Perfect Gems (Play’n GO): Review

With their trademark devil-may-care approach, Play’n GO has kept the entertainment coming this year, and with the Starblast controversy still fresh, it wouldn’t be surprising if more headlines followed as the studio gets ready to launch Perfect Gems—essentially a Bonanza clone that uses an in-house spin on the well-known Megaways-style engine. Rather than taking the expected route and securing a Megaways license from Big Time Gaming like most others, Play’n GO has opted for a far cheaper alternative. It’s a daring decision, but one that could easily backfire.

The theme is a little tricky to pin down precisely, but you won’t be trudging through a mine, and you definitely won’t be subjected to Nik’s (CEO of BTG) relentless—yet undeniably brilliant—banjo loop. Instead, the presentation leans more baroque and slightly whimsical. With 6 reels plus a horizontal reel above them, the game can deliver up to 21,609 ways to win when the reels are fully expanded. There’s also a Win Multiplier mechanic where every win cascade boosts the multiplier, and it works in both the base game and the free spins feature, where unlimited retriggers are possible. The game is available on all devices with stakes ranging from 20 cents to 100 Euros per spin.

Perfect Gems carries a traditional vibe and seems to be set in a kind of workshop environment that could easily belong to the English Renaissance era. On the reels you’ll find A to 9 card suit symbols alongside higher-paying pink, green, yellow and blue gems, with the blue gem being the top payer, awarding 25 times your stake for 6 of a kind. There’s also a wild, but it only appears on the top horizontal reel, where it does the standard substitution job.

Perfect Gems (Play’n GO): Features

What Big Time Gaming labels Megaways, Play’n GO calls Payways, and while the resemblance is obvious, the underlying system in Perfect Gems isn’t quite as simple. In this setup, the 1st and 6th reels are locked at 3 symbols, while the middle reels are variable and can expand to 4 symbols. Thanks to the Horizontal Reel feature, those middle reels can grow to as much as 7 symbols high when a symbol on the horizontal reel aligns with—and matches—the symbol directly beneath it, causing it to split into two. When everything is fully expanded, you can access 21,609 ways to win.

Keep an eye on the Win Multiplier shown in the top left corner: it rises by 1 with every win cascade as winning symbols disappear and new ones drop in. Once a cascade stops producing a win, the multiplier resets.

The main attraction is the Perfect Gems Free Spins feature—hit 3, 4, 5 or 6 scatter symbols anywhere to trigger 9, 15, 21 or 27  spins respectively. The standard scatter is replaced by the Spin scatter, which adds 2 extra spins to your total each time it shows up on the reels. There’s no cap on retriggers. The Win Multiplier also applies during free spins, and whatever multiplier is active when the feature is triggered carries over into it. Here, the multiplier never resets and can only increase.

Perfect Gems (Play’n GO): Verdict

Perfect Gems is another Play’n GO release surrounded by controversy, and it’s unlikely to sit well with Big Time Gaming, whose Megaways engine has been widely and successfully licensed. For the reasons above, it’s a slightly uncomfortable game to assess, because at its core it’s such an obvious copy of Bonanza, even if the developers have tried to disguise that fact with a few gameplay adjustments and tweaks.

Setting the industry politics aside, Perfect Gems is clearly a strong slot: it looks sharp, plays smoothly, and delivers plenty of excitement and upside. With high variance, it offers wins of up to 5000 times your stake in both the base game and the free spins feature. Now it’s simply a question of whether Play’n GO can pull off the Perfect Crime (pun not intended).