The Wish Master Megaways

The Wish Master Megaways: Slot Overview

If you were traipsing through a desert and happened upon a mysterious lamp poking out of the sand, then gave it a rub for the lols, and a genie materialised out of it, what would you wish for? World peace, eternal life, a dream partner, an infinity bank account, an IQ of 3000? Solid choices, but for fans of classic NetEnt games, maybe one of those wishes would be for an updated version of the classic online slot The Wish Master (2014), maybe with a Megaways makeover tacked on for good measure. If so, then consider your wish fulfilled because here is The Wish Master Megaways, possessing a share of old and new elements.

One thing which has remained similar is that The Wish Master Megaways begins by scrolling deep into a treasure-laden cavern dripping with gold coins and the like. Sweet opening, though it also actually reinforced how well the original has aged, too. Once the scrolling stops, a genie floats into the lamp, which sits next to the gaming grid while The Wish Master Megaways is in play. With luck, the genie will be popping out as much as possible to hurl features onto the game grid.

The game grid has undergone a substantial overhaul, as you might imagine. This time, it consists of 6 reels, each reel landing a random number of 2 to 7 symbols on each spin. Alternating symbols means an alternating number of ways to win, topping out a massive 117,649. Well, fairly common in this day and age, but compared to the previous game's 20 paylines, it's massive. A bigger grid has translated into significantly bigger winning potential and a tightening of the stake range. This time around, wannabe lamp rubbers can pick a bet from 10 p/c to $/€4 per spin. A highly volatile machine, The Wish Master Megaways produces an RTP of 96.07%.

Central to the gameplay is the avalanche feature, which removes winning symbols from the grid when they hit. Next, symbols drop down to fill the spaces, and another avalanche will trigger if a new win is created. As for the pay symbols, these have mostly stayed the same, except this version starts with a 10 and goes up to A for the low pays, then has artistically designed bird, scorpion, cat, and cobra premium symbols. These symbols pay from left to right on adjacent reels, starting from reel number 1 onwards. Wilds, when they appear, substitute for any regular pay symbols, helping to complete winning ways.

The Wish Master Megaways: Slot Features

As part of the Megaways deal, The Wish Master Megaways comes with those genie-induced Wish Master features known from the original.

Wish Master Features

Landing a lamp scroll scatter lets the genie loose from its lamp to randomly trigger one of the Wish Master features for 5 spins. A scatter landing when the Wish Master feature is already active randomly activates another Wish Master feature and resets the counter back to 5 spins. Possible features are:

• Extra Wild – specific symbols shown in the inventory are replaced by wild symbols.
• Wild Reel – the whole reel the scatter landed on is filled with wild symbols.
• Multiplier – all bet-way wins are multiplied by either x2 or x3. Both multipliers can be activated at the same time to create an x6 multiplier.
• Random Wild – 2 to 5 random wilds randomly appear on the grid after each spin.

Expanding wilds have been removed. A maximum of 3 Wish Master features can be activated at the same time, but not identical features. Should a scatter symbol land when 3 Wish Master features are activated already, the Wish Master feature that was triggered first is replaced with a new Wish Master feature.

The Wish Master Megaways: Slot Verdict

Sometimes, when a studio bungs Megaways on an older game and calls it a day without adding anything majorly new, it can feel sorta lazy. In the case of The Wish Master Megaways, it's not the worst thing NetEnt could have done, but it wouldn't have hurt if the studio had done a bit more. The new bits - avalanches and a bigger grid are positive additions. The genie as well is the same as before, as in, it might be granting wishes or at least tossing modifiers onto the board, but like before, it's a little spooky as well. As if it grants wishes because it is bound to do so by ancient arcane laws that are even stronger than it is. As if those laws broke down somehow, the genie would break loose across the face of the earth, indulging in every whim or desire for vengeance it has accrued over millennia of existence. Like AI let loose one day in the future…?

So since there is nothing drastically new about The Wish Master Megaways' features, fans of the original can look forward to getting another satisfying serving of gameplay as before. This means modifiers dished out for set batches of spins, hopefully linking more than one at a time in an attempt to maximise their effects. If you haven't played the first game before, it's worth making the point that Wish Master features do not come with free spins. Changing the bet resets the spin counter to zero, and any Wish Master features in the inventory are removed. However, progress per bet level is saved, though. So not free spins, though this does not dampen their effectiveness or possible enjoyment levels. With the bigger Megaways grid and avalanches on board, both of those aspects are potentially amplified. To put this into numerical terms, The Wish Master Megaways comes with a max win figure of 27,018.6 times the bet.

So, quite a lot more than the original was capable of producing, and yet, The Wish Master Megaways doesn't feel like a paradigm shift over the first The Wish Master. However, this could be a good thing for fans of the first who get to re-experience much of the same excitement as before but on a bigger grid with a modern do-over in a game which shows respect for its forebear.