San Guo Zheng Ba

A great deal of Chinese history has been spent under the helm of an emperor. While today’s China was until recently a full-on communist regime, and they don’t have good history with monarchs, for the longest time, China was a massive empire that completely dominated its region at one point. However, China was defined by the ruling periods of different dynasties, and transitions of power are never a gentle affair. San Guo Zheng Ba tackles the time period where generals fought for power while the High Emperor had little to no influence to exert over them. It offers gamblers 5 reels and 50 flexible paylines, allowing you to switch them on or off at your leisure. Alongside this, it also offers a free spins bonus which is split into two sections. During the first, you try to win as many Scatters as possible, and during the second, the amount of Scatters you collected changes what bonuses you will have available to use while they spin.

It shows a fair bit of attention put into it by RTG visually. Some animations play when idle, others wait until you’ve triggered a win. There’s some minor attention done to the backdrop as well, so you can see thunderstorms in the skies while a marching army advances towards a seemingly undefended temple hidden away in the mountains. On one hand, the static army ruins immersion a bit, on the other, a bad animation would probably make it worse, so we’re relatively pleased the developers chose to leave it there rather than try to force something that wouldn’t work.

On the gameplay side of things, despite the possibility offered to players to disable paylines, the game isn’t really built around giving gamblers a lot of freedom on how to approach things. RTG’s release mostly focuses players towards hitting the special features if they’re hoping for big wins, as solid wins outside of that are relatively difficult to reach. So, if you don’t mind waiting for big wins, this title might be just up your alley.

You can play San Guo Zheng Ba for as little as $0.01 up to a maximum of $50 per spin. Thanks to flexible paylines, more low-end gamblers will be able to try out the game, admittedly with a disadvantage due to the fact that not all paylines are up. At the same time, regular gamblers also enjoy a wide range of betting options. As for major payouts, these easily fall into the free spins category, especially if during said free spins several Scatter wins are collected, which adds additional bonuses on top of the free spins into the mix.

Symbols and Extra Features

The icons in this slot present the High Emperor and the many competitors to his throne, alongside their weapons of choice which act as lower paying symbols. We quite like the artstyle used here, and San Guo Zheng Ba doesn’t shy away from showing them off with small animations when they’re part of a winning combination.

Winning three or more Scatters rewards 5 free spins, during which Wilds will appear on the second, third, fourth and fifth reel. Winning two or more Scatters while free spins are running will award a cash prize, and add to the Scatter counter. While the feature is active, all Wild wins are doubled. It is possible to retrigger this bonus up to 5x maximum. After the 5 free spins are played out, the slot switches to 3 God Spin free games and depending on how many Scatters you collected during the free spins, you can have grouped Empress symbols, the fully Wild reel 5, Scatters paying 5x more, tripled payouts with Wilds and the reel 3 and 4 fully Wild. Any Scatter pays during God Spins will reward one more God Spin.