Developer Pragmatic Play plant themselves firmly on familiar ground with the Asian styled slot Three Star Fortune. The three stars in the title refer to the three jolly star gods Fu, Lu, and Shou, who represent wealth, status, and longevity. Most people would be happy with abundance of those three things, and in Chinese culture, these attributes traditionally denoted a good life. As such, the trio turns up regularly in the slot world. In Three Star Fortune they trigger the only feature, so yeah, they are just as desirable, if not more so in when spinning its Eastern-themed reels.
Pragmatic Play has certainly created a game world for fans of the genre to feel comfortable in. Depending on how you feel about this style, Three Star Fortune will come across as generic and clichéd or familiar and homely. For the background, Pragmatic has practically recreated the Zhangjiajie National Forest with its misty mountains and covered them in traditional buildings, bridges, and waterfalls. It's dreamy, and it has been used in dozens of other similarly themed slots, but yeah, if you like the subject matter, you'll love the look.
Reels dominate the view and are located in a green-tiled structure with the obligatory peaked corners. Their deep red tone helps contrast the bold colours of the symbols, which includes plenty of gold for good measure. Three Star Fortune uses a conventional 5 reel, 3 row set up with 10 paylines on which all symbols pay right to left, as well as left to right. The good thing about the pay both way dynamic is that it actually comes in quite handy with the way the feature works.
Before delving in too deep is the matter of setting stakes. This can be done by altering the number of coins per line, and their value, and boils down to total bets of 10 p/c to $/€100 per spin. To understand what you're up against, it might be good to know that Three Star Fortune is a highly volatile slot with a industry standard RTP of 96.27%. The RTP, however, is adjustable, which means operators can set a lower number if they feel like it.
Pragmatic Play has squeezed the theme hard when it came to designing the symbols too. On the low side, the three names Fu, Lu, and Shou have been used and appear in the form of Chinese characters. Then, we get a gourd that looks like Egg Shen's potion bottle, a scroll, and something that looks like a pink fruit. The premium symbol is one of those gold sycees that is worth 25 times the stake for a line of five. All symbols need at least three of a kind to trigger a payout. Another nice touch is that 5 of a kind wins are paid twice - once for each direction.
>Three Star Fortune keeps it ultra-simple with little in the way of features to interrupt the game’s flow. The one it does possess involves all three gods as expanding wilds. Each god has their own reel with Lu on reel 2, Fu on reel 3, and Shou on reel 4.
Known as the Expanding Wilds feature, when one of the wilds appears, it expands to cover the reel and wins are paid out. Then, it is held for a free Respins in its expanded form. If another wild lands on a respin, it expands and triggers another respin. When respins have concluded the wilds are removed for the next new spin.
If you are looking for some straightforward slots action in a well presented, attractive environment, Three Star Fortune can be quite good. For a while, at least. Ironically, despite featuring the god of longevity, the shelf life is likely quite short due to the repetitive and stripped down nature of this slot. Once you've seen the expanding wilds do their thing a few times, that's pretty much it. If you can get on a good roll, you'd be forgiven for sticking with it. If not, there isn't much else to keep grinding Three Star Fortune out long term.
Still, for those with a deep affinity for Asian slots, Three Star Fortune is quite a good example with a ton of exotic imagery throw in for good measure. With a back catalogue bulging with Asian themed slots, Pragmatic Play certainly knows a thing or two about crafting them. Players that are into dreamy, cloud swirled mountains, a bit of divine presence, and gold and burgundy style, will probably be all over it.
Without bonus games or free spins, however, it's just the three wild gods keeping players company and the wins ticking along. They can be quite effective when working together and Pragmatic Play has claimed potential of up to 5,000 times the stake. Yet, it is a little hard to see how that is possible. With pay both ways doubling full lines, a grid of wilds and sycees is worth 500 times the stake. Even in the unlikely event of landing that on consecutive respins, it will be nearly impossible to even come close to hitting the stated figure.
In the end, Three Star Fortune is really one for fans of the genre. It has a good pace and the pay both ways mechanic has been paired perfectly with the expanding wilds feature. But its lack of originality, low payouts, and repetitive nature will make it hard to win over those that don't love this style.
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