I had planned to begin this retrospective by enumerating a few of the year’s noteworthy events, but a quick perusal of even a couple of such lists revealed largely depressing news about the state of the world in 2017. That year was also fortunate because it was the year Play’n GO released Moon Princess, an anime-themed slot that quickly won the hearts of many online gamblers. Following the popularity of the original, many spin-offs have been created, including Moon Princess 100 and Moon Princess Christmas Kingdom. We’ve come full circle with another one this time, and she goes by the name of Moon Princess Trinity.
There’s no sense in Moon Princess Trinity that it was designed to replace the original. There are a few tweaks to it, but nothing game-changing in the larger scheme of things. When players load the game, they’re greeted with a familiar sight: the three princesses standing next to the grid, each representing a different Girl Power. The rest is the same, and there isn’t much more to say other the fact that if you’re searching for a slot machine with an anime theme, the Moon Princess series is among the most played.
The aim is to land winning combos of at least three symbols in length, and the grid in which this action takes place is made up of 5 reels and 5 rows. Any part of a reel can serve as the starting point for a winning combination, and the same symbol can appear in both horizontal and vertical configurations. With its extremely variable mathematical model, the game may provide an RTP of up to 96.2%, yet it can be adjusted down to as low as 80% using one of five different settings. The return on Moon Princess is accessible across many platforms, with betting limits ranging from 10 p/c to £/€100.
The three princesses not only appear on the three premium pay symbols, which are worth 3x the wager for a pure five-of-a-kind or 2x the bet for a mixed princess symbol five-of-a-kind, but they also blast the reels with modifiers. After these two high-value icons come four lower-value ones, with a payout of 1x the wager for a winning line of five symbols. When you win, a bunch of cool stuff happens, as we’ll see.
Slot Functions, Moon Princess Trinity
Instead of making something completely new for Moon Princess Trinity, the characteristics from her previous incarnations were rearranged and tweaked so that they still serve the same purpose but in a little different way. The procedure is as follows. New symbols do not arrive from above, as they often would in a cascade mechanic, but rather, existing symbols on the grid descend down to fill the gaps left by winning combinations. A wild symbol is left behind after a winning combination is made. If you have a winning line consisting entirely of wild symbols, you can earn up to five times your wager.
Profit Increaser
In addition, the board will have thin blue lines framing certain spots. When you score in a highlighted area, your win multiplier goes up by 1. Between each paid spin, the win multiplier will reset to 1.
Strong Women
The three females accompanying Moon Princess Trinity aren’t there for nothing. Each of them can alter the reel in some way. There is a chance that the visible woman will activate one of these abilities on losing spins:
Love – transforms a code.
A star can create one or two extra wild cards.
Storm – clears out two groups of symbols.
Trinity
A golden meter divided into three sections lies to the side of the reels. If you get 3, 4, or 5 princess symbols in a row, you’ll fill 1, 2, or 3 of the segments. When the meter is totally full, a round of Trinity is played. Trinity is a round of free play in which Love, Star, and Storm all use their respective modifers. Clearing the grid during Trinity reactivates the feature, but does not reset the win multiplier.
Definable Grid
Finally, on a regular spin (not a Trinity spin), a win of 50 times the stake is awarded if the game grid is cleared. As a heads up, the wild symbols will be erased if they are the only symbols on the game’s grid.
Slot Conclusion for Moon Princess Trinity
There were a lot of conflicting reactions to Moon Princess Trinity, and each side kept trying to assert itself as the final verdict. On the one hand, Moon Princess is a Play’n GO classic that has been amusing players for years and has generated a number of sequels and offshoots with similar mechanics and themes, including Moon Princess 100, Moon Princess Christmas Kingdom, and Rise of Olympus 100 and Sisters of the Sun. Therefore, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise if Moon Princess Trinity isn’t the final word on the subject, as Play’n GO has found great success with the premise.
Rolling out new variants of Moon Princess isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the online gambling business, despite being a little uncreative, because the gameplay is frequently as contagious as ever. There’s no denying that a good portion of Moon Princess Trinity repeats itself. The elimination of free spins, ergo the name, shifts the game’s emphasis to the Trinity spin, albeit some players may be disappointed that they can’t choose their favorite princess anymore. The winning combination values have been drastically reduced in a recent rebalancing. A 5 OAK princess win pays just 3x the wager, but a Moon Princess victory pays 10x the stake. This was likely done to mitigate the impact of the increasing multiplier, but it reduces Moon Princess Trinity’s win potential from 5,000x to 4,000x.
A slot machine’s maximum payout isn’t everything, but successors with a smaller number might seem off. As most players won’t be aiming for the game’s maximum victory, Moon Princess Trinity doesn’t feel much less exciting than the first game, and it doesn’t feel much better. You can’t top the original, but Moon Princess Trinity is still worth a look if the first one or any of the many releases in between caught your eye.