Rainbow Riches Pick and Mix Slots
Sequels are always tough, even Hollywood has had mixed results in long running movie series, Rocky, Rambo, Jaws and Transformers all spring immediately to mind. Who would have thought that a slot game manufacturer could get quite so much mileage of out an Irish leprechaun theme as Barcrest have out of their long running hit Rainbow Riches!
Pick and Mix is the latest sequel to a game which was originally so massively popular in land based casinos before it was modernised and released online, to similar great results like other known free slots online. This new pick and mix version includes many of the classic Barcrest features that their fan-base love whilst throwing in a clever new idea or two, the new game has already built a following prior to being available online as it was released in land casinos a year ago as a physical slot.
Theme & Features
The title rather gives the game away, Pick and Mix follows the same Irish leprechaun / Luck of the Irish theme as its sibling games, the graphics are further enhanced in the new version and the character symbols, reels and background are all sharper and clearer, with the traditional greens and golds truly deep and vibrant on both desktop and mobile displays. I’m still not a fan of the jingle based musical score, that may be because I spend a lot of time on IGT’s Shamrockers game – rocking leprechauns are simply more my thing.
The traditional 20 fixed pay-lines haven’t changed and bets are at 3 tiers with increased RTP and chance of hitting a bonus at the popular Barcrest ‘big bet’ game values of 20.00 or 30.00 credits – though that plays 5 spins in a row so is a big financial commitment compared to the slightly lower RTP bets of 2.00 credits or less. As is the norm for Barcrest there is no big progressive jackpot and even the max win is quite small in relation to max bet, these games are designed for frequent wins and engaging play rather than long gaps between monster pay-outs.
What makes this game stand out from the original title is the bonus features, which it is absolutely jam packed with. At the start of the game you can choose up to 3 of the five features to be available in the game, if you have a favourite simply select it as the only active feature and every time a bonus round kicks in that is the feature you will play – I like this a lot and I think we will be seeing other games follow suit, you can re-select which features you want active after every spin unless you are in big bet mode where you must wait out all 5 spins.
The first of the bonus features is the ‘Road to Riches’, engage this round and ask the leprechaun to spin the wheel to see how many steps up the winding yellow path you take collecting wins as you go, the jackpot of 500.00 credits is available if you make it to the top! British casino players will likely know this round better than most as it’s the original Rainbow slot is a staple part of casinos and pub fruit machine selections.
Pots of gold is one of the most popular bonus features in the Rainbow series and comes up as option number 2, Gold, Silver and Bronze pots rotate around the screen with a value of each displayed at the top (Gold/Silver only in big bet mode) and when they stop an arrow points to the winning pot and the resulting value is paid out. All spins win or not add money to the pots when this bonus is active, the gold pot is always the max win of 500.00 credits.
Fields of gold is the feature which builds most anticipation, first round 50 gold coins appear on the screen, they spin round and when they come to a rest some will award 1.00 credit each, and some will draw a blank. At this point the game random spins a giant coin and you find out if you progress to the next round, if you do the same 50 coins are now worth 2.00 credits. If the game triggers the 3rd and final round you will now have coin values of 5.00 and 10.00 credits – all 3 rounds are added together and this is the round where the big wins are most frequently seen.
The last two bonus rounds are the simplest, the magic toadstools round is a simple pick win round where you get either a cash value for each pick or a fairy who unlocks more symbols without you picking. The free spins bonus is as its name suggests up to 30 spins which can retrigger until the max win of 500 is reached. These two rounds are fun to have engaged round one of the more intricate bonus features to give a nice spread of play between modern and traditional bonuses on one slot game.
Summary
Pick and Mix is going to be a marmite game, love or loathe, the max win is very low indeed, high limit players are likely to avoid unless playing for free, but if you want win after win in smaller amounts combined with engaging gameplay, this is a really solid option as a low limit real cash game. We really love the choose feature option and it shows that game manufacturers are heavily motivated to get more player interaction in their games.
