Crystal Heart slot is a cool game, quite literally with the reels set against a twilight winterscape scene and with a stunning Ice Maiden taking centre stage. The reels spin with with the familiar Merkur 'tick' but you will soon be awakened by a loud dramatic classical overture when any wins appear. The appearance and theme is very similar to Gamesys' Queen of Winter Wins and like that game we don't get a triggered feature but rather an in-play enhancement. So will this Crystal Heart be warm and loving or leave you stone cold?
Unusually for Merkur, who normally produce 5 and 10-line games of eye-wateringly high volatility such as Knight's Life, this game does have a heart as we get 20 pay lines with stacked symbols over 5 reels and 3 rows. Even so, the pays are higher than you may expect for similar set-ups and the best of those is the rather spectacular Castle paying 50x bet for a 5-of-a-kind win. We only get two further picture symbols which are the Owl and Sledge both awarding half of that at 25x bet for 5. There are four card values nicely designed as coloured crystals and you will get 10x for the A/K and 5x for the Q/J.
There are two enhancements to the game to compensate for the lack of a designated bonus round, the first of which you may be familiar with from games like Merry Xmas from Play'n Go - wins pay adjacently anywhere on the pay line so you can get 3-of-a-kinds on the centre and last three reels too.
The second I suppose counts as the nearest thing to a feature Crystal Heart has got - like with Sphinx Wild by IGT you get a single Wild appearing which expands to all adjacent positions. This means, depending on where it lands, you will get a 2x2, 2x3 or even a 3x3 block Wild. You will then get treated to a full expanding picture of the Ice Queen as your wins count up, as it's impossible to not win when she appears due to the adjacent pays.
Despite the initial plain look of this game, Merkur have treated us to some nice animations and musical effects with their Crystal heart slot. The Ice Queen Wild doesn't land all that frequently but you still see frequent wins without it. If it appears in the centre position of any of the middle 3 reels it would make it more likely that you achieve the top win, a full screen of Castles paying 1000x bet. The RTP is quoted as 96.06-96.08% and is definitely one of the better 'low tech' slots I have played. This Ice Queen may have melted my heart...
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