Ah, Midas, the man with the power to turn anything he touched into gold. Sure, it backfired on him since he couldn’t switch the ability off and he quickly ended up in despair since food or drink would instantly solidify if it so much as touched his lips. Some say this lead to the chap dying of starvation. Others say Dionysus advised Midas to wash in the Pactolus River to cleanse away the gift, or curse. One wonders how many objects he quickly transformed into gold and stashed away before bathing. Anyway, players will be hoping they’ve got 'The Touch', at least while spinning Pragmatic Play’s The Hand of Midas to crack its riches.
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The Hand of Midas is a 5-reel, 20-payline slot that for some reason looks like its set beneath the sea. Maybe the project started off based around Neptune or Poseidon, then someone got inspired, or bored, and switched it to Midas. Whatever the motivation, the background is an etheric view of columns, crags and steps leading out of the cavern. Vine leaves decorating the reel’s frame and logo complete the Ancient Greek feel, as does the mystical music.
On the load screen, five yellow lightning bolts alert players to the fact The Hand of Midas is a highly volatile game. Volatile is definitely the word too since near back to back bonus rounds occurred alongside plenty of long dry spells. Decent 5,000x potential also gets a shout out on the home page, while default RTP continues Pragmatic’s trend for being consistently high(ish), with Midas providing a value of 96.54%. Base bets are available from 20 p/c to $/€100, rising by 25% if you activate the Ante Bet feature. Doing so adds more scatters to the reels, doubling the chance of them triggering free spins.
In many regards, The Hand of Midas is a conventional slot when it comes to rules. This extends to the way winning combinations are formed of three or more matching symbols landing from the first reel onwards. There are a lot of them too, 12 to be exact, split right down the middle into six low pay 10-A symbols and six high pays. Premium symbols are made up of goblets, fruit bowls, treasure chests, Midas’ daughter in solid gold form, Dionysus and Midas. Landing combinations of five premiums on a line is worth a payment from 5 to 20 times your stake.
A proven KO combo is sticky wilds plus multipliers, and The Hand of Midas has both more or less in both phases of the game. The base game isn’t quite so impressive, but still, when wild symbols land they add a random multiplier of 1x, 2x, or 3x to the total win. Players can look to the right of the reels where the current active multiplier is displayed. Wilds land on reels 2, 3 or 4, replacing any pay symbol, while multipliers are added together when there is more than one on screen at once.
Hitting 3 or more of the slightly creepy looking hand scatter symbols triggers free spins. Before the round starts, the reels are cleared of symbols, and special mini-slots appear on the reels which held triggering scatters. Each mini slot spins to award 1, 2 or 3 spins each. The total is then carried into the bonus round and cannot be retriggered - by scatters at least.
During free spins, when wilds hit they add to the win multiplier as in the base game, but with two critical changes. One, wilds become sticky, thus remaining in position for the rest of the feature. Two, the win multiplier does not reset between spins; it can only stay the same or rise.
Whether this sounds warning bells in your mind or not, free spins also come with a minimum win guarantee. The amount is based on the number of triggering scatters so 3, 4 or 5 scatters attract a minimum win value of 10x, 20x or 30x the total bet. If the bonus round ends without breaching the minimum amount, free spins are retriggered.
Depending on local laws, some players are able to buy free spins from the base game. There are three options – 100x, 200x or 300x the total bet triggers free spins with 3, 4 or 5 scatter symbols.
On the whole, The Hand of Midas turned out to be quite an enjoyable experience. Aside from the undersea look, the theme’s been dealt with in a respectable manner, and they’ve even cartooned up the characters to lighten what is for many a heavy story. The Hand of Midas is not a game which tries to be avant-garde in any way, but it covers the basics and provides a couple of proven features that quickly get exciting under the right circumstance.
It’s kind of hard to find many faults in The Hand of Midas, perhaps therein lays its issue. Is it a little too conservative? A little too well made? Like a Toyota Camry, or a Honda Civic – totally respectable vehicles, but not exactly head-turners or particularly memorable for passers-by. Even potential at 5,000x the base bet is both a decent, not to mention realistic, figure for Pragmatic Play to boast. To get technical, this figure is a win cap, so if the amount is hit during free spins, any remaining spins are forfeit and the round ends.
In short, The Hand of Midas is a game that quietly goes about the business of getting the job done. Utterly competent, yet easy to forget as well, unless Midas’ Touch comes true and bestows a stack of gold coins.
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