Fortune Gems 500

Fortune Gems 500 Review

In a certain sense, Fortune Gems 500 circles back to the original Fortune Gems, but with a steroid-injected math model and an innovative Ex Nudge feature that truly steals the show. As usual, the game plays out on a 3x3 grid with the special 4th reel delivering multipliers. The Gurada temple setting should be familiar by now, and overall, the visual presentation is similar to the previous installments.

You can play with bet levels ranging from €0.2 to €200 per spin, catering to both cautious players and daredevil high rollers. You win by landing 3 matching symbols across up to 5 paylines starting from the leftmost reel towards the right. The premium symbols consist of red, blue, and green gems encased on a golden ornamented plate, awarding 20x, 15x, or 12x your stake, respectively. The royal symbols pay 2x to 10x your stake, and the Wild symbol pays 25x your stake for 3 on a payline.

Of course, the Wild symbol also substitutes for any pay symbol to help complete wins, like wilds usually do. While previous installments capped the multiplier symbols at x15, the Fortune Gems 500 slot lives up to its title by increasing the multiplier symbols range up to a solid x500. These multiplier symbols appear on the 4th special reel, and only the multiplier that appears in the center position frame will boost your winnings.

This brings us to the main attraction of Fortune Gems 500, which is the brand new and innovative Ex Nudge symbol. This powerful addition can trigger up to 50 multiplier reel nudges, each adding a multiplier value to build the total win multiplier. This feature can definitely take you all the way to the 12,500x max win, and the Fortune Gems 500 game boasts an above-average RTP of 97 % to boot. The volatility is listed as low, but you should still expect patches of dead spins and smaller wins in our experience.

Fortune Gems 500 Features

Fans of the series will recognize the 4th special reel with its many multiplier symbols. However, in Fortune Gems 500, this reel can also deliver the lucrative Ex Nudge Feature. Let’s dive in to take a closer look at how it all works!

Extra Bet (not UK)

The Extra Bet feature is an optional Ante Bet you can turn on via the ‘Ex’ button down to the left. This gives you two options: You can pay 1.5x your regular stake to remove the x1 multiplier symbol from the special reel, or you can pay 8x your regular stake to remove multiplier symbols x1 to x5 from the special reel. In both cases, your chances of landing higher multipliers in the frame that makes them count are “significantly increased”, according to the game info section (but no stats are available, unfortunately).

The 4th Special Reel

The Special Reel is the 4th and rightmost reel, landing multiplier and/or Ex Nudge symbols only. Without the Ante Bet switched on, you can land 11 different multiplier symbols: x1, x2, x3, x5, x10, x15, x20, x25, x50, x100, and x500. Only the multiplier symbol that lands in the center position will boost winnings on the same spin, and also the Ex Nudge symbol must land in the center position to trigger the Ex Nudge feature.

Ex Nudge Feature

If you land the Ex Nudge symbol in the framed center position on reel 4 on a winning spin, the Ex Nudge Feature triggers. Each Ex Nudge symbol displays one of the following digits: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, or 50, indicating the amount of nudges you get. The 4th wheel will then start to nudge, adding each multiplier that appears in the center position to the total win multiplier. When the Ex Nudges are finished, the total win multiplier is applied to the current win.

Theme & Graphics

Fortune Gems 500 takes you once again to the Garuda temple setting, and the symmetric presentation is pretty similar to what you got in the previous installments. With the two decaying temples towering in the backdrop under the warm, hazy sky, the game itself plays out on a sturdy stone grid with mysterious carvings. The tribal soundtrack is upbeat, adding to the jungle atmosphere, and the special reel is packed with tempting multipliers to supercharge your payouts. The regular reels are adorned with shimmering gems, same as in the previous installments.

Pros and Cons of Fortune Gems 500

Our Verdict

I’ve been a fan of the Fortune Gems range ever since I tested and reviewed the original Fortune Gems, and I can wholeheartedly say that Fortune Gems 500 is the absolute best release in this series thus far. That’s commendable and proves that the work we do here at SlotCatalog matters.

This means that suckers for high-speed action like myself finally get a satisfying experience. That being said, you need to be a bit careful when combining the maxed-out turbo with the autoplay option. You can easily plow through 50 spins before you even realize what has happened, so don’t say you weren’t warned! In order to savor wins and keep track of your spending, I recommend the regular turbo option if you want to play hands-free.

Well, enough about game pace already, let’s get to the heart of this thing. While the two previous follow-up releases offered innovative features in addition to the multiplier reel, these extras felt bolted on and less organic compared to what you get in Fortune Gems 500. The Ex Nudge feature is a great way to build on the game’s core mechanic, and it can be extremely lucrative to boot. This is an innovation that should excite any fan of building multiplier features.

In addition, the multipliers are no longer capped at x15 like in previous installments, but can instead go as high as x500. The Extra Bet feature has also been enhanced with a second “high roller” option, but my advice is to tread carefully with that unless you have the budget for it. You don’t really miss a bonus round in Fortune Gems 500, and when the Ex Nudge feature triggers it kind of feels like a bonus anyway. With enough nudges, you’re in for a solid payday of up to 12,500x your stake - a new record for this series!