Great Ghosts!

Great Ghosts!: Slot Overview

It seems like every casino game maker and its dog has leapt on the three pot bandwagon of late, and software provider Pragmatic Play certainly is not one to miss out on a trend. The studio had already gotten in on the action with slots such as Triple Pot Diamond or Chests of Cai Chen 2, and has dived in again with the online slot Great Ghosts!, a release that somewhat breaks from the past by not being Asian themed. Instead, brave players take on a trio of ghosts, a trio of modifiers, and a haunted house that hides a surprising amount of winning potential.

Some houses just look haunted, and the mansion that Great Ghosts calls home qualifies as one of those. It's an old school sort of place, lit by candles, where a spectral hand reaches out of a corner, and smoke mysteriously swirls around a sweeping double staircase. However, any dread the ghostly scene conjures up is completely at odds with the three happy-go-lucky character symbols, bearing in mind that each one becomes a ghost in the bonus rounds. An unscary ghost, that is. These are Caspar the Friendly Ghost-type spirits, and the game feels like a level of Luigi's Mansion 3, which might look a bit tame at first, until some of Great Ghosts' mathematical elements step in to give the experience a surprising weight.

The base game action occurs on a 5x4 gaming area, which can expand by an extra 4 rows during the respins bonus round. Till then, there are 50 paylines awarding payouts when 3+ OAK winning combinations line up from the leftmost reel onwards. Great Ghosts is a slot with a big win cap and a highly volatile math model to match. When betting $/€0.20 to $/€240 per spin, using an ante bet, or buying respins, the max default RTP is 96.5%.

Great Ghosts' six low pay symbols are 9-A card ranks, awarding 0.2x to 0.35x the bet when landing a 5-of-a-kind winning combination. It also has three chummy-looking character symbol high pays awarding 0.5x to 1.25x for a 5 OAK hit. Wilds hit on all reels, where they substitute anything except scatters. If a 5 OAK wild winning combination hits, it pays 50x the stake.

Great Ghosts!: Slot Features

In the base game, three types of scatters may appear on the reels - blue, pink, and green. Each scatter is collected by the same coloured crystal ball pot above the grid, and may trigger the respins feature with the associated modifier or combination of modifiers.

• Blue Scatter: May trigger respins with the Upgrade modifier. Zones of 2x2-4x4 appear on the grid. They increase the value of money symbols within the zone by 0.3x to 5,750x the bet.
• Pink Scatter: May trigger respins with the Mystery modifier. This adds pink Money symbols to the respins feature, which all get a random value set after the first respin of 5.25x to 5,750x the bet.
• Green Scatter: May trigger respins with the Extra modifier. This can randomly add Money symbols to the grid during the round.

Scatter collection occurs at the end of the spin, and if the respins round is triggered, 1-3 modifiers are randomly triggered. If 4 or more scatters of any colour hit at the same time, the respin feature is guaranteed to trigger.

Ghost Respin Feature

Only blanks and Money symbols may land during respins. Yellow money symbols have values of 0.6x to 1,250x the bet. The round starts on a 5x4 grid, where one more row is unlocked when 8, 12, 16, or 20 Money symbols land, providing a grid up to 5x8. Three respins are initially awarded, and all Money symbols remain on the reels till the end of the feature. Whenever at least one Money symbol hits, the respins count is reset. At the end of the round, the value of all Money symbols on the screen is paid.

Ante Bets & Feature Buy

Activating the Any 2 ante bet or the Any 3 ante bet costs 25x or 5x, and triggers the respin feature when 2+ or 3+ scatters, respectively, land. There is only one feature buy, which costs 300x to buy respins with all 3 modifiers activated.

Great Ghosts!: Slot Verdict

As far as three pot slots go, Great Ghosts turned out to be a pretty decent example. Like the Cartesian distinction between the physical and spiritual realms, the game has a razor sharp divide between its base and bonus rounds. The main game offers nothing more than line wins and scatter hits, while its three modifiers are completely held aside for use in the respins round. As a result, Great Ghosts did not really impress at first. It looked like a basic, low-frills game, designed to let Pragmatic Play cling ever so slightly tighter to the three-pot bandwagon as it careens recklessly out of control through the online slot industry.

However, on closer inspection, certain elements of Great Ghosts started to stand out, making the game more formidable than first suspected. An enormous part of Great Ghosts' heft is in its winning potential, where payouts are capped at a considerable 40,000x the bet. Did not see that one coming. In contrast to meagre winning line values, regular Money symbols have a high upper ceiling figure, while Pink scatters and the Blue Upgrade modifier can bring significantly bigger values to the grid as well. What can make those two modifiers particularly potent is the way the Upgrade applies its value to all symbols within a Zone, while a value is added to all Pink scatters in view, which might turn out to be quite interesting.

However, the potential price to pay for all this good stuff is a bone-dry base game, and a ghostly theme use that is a little on the soft side. But, not to a deal-breaking level, though, because, after some initial incredulity, Great Ghosts ended up fulfilling its role as a comically uncanny ghost slot that packs surprisingly high levels of punch for fans of the three-pot format.