Spirit of the River

Spirit of the River: Slot Overview

Developer SG Digital moves on from exploring Native American culture in Yanaha's Rite to south of the border for a similar game titled Spirit of the River. We say similar, but it's basically the same, as SG Digital has simply reskinned Yanaha's Rite (a game conceived by LeoVegas and hosted on the SG Digital platform) by giving it an Aztec outer look instead. The rest is as it was mathematically and feature-wise, where players get a Dual Ways Pays mechanic, a Spin Tower scatter collection system, and free spins with 4-reel modifiers.

The layout and general vibe of Spirit of the River is virtually the same as Yanaha’s Rite. On the left side stands a character with magical powers, in this case, a priestess type holding a ball of energy in mid-air. In the middle of the screen is the 4-reel, 6-row game grid, while the Spin Tower is located on the right displaying 4 different animals. If anything, the atmosphere isn't quite as rich as Yanaha's Rite was, maybe because it's kind of peculiar the priestess is chilling in a stream like nothing odd's going on. But hey, Spirit of the River packs in just as much magic as its predecessor for players who like to spin on the mysterious side of life.

Getting started in Spirit of the River requires picking stakes where choices range from 20 p/c to $/€50 per spin. Like before, the math model is medium-high volatile, generating a rather generous return value of 96.7% which does work in its favour as a selling point. As the name says, the Dual Ways mechanic pays left to right and top to bottom. Horizontal wins are determined when 3 or more matching symbols land left to right from the leftmost symbol, while vertical wins are formed by 3 identical symbols landing in consecutive rows starting from the topmost row.

Symbol combinations have the same value no matter which direction they land in, and there are 10 regular pays to work with. The first seven are low and mid pay patterned symbols, while three characters appear on the trio of premiums. These are a warrior type, a chap who looks like the chief, and the priestess lady who is standing knee-deep in the river. Due to one of the reel modifiers in free spins, it is possible to expand the grid. At its larger size, an 8-symbol premium win is worth 10 to 20 times the stake. At the default grid size, a six-symbol vertical win is worth 2.5 to 5 times the bet. There is a wild too, replacing any pay symbol to complete wins, but it only shows up during free spins.

Spirit of the River: Slot Features

Spirit of the River has two more symbols – a scatter which triggers free spins where a wild symbol may appear. When a scatter symbol lands on the grid, a segment is added to the Spirit Tower, and a spins counter is displayed above it. Players then get 20 spins to fill the Spirit Tower which has 4 segments in total. If the 20 spins run out without collecting 4 scatters, then 2 segments are removed from the Spirit Tower. If any segments remain, the spins counter resets; otherwise, the spins counter is removed.

If the Spirit Tower is filled in time, then 8 free spins are awarded. If more than 4 scatters have been collected, the extras are carried over to the bonus game. On each free spin, one of the spirit modifiers is randomly selected:

• Turtle – random rows on the grid expand up to 8 wide, staying this way until the end of the feature. Scatters do not appear on the extra columns.
• Frog – mystery symbols are randomly added to the grid. Each mystery symbol transforms into the same matching pay symbol.
• Dolphin – wild symbols are randomly added to the grid.
• Octopus – multiplies the spin win by x2, x3, x4, x5, or x10.

Every 4 scatters gathered during the bonus game awards +5 additional free spins. The round comes to an end when free spins run out, or the win cap is hit.

Spirit of the River: Slot Verdict

Like Yanaha's Rite, Spirit of the River isn't the most adrenalized slot out there, and that's putting it politely. The pace is just straight-up slow. The effect is perhaps accentuated by the way the symbols materialise onto the game grid rather than spin as usual, but everything comes over a tad sleepy. This includes the way scatters light up the Spirit Tower, the waterfall animation, and how winning combinations are highlighted.

Then again, Spirit of the River might have been designed specifically for players who like to kick back and take their time to admire the scenery. Spirit of the River and Yanaha's Rite seem like games more concerned with squeezing themes than going heck for leather on the reels. In saying that, SG Digital has been fairly experimental in terms of mechanics and features. Naturally, Spirit of the River is not so experimental this time around since it is a clone of Yanaha's Rite.

Spirit of the River does feel thin after a while. What lessens the excitement is partly because regular ways wins aren't much unless the reels have expanded in free spins. Also, The Dual Ways Pays system has lost a bit of whatever sparkle it had since Pragmatic Play came out with Yum Yum Powerways and its four directions to win. Spirit of the River can technically come together, however, when free spins modifiers combine to produce something decent. As such, the win cap has been set at $/€250,000, equating to 5,000x if max betting.

If hanging out in a Central America stream, throwing up magic orbs sounds appealing, Spirit of the River might be fun. However, unless you are genuinely hooked on the theme, it's easy to see through the reel trickery, and the sluggish pace quickly wears you out.