You’d be hard pressed to describe Pearl River Quad Shot as a thing of beauty. With a river scene in the background, the black reels include lower value playing cards plus a dragonfly, a shell, a bird, a lotus flower and a junk boat. Land 5 of the latter and you’ll win a payout of 12 times your total stake. Appearing on reels 3, 4 or 5 only the Goddess is the game’s wild - she doesn’t offer any payouts but does substitute for everything bar the scatter (the pearl).
Land 3, 4 or 5 of the pearl scatter on the same spin and you’ll get a payout of 5, 20 or 100 times your total stake as well triggering the Free Games feature – you’ll get 10 free spins with the lower value symbols removed. The Goddess appears on the middle 3 reels during the free spins.
Look out for the Money Bag symbol during the free spins - when this lands on reels 1 and 5 on the same free spin, you’ll trigger the Lucky Multiplier Bonus Spin feature. You’ll receive 3 special spins here - the standard Goddess can land on reels 2, 4 and 5. Joining the action are 3 multiplier wilds which can land on reel 3 only. These can boost payouts by 2x, 3x and 5x when they form part of a winning combination.
Pearl River Quad Shot also offers a chance to win 1 of 4 jackpot prizes. These are triggered by landing a 5-of-a-kind winner and the Quad Shot symbol on the single reel to the right of the main set. Which jackpot is awarded depends on which symbol formed your 5-of-a-kind winner and whether it included a wild.
A word of warning as usual with Ainsworth slot games. The paytable amounts are lower in the free spins than in the base game and lower still in the Lucky Multiplier Bonus Spin feature. The multipliers can of course provide some timely boosts. The amount you think you’ve won might not match the actual amount.
The design here is pretty underwhelming and the screeching violin that greets each winning spin had us reaching for the mute button too. Ainsworth slot games are something of an acquired taste and they’re not among our favourite developers. Sadly, Pearl River Quad Shot didn’t do much to win us over.