We rarely come across a slot that leaves us conflicted. Usually, it’s easy enough to discern whether we like a game or not after playing it for a little while, but Moon Princess by Play’n GO certainly has us stuck somewhat in a bind. Rather than playing by ordinary rules, the slot gives players a 5x5 playing reel and offers you wins in clusters – get three or more and win a prize. The game boasts three special features – a free spins bonus that occurs once you clear the entire board, a so called Girl Power, where one of your heroines will perform an action and this one happens randomly, but rather frequently, and finally, the Trinity Meter which when filled up activates all three Girl Powers in one go. Once a win happens somewhere, those symbols fall off the reel, allowing existing ones to fall further down and form a chain reaction that increases your multiplier as one win chains into another. This means that potential wins can climb very high and you will usually need them to in order to balance for what can usually be described as rotten luck otherwise.

Really, Moon Princess is all about playing that balancing act where you try to coax out a solid, big win in between a sea of wins that will pay less than your wager, and mediocre wins that you’ll lose in two to three spins all over again. It’s no surprise because of this that the randomly triggered special features dubbed Girl Powers are so important, as the three heroines of this story use them to bring you closer to that highest score that sits at 50x your total wager, reserved for the luckiest among us. You can wager between $0.20 up to $100, which is a nice spread, but we can’t really suggest going one way or another. It’s tough to warrant caution since you never know when that big win is going to swoop in.

So, let’s talk about the special features in a bit more detail. The Play'n GO 2017 release offers three bonuses to players, and we’ll talk about the one that appears most commonly, Girl Power. Love, the red princess, can transform one set of symbols into another icon, Star can make up to three Wilds appear and Storm destroys two sets of any symbol. All of these have a clear purpose – clear up the reels and make it easier to trigger the other two bonuses. The second one is called Princess Trinity, and it fills up each time princess symbols are part of a winning combination. Once it fills up, it will activate all three of the Girl Power special features, which will take turns activating. Finally, it gives you free spins if you clear the entire reel at once. You can choose between three different versions of extra turns, which will grant you a different active Girl Power bonus and a different number of free spins. You essentially pick how much you want to risk – the bigger the risk, the higher the winning potential.

It’s an overall good release in our books. We like the high volatility and the lack of traditional paylines combined with the constant bonuses that pop up to make it a very fun experience. There is a slight downside to this, as the Girl Power special features can feel a bit annoying when they pop up but accomplish nothing and it can take a good while before you see a proper win that isn’t bleeding your money. If you have a bit of patience and you want to enjoy a fun night with pretty anime girls, Moon Princess is a solid pick.