You’ve dusted off dinosaurs, you’ve dived into the Two Point sea, you’ve even visited the netherworld and scoured the far reaches of the known universe. Now your helicopter begins to gather dust, and your Experts are stuck in an endless pattern of restoring the same exhibits, over and over again. But just when you think you’ve found all there is to discover, a brand-new adventure falls into your lap with the Two Point Museum: Fantasy Finds DLC.
Fantasy Finds, unlocks a Lord of the Rings styled fantasy expedition map, called Scorched Earth, for you to explore. This location is packed with fun Points of Interest (POI’s), including various fantasy realms to travel through. The map isn’t accompanied with a themed museum, like the other Two Point Museum expedition maps do, which is a little disappointing, but does come with an entertainingly silly storyline and enjoyable, yet challenging, objectives to play through.
And a bonus expedition map means bonus exhibits to discover. You won’t be disappointed by the finds on offer as they all come with quirky fantasy qualities – complete with Two Point’s trademark wit and wackiness – and intriguing magical properties. Some exhibits can be worn by your staff to give them a level-up and others can be combined to unlock different features. I particularly enjoy the winged boots magical gear that send the wearer careening off through the museum waving their arms uncontrollably. Or the enchanted find that turns your guests into chickens. Just keep an eye on your expedition rewards – I found at least one of the same exhibit at two different POI’s (one at a much higher price point!).
This Two Point Museum DLC brings new features across the board. Yes, there are the normal unlockables that you’d get with different themes – new decorative items, gift shop gear and floor/wall panels – but Fantasy Finds doesn’t stop there. You’ll be treated to all sorts of additional add-ons like fortune-teller admission booths, tavern-like café furniture, three fresh guest types and themed receptionist announcements (which, let’s face it, is everyone’s favourite bit!).
Plus, Fantasy Finds comes with the latest Expert type, broken down into four subclasses: wizard, bard, rogue and barbarian. This is a brilliantly smart addition to the game, because each subclass of fantasy Expert has their own individual traits in the form strength, dexterity, intelligence and luck stats. Each subclass specialises in one of these four stats, but you can also upgrade and change these numbers if you need to. There’s a huge advantage to this because some POI’s can only be unlocked when a certain subclass reaches a high scale of speciality. In addition, particular POI events can be added or removed from your expedition if your combination of Experts bypasses a particular stat quantity. This is such a clever way of levelling up staff beyond the regular museum training regime and opens up loads of enticing possibilities for you to explore during your gameplay.
The only thing missing from Fantasy Finds is a themed museum. This seems a bit of an oversight as a fantasy museum would have been an entertaining accompaniment. This becomes a little frustrating if, like me, you’ve maxed out all of the other locations to the extent that they’ve started to become a bit laggy. The options then, are to start a new game – and start from curator class zero – have a play in sandbox or add your DLC loot to the recent free add-on museum, Pointy Mountains.
A word to the wise, if you do decide to use your DLC content in Pointy Mountains, your fantasy guest types won’t be able to visit your museum until you’ve achieved two stars. A few of the Scorched Earth POI’s can only be unlocked with buzz from these guests, so you’ll experience a short delay in being able to send expeditions to these areas.
But for me, reaching two stars in Pointy Mountains was a minor inconvenience if it meant I could start a museum from scratch while keeping my curator class, where I could explore all of the exciting features, quirky additions and clever add-ons that this DLC has to offer.