3x3 grid online slots are rarely anything to get excited about, but now and then game providers do manage to get it just right. As players have grown increasingly accustomed to modern slots utilising video game type animations, multi win-ways and fast-paced feature-rich action, producing engaging and entertaining machines restricted to only 3 reels must surely be a great challenge to those providers who dare try.
One way to speak to the hearts of punters is by letting them know that the game in question is capable of dishing out wins sizeable enough to fund a shopping weekend in London, which is what brought us to Treasure Horse in the first place in all honesty. Potential, however, can be found in most games these days and if you want players to come back for more, it'll take more finesse than that.
In Treasure Horse, the limitations of the reel set are somewhat made up for by the extended paylines. Typically, on a slot like this we're used to seeing 5 paylines, maybe up to 10 at best, but here, Pragmatic has bypassed the industry standard by going for 18 paylines. The consequence of this is prolonged playtime, an increase in winning combinations and an all-around more entertaining slot.
Playable on all devices from 0.18 to 90 EUR per spin, it comes delivered with a default RTP setting of 96.52%. Treasure Horse is a fairly simple slot, not only in game design, but also in terms of visual appearance - although not bad by any means. Set in a valley enclosed in a mysterious emerald fog, the reels are flanked by majestic mountains and Chinese temples. The elegant setting is quite pleasing to the eye and the traditional Chinese instrumental going along to it undoubtedly fits the bill.
First of all, kudos to Pragmatic Play for making use of a transparent and unequivocal paytable that even newbies will understand. Displayed in cash value relative to your current stake, it updates accordingly when changing your bet size. Furthermore, the developers have placed the paytable next to the reel set, making it available to you at all times while you spin the reels. A rather nice addition we must say.
On the reels you will find classic fruit machine symbols such as the 1x, 2x and 3x BAR symbols as well as bamboo stalks, Chinese fortune symbols, pouch with coins, gold coins and wilds - the latter being the most lucrative giving you 55,55 times your stake for 3 of a kind. Represented by a golden horse, the scatter is a dead blocking-symbol when not aligned to trigger the bonus.
>3 scatter symbols anywhere on the reels triggers 8 free spins with 1 extra spin added to your total for every additional scatter landing during the bonus. While testing and evaluating the game, we found it to be quite re-trigger friendly so players can more often than not expect to play more spins than the ones initially awarded.
During the free spins, a 4th reel appears to the right of the reel set displaying a row of multipliers ranging from 2x to 6x. Aside from the multipliers, players also benefit from enhanced reels as all symbols now appear fully stacked on the reels, thus greatly increasing the odds of landing significant winning combinations.
We quite liked Treasure Horse despite the rather simplistic game design. The bonus is not as hard to trigger as in many other Pragmatic slots and the scatter teases and slow spins adds some thrill to the game without becoming too annoying or frustrating.
While it's undoubtedly a volatile slot, it's far from brutal and at times it even turned out to be quite wager friendly. There's plenty of potential to it as well. The 6000x max win, however, cannot be achieved from a single spin as a full screen of wilds "only" yields 1000 times your stake. In other words, the potential is not of the explose kind so to speak, but it's there nonetheless.
Overall, Treasure Horse is a solid game of good quality both in terms of mathematical design and visually and might very well be one of the better 3x3 grid slots we've seen in a while.
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