Grace of Ebisu: Slot Overview

More pay-anywhere gameplay arrives from casino game developer Pragmatic Play with Grace of Ebisu. Ebisu—something we also had to look up—is the Japanese god of luck and fishermen. An unusual pairing of responsibilities, but for an online slot it fits perfectly. As the site notes, Ebisu is one of the Seven Gods of Fortune and is purely Japanese in origin, meaning he sits outside Taoist or Buddhist influence. He also comes across as a rather cheerful deity.

Bring up pay-anywhere/scatter paying slots and one of the first titles many players think of is Pragmatic Play’s hit Gates of Olympus. It’s a fair comparison, because Grace of Ebisu is essentially a reskin of Gates of Olympus with a bonus buy added—so yes, it’s basically another GOO clone. This time the setting isn’t Olympus, but a different cultural backdrop: a finely illustrated scene with cherry blossom trees and curved-roof buildings, the kind of imagery often seen in Asian-themed slots.

Grace of Ebisu is a scatter-paying slot, meaning a win is awarded when at least 8 matching symbols appear anywhere on the grid. The playfield is 6 reels across with 5 rows on each reel. Thanks to the tumble feature, winning symbols disappear and new ones drop in from above. This can chain into multiple tumbles, stopping only when no further win is created. There are 3 ways to play Grace of Ebisu – place bets from 20 p/c to $/€100 per round, purchase free spins for 100x the bet, or enable the Ante Bet. The Ante bet raises the stake by 25% and doubles the chance of triggering the feature. All 3 options run on a default 96.5% RTP.

Pragmatic Play’s artwork gives Grace of Ebisu low-paying symbols as brushstroke-style 10-A card royals, while the 4 premium symbols are a bird, frog, fish, and a female character. An 8-9 of a kind scatter win returns 0.25 to 10 times the bet, while a 12+ scatter win pays 2 to 50 times the bet. Grace of Ebisu does not include a wild symbol.

Grace of Ebisu: Slot Features

Multiplier Symbols

Multiplier symbols can appear on any reel and may land during spins or tumbles in both the base game and free spins. When one drops in, it carries a random multiplier value of x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, x8, x10, x12, x15, x20, x25, x50, x100, x250, or x500. Once the tumbling sequence finishes, the values of all multiplier symbols on the screen are added together, and the win is multiplied by the resulting total multiplier.

Free Spins

The treasure chest scatter also appears on all reels. Landing 4, 5, or 6 of them pays 3x, 5x, or 100x the bet, respectively, and also triggers 15 free spins. In free spins, whenever a multiplier symbol lands and the spin creates a win, that multiplier is added to the total multiplier. Across the entire free spins feature, each time a new multiplier lands and a win occurs, the current total multiplier is applied to the win. Players receive 5 free extra free spins whenever 3 or more scatter symbols land during the free spins round.

Grace of Ebisu: Slot Verdict

It’s hard not to notice that Pragmatic Play has clearly found a formula it’s happy to lean on. The studio is known for keeping output high, and it surely helps to have a gameplay template that resonates—not only with the developer, but with plenty of players too. With that in place, it becomes easy to swap themes in and out, test different skins, and even tackle fairly niche subject matter for an online slot, such as Gates of Gatot Kaca, presumably while enjoying the process. These pay-anywhere slots can be exciting, but the constant cloning is starting to feel a little tired.

That also makes it difficult to say much about the core gameplay of Grace of Ebisu that hasn’t already been said repeatedly. There isn’t anything truly new here, but anyone searching for a pay-anywhere slot who’s encountering Grace of Ebisu and Pragmatic Play’s Gates-style lineup for the first time should find it a solid scatter-paying experience. The same goes for players specifically wanting a Japanese-flavoured version. Big multiplier moments are possible in Grace of Ebisu, although the x500 shouldn’t be expected to show up too often. Still, they’re in the mix, and multiplier symbols can build up their values during free spins. It’s also worth reiterating that if a multiplier symbol doesn’t land alongside a win on a free spin, the total multiplier stays inactive.

With such powerful multipliers available, you might assume Grace of Ebisu would also deliver an equally massive max win. It’s not quite as huge as you might expect, though 5,000x the bet is hardly the slot equivalent of pulling up an old boot. Overall, Grace of Ebisu delivers an enjoyable scatter-paying package, but one that’s edging close to feeling overused.