Faerie Spells has Magical Spells & Toadstools Hiding Hoards of Treasure
Fairytale-themed games are often quite cutesy, perhaps even childish-looking. That isn’t surprising when you consider that many of these slots are based on children’s books such as Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Faerie Spells, which was created by Betsoft, is slightly different, featuring darker undertones that make it stand out among other games in this category.
Faerie Spells Overview
While the fairytale theme of Faerie Spells is a bit unorthodox, many other aspects of the game are what I would describe as being in line with the definition of a “classic” video slot. It’s a ten-line slot, described by its developer as being medium variance. However, in 2021 with some games offering prizes of 100,000x your stake and up, I would say it’s actually inching closer to low variance.
The maximum win from playing either the base game or the bonus round in Faerie Spells usually is 1,225x your stake. There is one exception to this where you can win more – well, more like four exceptions, actually. The game shares a progressive jackpot pool with many other Betsoft slots, and there are four different jackpots on offer.
At the time of writing, the value of these jackpots is as follows:
- Plenty Jackpot – $11,282.91
- Luxury Jackpot – $37,038.72
- Wealth Jackpot – $62,320.08
- Riches Jackpot – $89,025.38
I searched in vain for the odds of winning each of the different jackpots, but sadly, I could not find them published anywhere.
| Vital Statistics | |
| Date Released | 21 January 2019 |
| Category: | Video Slot |
| Theme: | Fairytale |
| Special Features: | Progressive Jackpot, Bonus Buy, Random Prizes, Free Spins, Gamble |
| Paylines | 10 |
| RTP: | 96.03% |
| RTP (Bonus Buy Feature Only): | 96.03% (Cost: 86x Stake) |
| Volatility: | Low to Medium |
| Maximum Win: | 1,225x Stake |
Spinning the Reels for the First Time
Much of the time, I have a pretty clinical approach to playing new slots. Perhaps it’s because I write about new games so often, but I will usually read through the pay table and any other accompanying information before even giving a game a try.
On this occasion, I felt like just diving right in. So, I picked the minimum bet, set the autoplay to a hundred spins, and then sat back and watched to see where it led me.
My first observation was that the game seemed to deliver a vast number of dead spins. It isn’t uncommon for games such as Faerie Spells that offer just a handful of pay lines to play out this way, so I stayed patient despite watching my balance appear to be moving in only one direction.
Next, I spotted a lot of the mushroom symbols with prizes attached landing on screen, and yet I wasn’t winning any of these prizes – I had two full stacks of mushrooms covering the entirety of the first two reels, yet I only won 0.20!
I quickly worked out the green face symbol was the game’s wild, and when I hit 75x my stake for a complete line including three wilds and two of the purple fairy symbols before my first autoplay had completed, I couldn’t stand it any longer – was this a big hit in Faerie Spells? I had to check the pay table and find out!
Turns out, the “Magic Toadstool” symbols I’d seen so much have a minimal prize attached to them by themselves, but you only receive the labelled prize if you have at least one scatter on the screen at the same time. This payout strategy explains why my two full stacks labelled with prizes totalling around $5 had only paid 0.20c earlier.
Including the wild, the six high-value symbols range in value from 25x to 100x your stake for a full line of five. There are six more “standard” symbols with payouts of between 7.5x to 15x should you hit a full line of five-of-a-kind. So, a hundred times your bet is as good as it gets in the base game – how do you win more?
Special Features
As mentioned earlier in this review, Faerie Spells has four progressive jackpots, in addition to the random prizes offered by the magic toadstools. There is also a gamble feature, which has the option to keep half your bet behind if you wish, which is always an excellent alternative to risking your entire free spins winnings on the turn of a card.
Speaking of free spins, you can win 10, 15 or 25 of these by hitting scatters during the base game. Note that the progressive jackpots can only be won by collecting potion bottles during the bonus round, which brings us on nicely to what, I believe, is Faerie Spells slots star attraction – read on.
Bonus Buy Feature
Purchasing the bonus feature in Faerie Spells feels like a massive bargain despite costing 86x your stake because you get the maximum of 25 free spins every time you choose this option. That’s the equivalent of getting all five scatters, which doesn’t seem any more common in this game than any other slot.
Unfortunately, like the progressive jackpots, I wasn’t able to find any exact numbers published online for the RTP when using bonus buy only. Despite this, it certainly feels as if there must be a boost because of the fact you always receive 25 spins.
Faerie Spells – Our Verdict
Betsoft has never been one of my favourite slot developers, but their games have historically been relatively rare in my region compared to juggernauts such as Microgaming and NetEnt. I’d like to have seen a couple of bigger hits on the pay table, but apart from that, I think Faerie Spells is an excellent reminder that Betsoft is a true competitor in the world of online slots.
