Forbidden Throne

Forbidden Throne is an online video slot by Microgaming released in May 2017 which had people relatively intrigued. The visuals are striking and the promise of at least one Wild reel appearing on the playing field was enough to stir a few people into giving it a shot. Unfortunately, this Microgaming slot was poised to become a fan favourite only to be a major let down, and one we feel will only continue to feed the apathy surrounding the publisher. No special feature or beautiful piece of art will motivate gamblers enough when the paytable is such a major disappointment.

It really irks us, because this is a game we wouldn’t mind staring at for a good few hours. The graphics are really top notch, the smooth animations fading the Wild reels in and out are fantastic, and even though some symbols are a bit too small to really flaunt the impressive visuals, you can clearly see there has been clear effort put into them to make the icons seem interesting. So you switch over to the gameplay side and feel like a truck ran you over.

The Wild reels are a fun concept that goes nowhere, as even with a whole reel being a Wild, the amount of dead spins is staggeringly high. You could make the argument that the big money comes with the free spins, or a single jackpot that makes up for it, but neither of those things work out with a paytable as bad as the one in Forbidden Throne. With 40 paylines and all those things going for it, it really goes to show how one part screwing up can really bring the whole experience down.

There’s no progressive jackpot to work towards either, which means that the wins you score will have to be done during normal gameplay, or while the slot is spinning the reels. The largest fixed jackpot is $2,500, when you’re betting the maximum bet of $200, a 12.5x increase. A 12.5x increase for a five-of-a-kind Wild win? That’s insanely low, the game should be paying every third spin if the paytable is so bad. But it doesn’t. The Wild reels can save a win here and there, but it still amounts to a lot of dead spins. The free spins can be a boon to stop you from wasting money, and they can be retriggered, but they offer no multipliers or any attempts to increase the terrible wins.

Beyond several different coloured gemstones, you can also find an ancient book, a helmet with a red ruby in the middle, another helmet with a more gold-blue tint, a frost seal, and a fire seal. Beyond this, you also have the five Wild reels that can appear – a horse, a woman, an old temple, a knight, and a bird made out of fire. All of these have their own little animation, and look drop dead gorgeous. And while the constant presence of Wild Reels had the potential to be great, this slot only has one actual special feature. Three or more Scatters can activate between ten to thirty free spins, depending on how many Scatters were present to activate the bonus. You can retrigger them, but beyond that, they offer nothing else.