ALL ABOUT IMPERIAL RICHES SLOT
NetEnt’s latest release scheduled for early September is a slick looking slot set in a Japanese garden with a Karp-filled pond. If you were, or still are, a fan of one of their most popular slots of all time, Gonzo’s Quest, then you might well be lured by the prospect of the cascading wins mechanic in Imperial Riches. But this game is really all about getting through to the bonus rounds where there are decent progressive jackpots to be won. Overall it is a far cry from the barnstorming high variance Megaways™ games that are flooding the UK market right now – the pace is slow and the top prize is low, but it can still be fun to burn through a big of cash chasing those progressives.
Gameplay, Symbols and Pay Tables
Imperial Riches takes place on a 5 reel and 15 payline slot set up. The cascading wins mechanic means that after every winning spin, all winning symbols are removed from the reels and replaced with new ones. If more winlines are created, so the winning symbols are again removed. This process keeps repeating until no more winlines are created. Of course we see this regularly in some of the best Megaways™ slots now, like Big Time Gaming’s classic Bonanza.
For us one of the highlights of this game is the graphical backdrop – the garden looks fantastic and the fish swimming in the pond have been beautifully drawn. The lower value symbols on the reels are the cards, Ace, King and Queen, whilst the high value symbols are represented by the bamboo plants, gold ingots and the golden fish (which pay out a rewarding 100x for five on a payline).
Look out as well for the gong which is the wild and appears only on reels 2, 3 and 4, and the lantern scatter which is required to set up the free spins round.
Imperial Riches Features
Imperial Riches is all about the jackpot and the free spins features. The free spins are triggered by landing 3, 4 or 5 scatters to give you 10, 15 or 20 spins. During the free spins round all winning spins get you special jewels which are required for the jackpot round that follows.
In the Lucky Pond feature that follows the free spins round all the jewels you have collected come into play. Here all your jewels drop into the pond. If they are eaten by Coin Fish then they become wins of up to 1x. If they are eaten by bonus fish, they get you into the jackpot game. Here you will see a bigger pond with one more Coin Fish and five jackpot fish. You have 50 jewels to drop into the pond, and depending on which fish eats them, your prize may be up to 2.66x (the Coin Fish) or a Fixed £100 or £500 jackpot, or one of three Progressive Jackpots.
NOTE: these are local jackpots that are hosted by the online slot site you play at. So, whilst they can be reasonable, they are nothing like the huge progressives you find on games like Mega Fortunes.
THE SLOT BUZZ VERDICT
Imperial Riches is a pleasant enough slot to play but it’s simple mechanics and basic bonus rounds mean it can wear quite thin pretty quickly. The top prize of 1,500x is well below some of the exciting high variance games we’ve reviewed lately, but then this is a different type of slot so that’s to be expected. If this isn’t for you and you’re looking for a bigger potential win then we suggest trying some of the latest Megaways™ slots or some of NetEnt’s other Progressive Jackpot titles.
