Rainbow Princess

Rainbow Princess: Slot Overview

Anime style slots make up a relatively small niche, yet it's one that is slowly but surely carving out ever greater space for itself. Play'n GO's Moon Princess franchise is arguably one of the most successful examples of this style, but other studios, such as Pragmatic Play with Starlight Princess 1000, have made contributions. So, it could be said, has software provider Hacksaw Gaming with Aiko and the Wild Spirit, which the studio has quickly followed up by releasing Rainbow Princess, a cluster pays anime-style slot, offering features that might not be straight copies but which have a whiff of possible mimicry to them.

Where Aiko and the Wind Spirit possessed a unique personality, Rainbow Princess has a more obvious anime slot look. A dreamy, leggy princess (why are there so many princesses?) floats next to a gaming grid in a cloudy, dreamy realm. Anime fans might appreciate some of the backstory to really get in the mood, which describes the Rainbow Princess as 'Born from stardust and empowered by gems' moving 'between realms with a crown charged by ancient forces and a heart set on a radiant path.' Put another way, you don't necessarily need a love of anime to be entertained by Rainbow Princess, yet it might help.

Rainbow Princess is a medium volatile slot played on a 6x5 grid. Players may wager 10 c to $/€100 per game round, and as usual, Hacksaw Gaming has supplied a set of feature buys. At best, the theoretical RTP comes out at 96.36%, though lower return values are possible depending on the market.

Winning clusters are made when 5 or more matching pay symbols are connected vertically or horizontally. There are 10 pay symbols, awarding 0.1x to 1.5x when landing 5 OAK or 8x to 100x when landing a 15+ OAK cluster. The super cascade feature removes all regular paying symbols of the type that were part of a winning combination from the grid, causing symbols to drop down and fill empty spaces - repeating until no new cluster appears. Helping create wins, the wild symbol substitutes all regular paying symbols.

Rainbow Princess: Slot Features

In Rainbow Princess, Magic Frame Multipliers apply multipliers to wins and are available in the main game as well as the three bonus rounds, two of which can be bought from the feature buy.

Magic Frame Multipliers

Magic Frame Multipliers may be added to random positions during a spin or cascade if there is at least one winning cluster on the grid. Magic Frame Multipliers display an adding multiplier of x2 to x100, which activates if the position is part of a winning cluster. When activated, the Magic Frame Multiplier is applied to the winning cluster the Frame is part of. When there is more than one Magic Frame Multiplier in the same win, the Multipliers are added together, and the total is applied to the win.

All Magic Frame Multipliers remain in the same position during cascades, and  the multipliers double each time they are part of a new win after the win has been awarded. The new multiplier is applied to the next win the Magic Frame Multipliers is part of on that spin. When cascades end, all Magic Frame Multipliers are removed for the next spin.

Aurora Gems

Aurora Gems may land during cascades, and they activate before any wins are awarded. When activated, an Aurora Gem will multiply all Magic Frame Multipliers on the grid by x2 to x10. Only one Aurora Gem may land at a time, and they are removed after applying their Multiplier.

Tiara Treasure Bonus Game

10 Tiara Treasure free spins are awarded by landing 3 FS scatters in the base game. As well as keeping the mechanics of the base game, this feature also has Sticky Progressive Magic Frame Multipliers. All Magic Frame Multipliers remain in the same position and retain their values, which may be increased by wins or Aurora Gems. In Tiara Treasure and Make it Rainbow, landing 2 or 3 FS scatters awards a further +2 or +4 free spins.

Make It Rainbow Bonus Game

Make it Rainbow's 10 free spins are awarded by landing 4 FS scatters in the base game. The mechanics of Tiara Treasure apply, plus a Rainbow Rush Bar is displayed outside the reels. Each winning cluster increases the Rainbow Rush Bar, depending on the number of winning symbols. When the bar is full, it adds 3 to 5 wild symbols to the grid, after which it resets, and the collection can start again.

Throne of Starlight Hidden Epic Bonus Game

Hitting 5 FS scatters in the base game triggers 10 Throne of Starlight free spins. This bonus has the same mechanics as Tiara Treasure, but each position has a Sticky Progressive Magic Frame Multiplier from the start with a minimum value of x4. FS symbols do not land in this feature.

Feature Buy

The feature buy is where it is possible to activate BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 2x the bet, making each spin 3 times more likely to trigger a bonus game. Magic Mode FeatureSpins cost 50x, where each spin guarantees at least one 1 win and 5 Magic Frame Multipliers. Two of the bonus rounds can be bought - Tiara Treasure for 75x or Make it Rainbow for 200x the bet.

Rainbow Princess: Slot Verdict

Rainbow Princess might have been a bigger surprise if Hacksaw Gaming hadn't dropped Aiko and the Wind Spirit on us so recently. Now, it seems, rather than just dipping a toe in the anime/anime-related genre, the studio's exploration has widened and may even blossom into a full-blown obsession. Of course, we're only two slots in, and Rainbow Princess might be the last of the team's anime experimentation, so we'll have to watch this space. Of the two, Rainbow Princess is the more obvious anime slot, sharing strong visual bonds with the likes of Moon Princess and Starlight Princess. Mechanically, however, it brought to mind another Pragmatic Play title, the popular candy slot Sugar Rush.

Both Rainbow Princess and Sugar Rush are cluster pays machines which lather multiplier values on individual reel positions that double after wins. How Magic Frame Multipliers get onto the grid in the first place is quite different, though. As a memory refresh, in Sugar Rush, applicable grid positions are highlighted whenever the tumble feature removes winning symbols. In Magic Frame Multipliers, it's a bit more random since Magic Frame Multipliers may be added to arbitrary spots on the grid when there is a win. In a further differentiation, Magic Frame Multipliers have varying starting values of up to x100 compared to the standard x2 in Sugar Rush, while the magical Aurora Gem can multiply them further. The two slots' bonus rounds are comparable since Magic Frame Multiplier values are persistent till the end, though the non-Tiara Treasure rounds benefit from having either a wild symbol spewing Rainbow Rush Bar or Magic Frame Multipliers on all positions from the start.

It means that while Rainbow Princess isn't as wild as Nolimit City's loosely related Duck Hunters, there are innovations which may excite fans of Sugar Rush-style gameplay. With a 10,000x max win and interesting feature development, Rainbow Princess should have the goods to entertain cluster pays gamblers, though some may be wondering about this new direction Hacksaw Gaming has embarked upon.