Celestial Beauty

Celestial Beauty: Slot Overview

Anime slots might not be overly numerous, but they are slowly, steadily carving out a wee niche for themselves to inhabit. Doing their bit to help widen the niche is casino game maker Skywind Group with their release Celestial Beauty which is a scatter-paying slot (another form of gambling that's on the up and up), bringing in features like cascades, wilds, wild multipliers, and two selectable free spins bonus rounds of varying volatility.

Load up an anime slot, and it is hard to keep the Play'n GO classic Moon Princess far from your mind. What makes this task more difficult is the insistence of online slot makers to include an anime/manga-style female cartoon character somewhere on the screen. In Celestial Beauty, players find the usual heroine in her traditional spot, floating to the side of the gaming grid. Maybe the tendency to constantly use these sorts of characters has something to do with the 'male gaze' or whoever else might like gazing at a cartoon lady throwing a peace sign; maybe Skywind Group simply did it cos that's what everyone else has done? Maybe one day, anime fans will get the slot equivalent of a Levi Ackerman or a Kakashi Hatake, but this is not the game.

Never mind, on with the game, and with a rating of 3 out of 5, Celestial Beauty is a medium volatile slot, though players have some influence over this when free spins are triggered. With three possible RTP values, the most desirable is 96.5%, though this can drop to 94.5% or lower, depending on the jurisdiction. Selecting a stake means choosing a base bet of 20 p/c to $/€200 per spin and deciding whether or not to make use of the Double Chance feature. With the Double Chance on, the stake increases by 25% whilst doubling the chance of winning free spins. Or, players may simply buy free spins for 100x the bet.

The action is held on a 6-reel gaming matrix with 5 rows, triggering a win when at least 8 matching symbols are in view – anywhere on the board, Sweet Bonanza style. The symbols used throughout include a triangle, diamond, hexagon, moon, a sort of pentagon thing, a winged heart, then three cute creatures with wings on them as the regular high pays. Hitting an 8-9 symbol winning scatter pays 0.25 to 7.5 times the bet, while the largest 12+ scatter wins award 2.5 to 40 times the bet. Winning symbols are removed from the board and replaced by symbols dropping down from above. In the base game, when the winged heats form a win, a regular wild or a multiplier wild with a value of x2, x3, x4, or x5 will appear. Only one multiplying wild can be on the grid at a time, and it persists throughout a cascade sequence. Either wild will replace any symbols except scatters.

Celestial Beauty: Slot Features

Alongside wilds, wild multipliers, and cascades, Celestial Beauty has free games where after they are triggered, players choose the one with the most desirable volatility. Landing 4, 5, or 6 scatters triggers the free spins feature. Players may then pick the low-volatile Moon Beauty round or the high-volatile Sun Beauty round.

Moon Beauty

The 4, 5, or 6 triggering scatters award 10, 15, or 20 free spins when choosing Moon Beauty, respectively. In Moon Beauty, when the three animal pay symbols or the winged heart symbol form wins, a regular wild or a multiplier wild with a value of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, or x20 will appear. As before, only one multiplying wild can be on the grid at a time, and it persists throughout a cascade sequence. Extending the round is possible by landing 3 or more scatter symbols to win 5 additional free spins.

Sun Beauty

When picking Sun Beauty, the 4, 5, or 6 triggering scatters award 8, 12, or 16 free spins, respectively. In Sun Beauty, when winged heart symbols form a win, a regular or multiplier wild with a value of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, or x20 replaces one of the removed symbols. Each cascade win increases the multiplier wild by its original value. Multiplier wilds persist until a cascade sequence ends. Hitting 3 or more scatter symbols in the round awards an extra 5 free spins.

Celestial Beauty: Slot Verdict

Since there isn't a massive amount of anime slots out there, it's almost impossible not to compare a new release with some of the more established games in its category. Two that sprang to mind are, of course, the aforementioned Moon Princess, something of a benchmark for these sorts of games, while the other was Starlight Princess, essentially a remake of Gates of Olympus from Pragmatic Play. Celestial Beauty put up an okay fight but didn't manage to pip either of those two games. However, if you're the sort of person who is mad for anime or manga, then Celestial Beauty's artwork, cheesy (in a good way) soundtrack, and occasional in-theme shoutouts might win you over.

Otherwise, there's something about Celestial Beauty's gameplay which feels a little bitsy. Like, why does it have to be only certain symbols in certain game phases that lead to wilds or multiplier wilds? Mathematics, and perhaps even an attempt to be original, is possibly woven into the answer, but it felt a bit off at times. The two bonus rounds were like night and day, too, or Moon and Night, as the case may be. After getting thrashed in Sun Beauty rounds for a while, it was refreshing to switch to Moon Beauty and see the game strut more of its stuff, more often. Hard though, because after experiencing limited cascade runs in Sun Beauty, we got some lengthy action in Moon Beauty, yet couldn't help wondering how they would have turned out with a rising wild multiplier in view. Hey ho, that's luck, and players are free to choose their preferred volatility when free spins trigger or are bought.

The final piece of the puzzle is winning potential, and a value of 5,000x the bet puts Celestial Beauty on a par with the two competing slots already mentioned. It might be a bit fiddly in parts, but those with a soft spot for anime or manga should be able to enjoy what Celestial Beauty has to offer.