to ensure we hit with the PS Vita version. It had to be fresh and new, and most of all be fun.
A lot of people look at freemium or free-to-play games and think you have to spend money to be competitive and beat your friends. That’s actually not the case with this game. We built the game so it is actually really fun whether you’re earning your power-ups by playing a lot and being rewarded in-game for your persistence, or if you are short on time and want the benefits of being a seasoned and dedicated player, you can spent a little to get a short-term power-up. It’s really the best of both worlds since it respects players that have a lot of time, as well as those that don’t.
Power-ups have long been a way to feel powerful in game and we wanted to make sure in ToM Blitz that players feel the power. Whether it’s thorough their hard work in getting setup for a monster round, or through their in-game purchases that put them on an even playing field with the players that can spend their time maxing out the game, everyone should be able to enjoy Treasures of Montezuma Blitz on PS Vita.
Check out the gameplay video below, and download Treasures of Montezuma Blitz – available now and free of charge – on the PlayStation Store.
Dear Sony, please ban garbage like this that is designed to scam and take advantage of players who get obsessed.
You should not allow game companies to nickel and dime people for the right to play “turns” and use regular “abilities.”
Their should be guide lines and rules that game companies can’t break to scam your user base.
Do you really need garbage like this giving Sony more of a bad name?
“A lot of people look at freemium or free-to-play games and think you have to spend money to be competitive and beat your friends. That’s actually not the case with this game. ”
Actually that is EXACTLY the case with this game. You should be ashamed to even post such a terrible lie. There are leaderboards and medals to be earned through tournaments that last about a week. I’m sorry but you are not going to stay competitive without spending a ton of cash for perks that give you extreme advantages so quit trying to mislead people.
they need to fix bluetooth headphone lag!
I don’t know what the rest of you are talking about but I’ve played this constantly nearly every chance I get since it came out and I have yet to buy anything from it.
@dilbig Yeah, but what have your scores been like? Look at the leaderboard scores. Those are people that clearly bought a ton of gems, max perks, etc. The point is that you DO have to pay to stay competitive and they say in this article that this isn’t that kind of game when it’s one of the worst offenders of it.
My highest score was nearly 100,000 without the use of a gem/perk but I have unlocked some and paid with the gems you get from breaking/chaining combos. Either they did buy them or just play too much but nearly all those leaderboard scores were made in less than 2 hours of the game’s PSN release.
And it’s not hard to unlock anything in the game.
100,000 is nothing compared to those top scores which are in the several millions. Playing too much had nothing to do with it. That’s all $$$.
I see a lot of people are complaining that they “have” to buy crystals. I hope everyone knows that they can turn the abilities off and just play without them until they have enough crystals to spend again, right? Of course, the grind is slow, painful, and less entertaining without them but it requires no real money at all.
The game isn’t half bad as a 5 minute time passer, but that is my biggest complaint. I’m not one to just play a game for 5 minutes and walk away. I will continue to grind my way up to a few thousand crystals so I can go ability crazy again.
Now don’t get me wrong here. If that’s the kind of game they intended to make then more power to them, but don’t try to fool people on here and say it’s not that kind of game when it’s exactly that kind of game.
Actually this game is COMPLETELY FREE if you know how to play it. Here are few tips:
– Lives. They always refill themselves, roughly one life in 5 minutes. Just shut the game and return to it when you have free time.
– Jewels/Crystals. You DON’T need them to play – unless you are wearing Totems / Bonuses. Each time you are playing WITH Totems / Bonuses ON, you are PAYING for using them. Just REMOVE them and you can play completely FREE.
– Free jewel / crystals. Don’t forget to be online at least once a day while launching Montezuma – you will receive free daily scratch card and will win some jewels (it’s “every-ticket-wins” lottery). You can also grind crystals by playing regular games without Bonuses or Totems – but that would be a long way.
no interest in the game. I just had to laugh at the “krevedko” name.
Йа креведко is so 2007, back with превед медвед fad. :)
If you play a lot (and I’m playing since day 1 of EU release – i.e. 3 weeks ago) you will notice that Totems and Bonuses gives you a HUGE boost in terms of score and length of the game. Five games in a row with Totems ON can give you 100K-300K score easily – that could be more than enough to win weekly tournament and beat your friends. So here are my recommendations how to do it without buying anything on PSN:
1. Never buy lives. They are useless – just wait a little bit and all the energy will be refilled;
2. Never play wearing all your Totems and Bonuses more than once a week;
3. Remember to put Totems off while playing regular games (i.e. when you don’t want to get a record score);
4. Launch the game once a day while you are online – this would give you a FREE daily scratch card with a chance to win from 200 to 100K crystals;
5. Always share your prizes in NEAR mode – other players nearby will do the same so you can get free crystals, too;
6. Try to play it any time you have a free minute – you can score great results even without Totems and you will always get some crystals and EXP – which is also great as reaching new levels will unlock new totems and bonuses you have to buy otherwise.
Montezuma is really addictive – it’s a pity that there are virtually no tutorial or help to explain all of these, so people are buying crystals and lives just to play a game and not to get high scores (if they are into competition). Hope this would be fixed in the updates – as I mentioned already game mechanic is really nice and sessions are extremely short, so it’s ideal for handheld gameplay.
P.S. It’s funny, but it seems that in US version you can actually BUY scratch cards – that’s not possible in EU release! They are pretty cheap – it would be great if someone could give his thoughts on what is more profitable: to buy those cards to win crystals or just to buy crystals? Wow, I hope these cards would be on sale in Europe, too – they remind me lottery in Dofus which was a really nice way to get some good cash really cheap!
Are there any plans of making this Free to play game available on PS3 too?
Guys, i have a theory. Yes, you have to pay for more jewels to play the game. It sucks and i hate it too. BUT, right now, the games is undergoing a tournement of some kind. There is a count down at the bottom right of the screen. I’m sure you all saw it. I think that all jewel business is only for the tournement (i hope it is anyway). Maybe after the tournement, the game will be free to play like they promised. Think about it for a minute.
I tried what 61 said and it works!!! The game is actually free to play after all. The bonuses and upgrades are what you have to pay.
@Sevyne
Its no different than the multiplayer of Mass Effect 3. You use booster packs on those, either by earning enough credits or by actually using real money.
@DeathHeart_86
You don’t even need to buy those, you earn them after reaching level 1 or getting a high score. You can also use the gems you earn to buy them instead of using real money.
This bait and switch bejeweled clone piece of TRASH is GARBAGE. I’ll wait for Bejeweled to come to Vita. Montezuma is deleted.
This “refill or wait for lives” thing sucks!! Still defeats the free-to-play purpose!!!
@dilbig5 I get the point you are trying to make, but it really isn’t the same. In ME3 you don’t have a limit on how often you can play the multiplayer so you can grind in a far more timely manner than this game where you have to wait for lives to refresh. It is a much much slower process. So slow that you really do have to spend money to stay competitive. I’d honestly have no issues with it if they didn’t lie about it to be honest.
All they would have to do is remove the stupid lives and it would be fine. You’d then have a real choice of grinding like mad to compete if you have a lot of spare time or spending money if you don’t have that kind of time. The way it currently is, even if you do have tons of time on your hands you are limited by waiting for lives and there is no way you can keep up with people paying to basically skip the grinding process.
No way in hell i put crap like this on my Vita! i hate the idea that developers lure you in and offer you to buy stuff in the game to be able to play or enjoy the game the way it was meant to be played.
I rather pay a fix amount and get a complete game then wasting LOTS of money for stupid trinkets and gadgets that should be there to begin with.
Please everyone dont download this sort of games, by downloading and paying you promote such scams. In game purchase is EVIL in my opinion.
HUSH IT PEOPLE.
Sheesh. This game is awesome. Short bursts. Heck, I usually get two hearts regenerated while playing the 5 you start with. Then I move on to play something else, come back and then I have 5 more hearts to use.
I was only asked for money when I clicked on things before I realized what did indicated lives, what would ask me for money and how I could avoid that all together.
Just play the game in short bursts.
And the Jewels only decrease if you’re equipping Power-Ups. They have a cost, that if you paid attention you would have seen. Playing without them, doesn’t use any Jewels what-so-ever.
You can play this without spending a dime, and it’s easy to do so.
Only issue I have is lack of trophies for the game.
lol i had to laugh when i saw the option to go to the store to keep playing .. nice try guys lol
good idea for a game but not addictive enough for me to keep spending $$$ to keep playing
Freemium games needs to stay in the mobile gaming sector. They have no place on the vita whose audience doesn’t have a problem paying for actual games, not time limited demo modes designed to lure in people with only two functioning brain cells who’ll fork over money to keep playing or buying some stupid scratch card or whatever.
I think it would be VERY beneficial for everyone if the game was updated with an in-game explanation of how the game works…
Everyone here should know that YOU CAN COMPLETE THE GAME COMPLETELY (access all power-ups, gain more crystals, level up to the max, etc…) WITHOUT PAYING A THING!!!! Crystals and lives replenish over time!
Lives replenish every 5 or 10 minutes, and you can earn more crystal by playing the game (power-ups spend crystals, so be careful). Crystals can also be earned in bulk through NEAR gifts from friends AND daily “scratch-off” mini games!
Most people will learn of this by simply playing the game and not giving up on the thing the second they’re told that they’re out of lives… HOWEVER, I truly think that the game will benefit a TON if it had an in-game explanation for players…
I’m really enjoying the game myself! It’s great in short spurts, and the leveling system is addictive and lengthy! (The game will last a LONG time, which is AWESOME for a portable!) The best part is, I haven’t spent a single penny on the game! I’m thinking of purchasing a small crystal pack or something just to show my support for the game though… I really like this set up for games! It’s much like a lot of the FREE to play MMO games on PS3. It’s a win-win situation for gamers and developers! = )
There’s nothing ever remotely win win about this game. Its deleted from my system, its staying deleted and no amount of marketing spam is going to change that.
please keep these types of monetizing games on ios and other Mobil platforms. nobody wants a free to play game that punishes you for wanting to play it.
IGN has an article up on this game and its not complimentary. They echo the same sentiments that many have raised in this blog with respect to deceptive marketing tactics. Free to play, my ass, more like free to download and let us pester you with attempts to microtransact your ass to the poor house. You should never, ever, be asked to fork over money for extra lives. Complete and utter b.s.
Free to play means free to play. If I’m being asked for money to continue to play, then that’s complete and utter fraud. To not warn players up front that they’ll be subject to such sleazy marketing tactics is asking, begging for the wrath of gamers to be unleashed upon your sorry ass. If Alawar doesn’t like these comments, tough. Next time, don’t waste my time downloading your poser of a game. Take it the mobile game market where crap like this thrives because the user base is too broke to pay for their games after coughing up money their cell phone bills.
It’s completely free to play. My “game” is already up to level 3 with several thousand crystals, upgraded totems and bonuses and I have yet to pay for anything.
For those of you who don’t like to wait for the hearts to refill, consider that they are updated on a time basis.
What time? Well your system time, of course!
I wasn’t aware that the hearts refill automatically (granted I saw one or two show up while I was playing).
So what you should do:
Open your Settings and go to Date/Time and disable auto-updating. Click Manual and keep that screen open.
1. Play through all lives in TOM Blitz
2. Hit the PS button and scroll over to Settings (Don’t close TOM Blitz)
3. Cycle the day forward once and click “Done”
4. PS button back to TOM Blitz and notice you have full lives!
5. Go back to step 1
Enjoy playing this game CONSTANTLY!
Deleted when it tryed to charge me to play. Sony you need to not do this ever again. I bought a gaming console not a facebook micro transaction machine. Really disappointing
.
Game sounds too troublesome to even attempt to download. I have to wait for hearts if I want to play? and I can only play in short bursts? Yeah no thanks.
82: You’re only asked to pay if you are too impatient to wait. You don’t have to pay to continue. Just give the game an hour or so and you can play some more.
Just because you’re ignorant, and IGN is ignorant (what else is new) doesn’t mean the game is not free to play. a
Elvick,
Why would I want to do that. What other game do I have to wait to play. What other game do I have to wait an hour to play some more. I’m going to wait to play this tripe so I can be cut off after one minute? You gotta be kidding.
People like you just don’t get it. If I had known the nature of the game, I never would’ve downloaded it in the first place. It was misrepresented and they were deliberately deceptive concerning the nature of the game. The fact you don’t see that makes you far worse than just ignorant.
This is a pretty fun game. The waiting sucks. Bought Montezuma 3 on Amazon for $2.99. I can play that when waiting for hearts to refill on the Vita.
This game is a rip-off. Yes, I can wait a few minutes to play 5 more lives “for free”. Yes, I can play the daily “scratch’n win” game and get “free” gems. Yes, I have been playing it extensively for free, a few hours a day for a week now. And then I started noticing that the game is programmed to make it impossible for you to level up UNLESS you buy stuff. Have you noticed how your first daily game is typically high-scoring, but then the more you play the more difficult it gets to get scores above 10,000 without items? With 10 or less awarded gems per game? I’m an experienced player (heck, I’ve been playing videogames since 1976!), and this game is a real scam. A sad attempt to cash in for repeated (and ultimately pointless) transactions. Highly frustrating (unless you fork out a lot of money, then the game becomes “surprisingly” instantly gratifying, making you score like crazy. Avoid.
@ QWin15: Thank you! I was just about to delete the game because it was asking me to buy more crystals to play again. Had no idea that you just had to remove your powerups! I like the game, but hate having to pay over and over just to play. Agreed that they should’ve worded the UI a little clearer. Thanks Again!!!
I’m still figuring out the tournament aspect of the game cuz for some reason I had 10 cents in my PS wallet and all of a sudden a couple weeks later I had 10 dollars on it for some reason.