The action of Magic Charms takes place in a fairytale universe, with frogs that are waiting to be kissed, with beautiful princesses and enchanted forests where there are toadstools as high as trees. While the idea is not bad, you will find the actual design to be an older one, not that appealing whenever the symbols or the reels come into play. You might find the features to be a nice surprise, but more on them below. It’s one of the slots that have been created by Microgaming, but they have a lot of other titles which seem like better choices.
Despite the rather dated design, it’s a slot with 243 ways to win and 5 reels, so it’s fairly modern. The game’s features consist of bonus games, free spins, multipliers and wilds, with the jackpot being a measly $600.
Features of Magic Charms
While the design might be a disappointment, the features might just be the opposite. There are the ways to win to take advantage of, plus the treasure chests which are waiting to be unlocked, the stacked wild symbols with multipliers and the free games feature.
The so called Bonus Wild feature is represented by the image of a Magic Wand. This is a stacked wild, which is allowed to make appearances on reel 3 of the slot. It’s offered both during the base game and during free spins. You don’t get prizes from it, but you do get a chance to have up to three wilds present on that 3rd reel. This wild can substitute for all the other symbols, and if it manages to help you out with a new combo’s creation it will apply a 2x multiplier to the win value. It can’t substitute for the Key, Treasure Chest, Princess or Frog Prince symbols, since they have special roles.
Another two important symbols for this slot are the Key and the Treasure Chest. These are bonus symbols, each one appearing on its own reel. The Treasure Chest shows up on the 1st reel, while the Key is for the 5th reel. They both have to be present, at the same time, in order for this particular feature to start. It begins with the Key starting to move over the reels, going to the Treasure Chest and unlocking it. Whatever prize is hidden inside, is what your reward will be.
Frog Prince and Princess
This is a feature which starts with the help of two different wilds, an unusual way to trigger free spins, but it works well enough. While the Frog Prince is a wild which is reserved for the 2nd reel, the Princess wild is found on the 4th reel.
Whenever both of them are present at the same time, they will expand on their reels and then they award 3 spins for free to the player. While these free spins are used, the 2nd and 4th wild reels are kept in place, so only the other three are moving.
Betting options and jackpots
As is always the case with slots that have ways to win, you don’t actually cover every individual line, instead using a system with 25 virtual paylines. All these virtual lines get wagers of up to $2, using 1 to 10 coins of up to $0.20. The maximum bet possible is $50, while the minimum is $0.25.
With the maximum bet used, you cover all the lines with the highest possible wager, and the result is a top payout of $600 from regular symbols. It’s possible to double that amount, with the wild’s help, to $1,200. Either way, it’s a very low top payout.
Design and symbols
The truly enchanting part about the design is the background image, with a beautiful forest that lets through quite a bit of light, plus huge toadstools that are almost as high as the trees. The reels are not as fun to look at, colored in pink and with fleur-de-lis motifs on them. The dated look extends to the symbols as well, which are older looking, especially the playing cards.
Symbols: Magic Wand (wild), Treasure Chest (bonus), Key (bonus), Frog Prince (wild), Princess (wild), Diamond Ring (300x), Pot of Gold (200x), Red Rose (100x), Ace (50x), King (50x), Queen (25x), Jack (25x), 10 (15x) and 9 (15x).
Is It Worth Playing?
The game does well enough with its features, but its graphics and top payouts are quite bad. The payouts are somewhat understandable, since there are a lot of chances to win prizes in the game, but the design manages to ruin the experience for me.
You will find Magic Charms at any online casino which chooses to use software from Microgaming, playable either for free or for real money.
