The Third Prince Slot
Players from China and the Far East rejoice, as Aristocrat have another casino game for you, don’t be disheartened at the fact it is another Asian-themed slot either, as this one has had a significant revamp, with a cartoon, almost anime-style set of video sequences and a battle feature bonus which is sure to ignite your slot gaming passions!
With the available quality of graphics and gameplay constantly changing within the slot game industry, this gives developers a chance to reinvigorate even overpopulated genres like Asian slots with new games which showcase the latest technical innovations and design ideas.
So with that in mind, how does the latest Asian adventure slot match up to the latest offerings from other software providers? Don your battle gear, and take up the spear as we challenge the Dragon King for slot game supremacy and hopefully some of the spoils of battle!
Theme
On the surface at least The Third Prince looks to be a pretty exciting game theme, the promotional video for the slot is a two-minute cartoon battle which is fabulously well produced, if a little poorly explained. We are introduced to the four villains of the slot with the fish general and his flying fish army, the turtle minister and his cohort, the semi-aquatic dragon prince and finally the dark and brooding figure of the dragon king himself.
The hero of the game, called Na-Zha, is assumedly the third prince of the game title, but we aren’t really sure, or for that matter do we have any idea why he is battling this angry looking mythological beasts. We figured from the game title that this was some war of succession themed slot game, but it doesn’t play out like that theme wise. Regardless, it’s great to look at and weird naming aside, is a fun premise.
Landing on the game itself is something of a disappointment after the hype, whilst the game and icons are well rendered, there isn’t much visually, or audibly which is greatly different than other popular Aristocrat Asian slot games like 50 Dragons. I’m not saying it’s bad, just not offering anything new in that department, with all the usual low pay playing card symbols and casino coin sound effects in place.
Gameplay and Features
With a straightforward 5x3 reel set and the limited number of symbols, you might expect The Third Prince to offer some revolutionary gameplay rewards, which in a way it does, just not in the base game, which is decent enough, but pretty generic overall.
Where the game really comes alive, and it’s what saves the title, is in the excellent battle-free spins feature, which is triggered by four or more scatter symbols appearing on the reels. Once battle commences with every spin, any villain character is added to a growing line above the reels, from right to left. Landing our here Na-Zha on the reels will cause him to fire his bow and take out the leftmost group of symbols which then drop down for big credit wins which are additional to anything won on the reels.
The battle concludes in one of two ways, either by Na-Zha appearing enough times to eliminate all of his accrued foes or when the villains grow in size to fill all sixteen positions above the reels. I’ve not seen a free spins round delivered quite like this before and it’s both hugely entertaining and rewarding in prizes.
Summary
With only one big feature and no progressive jackpot The Third Prince is very definitely going to be a love or hate game relying on the variance being favourable. If you are lucky enough to trigger the feature and it’s a lucrative one, you will take away fond memories of this Asian adventure, if not however, you are likely to walk away thinking it should have remained just a great story.
