3 Kingdoms: Battle of Red Cliffs slot review
3 Kingdoms - Battle of Red Cliffs is actually the full title of this Pragmatic Play slot and the more of their games I see the more I like them. They have a consistently high standard of graphics and animations and imaginative themes in their games. 3 Kingdoms slot, despite the name not indicating so, is actually an Oriental theme with 3 rival Chinese dynasties being the central story. You have the typical Chinese pipe-and-cymbal music in the background which changes note for the wins and a seascape forms the background to the purple reels. Can these kings treat us royally though?
On the reels...
The game has 5 reels of 3 rows with 25 fixed pay lines. All the higher symbols appear stacked as do the Wilds, but we only see them on the last 4 reels and not the first. The kings don't have names but are coloured blue, green and red and pay 8, 6 and 4x bet for a 5-of-a-kind respectively. The tools of war, the junk, helmet and sword all pay 2.2x and the remaining icons are the card values which don't appear stacked and will award you either 1.6 or 1.2x stake for the 5. There are Pagoda scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5 for the game's bonus round but we will visit those soon, because first there is a feature you accumulate right from the start....
Spoils of War Progressive - every time you land all 3 different colour Kings on the grid regardless of whether you win, you will count up 1 place on the meter above reels 3/4 which has a target of 40 to reach in order to trigger this feature. You pay 2% of every spin you play into this so it's you personal jackpot as opposed to a linked progressive. Once you reach 40 you will be presented with 8 envelopes each of which conceals one multiplier of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 20, 50 or 100x. The amount collected above the reels by the time you triggered it is then multiplied by the resulting pick.
Battle of Red Cliffs bonus
Having landed the Pagoda scatters on reels 1, 3 and 5 you will be given a choice of 5, 10 or 20 free games which may be retriggered. The enhancement is that as well as the stacked Wilds on reels 2 to 5 you can choose either 1, 2 or 3 of the stacked Kings to also become stacked Wilds for the duration of the spins on reels 2 to 5.
Vanity - 20 free spins where the red King becomes Wild.
Intrigue - 10 free spins where both the red and green King become extra stacked Wilds.
All-out war - 5 free spins with all 5 Kings as stacked Wilds.
Our View...
3 Kingdoms - Battle of Red Cliffs slot is a good Pragmatic Play game but doesn't have the greatest volatility; 200x bet is the best you can achieve for a full grid of the top-paying blue Kings in both base game and free spins. The personal progressive if you play at say 1.00 per spin will barely get to 5.00 when it triggers so even at 100x multiplier that won't be a huge win. That said you have a sizeable 96.5% RTP on offer and the game is fun and easy on the ear and eye. You might leave the Kingdoms a richer man, but not a wealthy one...