Royal Gems Slot Review

Released in September 2019, this game can be played at online casinos such as LeoVegas, Royal Panda or Unibet.

Theme and general information

There is not much more to the theme in Royal Gems than the title already tells us. We’re in the royal treasure chamber and there are tons of gems on the reels. Some of them are shaped like card suit symbols (clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts) and others simply get geometric shapes that remind us of diamonds and other jewels.

The background setting of the treasure chamber is well done, mind you. Oddly, we’re not in a chamber, but instead get a nice view of the blue sky in the background, looking out from a balcony or some such. Piles and piles of gold coins and jewels frame the reels, but the gems on the reel itself look oddly colourless. Often, with such themes we get brightly coloured gems. But that’s not the case here. Instead, the gems on the reels look pale and boring. Only the highest-value gems are a bit brighter, but it all still looks somewhat boring.

The yellow gem is the most valuable of the lot and pays out 2x our stake for a cluster of 5 and 1,500x our stake for a full screen of them. The green, blue, pink and red gems are worth between 100x and 500x our stake for a full screen, which means all 64 symbols that are available on the 8×8 grid.

A cluster pays out for 5 matching symbols touching sides vertically or horizontally. Whenever a cluster is formed, it is held in place for the next spin in order to allow for further matching symbols to attach themselves to the cluster. It’s possible to have several different clusters of different symbols on the reels or just one with one kind of symbol.

You can play this game from 0.20 to 200.00 per spin, though this can change depending on the casino you play at.

Three random features

We get essentially three features in this game that show up randomly throughout. Whilst the normal grid of gems is 8×8 symbols, it’s possible for Super Gems to show up. They can be 2×2, 3×3 or 6×6 symbols big. With Super Gems of at least 3×3 symbols, you automatically create a win.

Of course, a Super Gem would then be held in place as well for another spin to get a chance to land more matching symbols on the reels that could attach themselves to the cluster.

Another feature is the Full Screen multiplier. If you land a full screen of the same symbol on the reels, you would get a 2x multiplier for your win.

Finally, there is a Crown Upgrade. A crown is showing randomly up on the reels and an existing cluster could be upgraded to a higher paying symbol. It only shows up after landing a winning combination.

Beyond that, however, there are no free spins, bonus games or even wild symbols on the reels.

Conclusion: Slightly too generic to be fun for long

The theoretical RTP (Return to Player) of Royal Gems is 96%. That’s only average, even for Royal Tiger, who rarely give us massive RTPs on their slot games. The game offers medium volatility and clusters are usually formed regularly, even if we have never managed to get a full screen of the same symbol when we played the game.

We got close, but only with low-value symbols. And somehow, eventually, the game didn’t excite us anymore. You can play it for a while, have a little fun getting some decent clusters and catching the high-value symbols. Maybe you see the Crown Upgrade here and there. But at some point, it will all feel a little lacklustre and you’ll be moving on to something a little more interesting. Sure, the maximum payout is 3,000x our stake. But the gameplay is not engaging enough to wait for that to happen.