Pharaoh’s Fortune
- Pharaoh’s Fortune Slot
- Overall Score: 3.5/5
- Graphics:
- Sounds:
- Engagement:
- Overall rating:
I’m not gonna lie, folks – the moment I saw the words “IGT” pop out on my screen when I loaded this slot I had to let out a huge sigh. For those of you unfamiliar with them, IGT are one of the most popular slot providers… and one of the laziest ones, too. While many of their games were popular enough to necessitate a review (we only look at the games that a lot of people want to know more about), that doesn’t mean they’re very good. Most are so basic that one would be excused for wondering just how in the world they managed to get popular. A lot of their slots don’t even have any bonus games, nor are they particularly good-looking or with high (or any) jackpots. Hell, some (such as Da Vinci Diamonds or Wolf Run) don’t even have any art created specifically for the slot, but prefer to use publicly available royalty-free images! Yes, IGT are those developers who, for lack of a better description, put absolutely zero effort in the overwhelming majority of their slots. And while Pharaoh’s Fortune is better than average for them, that doesn’t make it a good slot.
Basic Features
Pharaoh’s Fortune is a standard 15-payline slot with no features to make it particularly stand out from the myriad of other slots out there. It tries desperately to make Egyptian culture “hip” and “totally radical”, often to hilariously cringe-worthy results (if you haven’t seen a Pharaoh casket wearing modern shades, you haven’t seen nothing). Nothing about this slot, least of all the exclamation of “That’s cool!” which starts each game, is even remotely ”cool”. Props to IGT for at least trying, though. It’s certainly better than Kitty Glitter, which didn’t even attempt to be cool.
| Pharaoh’s Fortune Slot | ||||||
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Software: | IGT | Double option: | No | ||
| RTP: | 95.00% | Mobile version: | Yes | |||
| Progressive: | Yes | Coin value: | £2-£50 | |||
| Autoplay: | Yes | Bet value: | £30 – £750 | |||
| Quick spin: | No | Max. bet: | £750.00 | |||
| Reels: | 5 | Free spins: | Yes | |||
| Paylines: | 15 | Bonus round: | Yes | |||
You’d be very much excused for wanting to completely shut off any and all sounds the moment you hear the aforementioned “That’s cool!”, but much to your horror, you can’t. Unless you’re using Chrome and turn off the volume of the tab, your only option of escaping the noticeably uncool sound effects is to completely turn the sound of your device off. Admittedly, when they’re not trying to be doing what the kids were doing 35 years ago, the slot actually doesn’t look half-bad – inspired by traditional Egyptian culture, a lot of the symbols are actually pretty fun and clever, without a single letter insight (in case you don’t know, as a cost-saving measure developers often replace symbols with letters from the alphabet), but it’s this slot’s only redeeming quality.
Paytable
While the RTP is okay (95%, which seems adequate – I generally prefer slots with 96% or 97%, but it certainly loads better than The Incredible Hulk‘s RTP of 91%), there is one thing that might have caught you off-guard about this slot – it’s ridiculously expensive. When most people say that a slot is expensive, they generally mean that the minimum bet is something along the lines of £5-6, but Pharaoh’s Fortune requires a whopping £30 per bet as a minimum investment! That’s insane! For the price of one spin, you could go and see 3 movies in the theatre!
If you’re careless enough to want to spend that amount of cash on a mediocre-to-bad slot (hey, no offence, we can’t all be responsible adults, nor should we have to be), you’ll find some pretty weak winnings. The maximum amount you can possibly win outside of bonus games is 1000 times your bet, which, at a 15 payline slot, is roughly 67 times your total wager – pretty weak. More often than not, though, you’re going to be getting wins along the lines of 100 to 250 times your bet. But don’t expect Pharaoh’s Fortune to turn the tables for you.
Bonus Rounds/Free Spins
There’s only one bonus game in Pharaoh’s Fortune, which, to its credit, is not too bad – I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not the best game I’ve ever seen in my life, but at least there’s some interactivity to it. Basically, once you collect 3 Pharaoh symbols on the same payline (which can also happen during free spins – more on that later) you get brought to a tomb or something containing various tablets. You can pick as many of the tablets as you like, which give you free spins and multipliers. Once you get a “Collect” tablet, though, you activate the spins.
Interestingly enough, there is also a “Scatter” symbol, which is usually used to activate a bonus game, but here it doesn’t really seem to be doing anything other than acting as a multiplier, which is a bit confusing. As mentioned above, during your free spins you can collect more Pharaoh symbols, which, in turn, add to your free spins. Of course, while the number of free spins you can get is not limited in any way, the amount you can win is capped at 9 999 999 999, so if you were hoping to win 10 billion pounds or more your dreams will be shattered.
Experience of Playing the Slot and Other Recommended Games
Pharaoh’s Fortune is not a game worth your time. Its low winnings, lack of creativity (standard fare for IGT) and insultingly high entry price make the slot a rather non-lucrative endeavour. It’s one of the better IGT slots for sure, maybe even their best as far as I’m concerned, but that’s really not saying much at all since there’s still a whole lot of slots out there by different developers that completely trump it by a landslide. Slots like South Park, Jurassic Park, Monopoly, the list literally goes on and on and on. Look, guys, the average salary in the UK is £26,500 per year, and the average life expectancy is about 80 years. That’s not a lot at all. Is it really worth spending any of that extremely limited time and effort on a terrible, expensive IGT slot? I don’t think so.