Powered by Pragmatic Play, Lucky, Grace & Charm Mega Hold & Spin is a Norse themed slot from partner studio Reel Kingdom. Played using 5 reels and 10 paylines, this one takes players on a Viking inspired journey led by three female warriors as they hack n' slash their way through free spins with multipliers and a Mega Hold & Win feature on their way to potential glory.
You get the impression the three ladies, Lucky, Grace & Charm, have been left at home while the menfolk go off to plunder one too many times and want their own piece of the action. Landscape mode on a mobile device is arguably the most atmospheric way of playing Lucky, Grace & Charm, where the three warrioresses are displayed up top while Viking Longships bob menacingly in the lower quadrant of the screen. In all cases, an extraordinarily jolly Celtic tune meanders in the background; if anything, it's a little too jaunty compared to the visuals, especially in bonus rounds, yet it's upbeat, so it's hard to complain too much.
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Any device is suitable for playing Lucky, Grace & Charm on, where bets may be set from 10 p/c to $/€250 per spin. Reel Kingdom uses Pragmatic Play's lightning bolt volatility meter, rating the game 5 out of 5, so tread carefully around these ladies. The RTP is quite good at 96.71%, at least the default setting is, so beware of lower RTP configurations before casting off.
Lucky, Grace & Charm is one of those hold & win games that's a bit old school, and base game rules are simple as well. Number one is landing winning combinations of three or more of a kind across its 10 fixed paylines to trigger a payout. Low-value symbols consist of runicly designed 10-A card symbols while mids are bunnies and necklaces.
Bunnies might seem out of place, but did you know that hares are symbols of the moon and as such, are totem animals for the goddesses Hecate, Freyja, and Holda? It gets even more arcane the deeper down the 'rabbit hole' you go. The goddess most closely related to hares is Eostre, the Germanic goddess of dawn, who was celebrated during Ostarmanod, or 'Easter Month' – a precursor to the Easter celebration we know today. This means there is a deeper connection between bunnies and Easter than simply cute little creatures hiding chocolate eggs about the house for kids to find.
Back to the high-value symbols, which are the three heroines of the game, worth 40 to 75 times the stake for five of a kind. Wilds are worth more at 1 to 900x the bet when lines of 2-5 land, and they also substitute for all regular paying symbols. Whenever a wild is part of a winning combination, the win is multiplied by x2.
Lucky, Grace & Charm obviously has a Hold & Spin feature, but it also comes with a round of free spins using a fixed multiplier to increase wins. Landing 3 bonus symbols triggers the free spins bonus game, starting with 12 spins. During this feature, line wins are multiplied by x3 or x6 if a wild symbol is part of them. The round is retriggered when 3 or more symbols land, awarding 12 additional free spins with no set limit.
During either base game or free spins, landing 5 or more money symbols locks them to the reels and awards the Mega Hold & Spin Bonus Game. The game starts with 4 respins, which reset whenever a new money symbol lands and locks in place. Whenever the grid is filled, 2 new empty rows are unlocked, up to a maximum of 20. As well as money symbols, gold stars may also appear, multiplying the current total win by x2, x3, x4, x5, or x10. Stars do not lock to the reels when they land.
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A Norse themed hold & win game doesn't sound very original, yet there are positives to Lucky, Grace & Charm. For one, it is one of Reel Kingdom's more attractive games, full of those semi-realistic graphics the team is prone to use, plus it helps that three feisty maidens are the game's focal point. On a less superficial topic, it's a pretty woke move using an all-female Viking cast in place of beardy barrel-chested warriors hefting battle axes at each other.
Reel Kingdom has borrowed ideas in the past, and in Lucky, Grace & Charm, there's a strong resemblance to Novomatic's Lucky Lady's Charm, with the x3 multiplier in free spins and the x2 wild modifier going on. Even the name is similar, as are symbol values. Someone at Reel Kingdom must be a fan. They've avoided Lucky, Grace & Charm being a total imitation by including the Mega Hold & Spin feature, yet it's not mega in the same way studios like Nolimit City or Relax Gaming define it.
However, proponents of these sorts of bonus games get small sparks of innovation. Multiplying stars are always a bonus when they hit, and the way the grid moves down to reveal extra spaces when filled is relatively uncommon. The grid expansion was fairly prevalent during the review as well, so it's not like a feature you never get to see. Even then, it didn't produce astonishing results, but that's not to say Lucky, Grace & Charm is incapable of doing so. Get the game on a mega run, and wins of up to 10,000x the bet are technically possible.
While none of the parts is particularly new, Reel Kingdom has brought them together in a way that should entertain players into traditional Hold & Win features. And hey, if Reel Kingdom hadn't made bunnies so conspicuous, we might not have stumbled across an older meaning of Easter.
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