Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways (Blueprint Gaming): Review

Mixing Megaways with linked reels isn’t exactly new, and we’ve already seen it done in Big Time Gaming’s mega potential beast Queen of Riches. NetEnt’s original take, which was once among its most discussed titles, has gradually faded as players started abandoning it, claiming it began acting differently and was altered after the move to the html5 format. In fact, long forum threads across the web have debated whether it was nerfed or not.

Roughly five years after Twin Spin launched, NetEnt had an opportunity to set things straight and expand on the brand’s success, but missed the mark completely. Twin Spin Deluxe, released in 2018, ended up as a dreary medium variance 6-reel slot with cluster pays and a max win of 1000 times your stake. If you’ve been waiting for a caped saviour to bring Twin Spin into the modern age, Blueprint Gaming has stepped in to fill the gap NetEnt created with that misstep. Considering how fiercely NetEnt guards its intellectual property, though, don’t be shocked if this one eventually disappears from the market.

Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways is a 6-reel slot delivering up to 117,649 ways to win. It pairs Big Time Gaming’s popular mechanic with synced reels and includes a Mystery Symbol feature that can randomly turn every instance of that symbol into one of the standard symbols. There’s also a Mystery Spin feature where only Mystery Symbols land on the linked reels. You can play Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways on all devices from 10 cents to 10€ per spin.

Players who know the original will recognise plenty of familiar touches in Blueprint’s version. While it’s clearly a new interpretation and a strong adaptation, it’s hard to ignore how close the look and feel are—so close that it comes across less as inspiration and more as an effort to cash in on Twin Spin’s reputation. Like the original, Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways is bright and lively with a retro/classic fruit machine vibe, and even the disco-style background music is essentially a cover of Twin Spin’s theme.

The reel set features A, K, Q, J and 10 royals, alongside higher-paying cherries, lemons, grapes, oranges, and watermelons. The top payer is the lucky seven, awarding 10 times your stake for a 6-of-a-kind. There’s also a wild in the mix, which isn’t something you see all that often.

Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways (Blueprint Gaming): Features

As a Megaways title, the reel height changes every spin, with each reel randomly showing between 2 and 7 symbols. Unlike many other Megaways games, though, this one uses a set of fixed win ways (because the reels are linked), which can land on 729, 4096, 15625, 46656 or 117649 ways to win.

Blueprint Gaming clearly loves its Mystery Symbols mechanic, and you’ll get plenty of it here too. When Mystery Symbols appear, every one of them converts into a randomly selected regular symbol to boost the chances of a hit. The real star, naturally, is the linked reels mechanic—called the In Sync feature by Blueprint. When it triggers at random, up to 6 reels can spin in sync, displaying identical symbols across all connected reels. On top of that, symbols may also land super stacked. Combined with the randomly activated Mystery Spin feature, where only Mystery Symbols show up on the linked reels, it can lead to a max payout of 10,000 times your total stake.

Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways (Blueprint Gaming): Verdict

With NetEnt’s Twin Spin as its foundation, Blueprint doesn’t stretch the core concept too far, and it also avoids ruining the hook by piling on unnecessary complexity. If we were to create a Megaways edition of the original ourselves, it would look very much like this. Our main complaint is simply that it’s effectively a clone of the original—not just in how it plays, but in how it looks too—which could easily create tension between NetEnt and Blueprint.

Even though it’s an enjoyable and well-made slot overall, it still has a few small frustrations. For instance, given how often it expands to the full 117k win ways setup (more frequently than you typically see in Megaways slots), you’d expect it to deliver larger returns. Instead, you’ll quickly find yourself sighing when nothing meaningful comes from it, or worse, when symbols don’t connect despite the huge number of paylines.

When you stack up Queen of Riches, Twin Spin and Mystery Spin Deluxe Megaways—three of the best-known synced reel slots available—Queen of Riches takes the crown for us every time, as it feels more explosive, volatile, and original. That said, they’re both excellent games, and if you just want to spend some time spinning online slots, you can’t really go wrong with either. Still, we’ll have to see whether it slips through NetEnt’s team of lawyers.