Garuda Gems

Garuda Gems Review

When playing online slots, you need all the luck you can get. PG Soft summons the powers of a divine bird in Garuda Gems, famous for its ability to bring riches and fortune to those who believe in it. The Garuda bird is a mythological creature popular across Asia, not only because it’s a bringer of luck but also for its ability to chase away bad spirits and energies. You’ll see two instances of this bird above the reels, and we’ll start by covering the basics of this slot game.

Garuda Gems plays out on a 6x5 grid with 4,096 ways to win. You win by landing matching symbols on at least 3 adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost reel. All winning symbols on each reel are multiplied together, and that sum is then multiplied by the paytable value. However, the simplest way to get the single-way total stake multiplier is to divide the paytable values by 20. The premium gemstone symbols pay between 1x and 2.5x your stake for 6 of a kind, while the royal symbols pay 0.5x to 0.6x your stake for the same.

Garuda Gems - Reels Screen

Wild symbols appear on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5, substituting for any pay symbol to help complete or improve wins. Winning symbols are removed and replaced thanks to the cascading reels feature, and this feature continues for as long as you keep landing new wins. Wild symbols are collected in the multiplier meter above the reels, with every 3 wilds collected increasing the win multiplier by +x3. The multiplier can grow indefinitely this way, boosting your total win from the cascading sequence.

The bonus round triggers from 3 scatters and comes with a win multiplier that does not reset between rounds. This means the multiplier keeps building the more wilds you collect for as long as the feature lasts. The bonus round can be retriggered. Garuda Gems is a medium volatility slot game from PG Soft, featuring an RTP of 96.76% (main game: 70.25%, free spins: 26.53%), a hit rate of 25.51%, a bet range of £0.20 to £100, and a max win of 3,136x your stake.

Garuda Gems Features

We have already presented the features in brief above, but the time has come to lay it all out for you in more detail. Before we do that, however, we would like to remind you that the Garuda Gems free play demo is available at the top of this page. Head up there after reading about the features to see them in action risk-free. Let’s get started!

Cascading Reels

Whenever you land a win, the winning symbols are removed thanks to the Cascading mechanic. The remaining symbols drop to their lowest possible position before a new batch of symbols fills any remaining gaps. This process repeats indefinitely until you land a non-winning cascade, allowing for indefinite winning streaks per round.

Multiplier

The Win Multiplier starts at x1, as displayed above the reels, and it collects all Wild symbols that land. Collecting 3 Wild symbols on the same spin or within the same cascading sequence increases the Win Multiplier to +x3. If you collect 3 more Wilds within the same cascading sequence, the Win Multiplier increases to x6. It continues to increase by +x3 for every 3 Wild symbols you collect, with no upper limit. The Win Multiplier boosts your total win at the end of the cascading sequence.

Free Spins Bonus Round

The Bonus Round triggers when you land 3 free spin scatter symbols anywhere in view on the same base game spin or within the same cascading sequence. You can retrigger the bonus round the same way, which awards +10 additional free spins. The wild collection multiplier feature works the same as in the base game, but with the important difference that it does not reset between rounds. The bonus round hit rate is 1 in 222 spins.

Theme & Graphics

Garuda Gems features the standard mobile-first approach PG Soft is known for, and it’s focused on a bird with divine powers according to Asian mythology. It’s referred to as Karura in Japanese and Galon or Nan Belu in Burmese, and it’s a bringer of wealth and good fortune as well as a cleanser of negative energies. Deep indigo tapestry patterned with ornate floral motifs frames the backdrop as well as the area surrounding the multiplier, flanked by the Garuda bird on either side. Look closely, and you’ll see it floating slowly up and down. The grid is filled with emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and topazes cut into geometric shapes, as well as the usual royal card ranks.

Garuda Gems Free Play

Garuda Gems - Free Spins Win Screen

You can play the free Garuda Gems demo right here on this page. Simply head up to the top, and you will find it there below a brief intro summing up the game. We recommend that you read our verdict below first, though, as this will give you food for thought. You can then see what you think of the game and leave a comment in the comments field telling us your opinion. A proper Garuda Gems free play session allows you to sample the features and see the multiplier in action. If the game gives you a taste for more, casinos carrying the title are found right below the demo game.

Pros and Cons of Garuda Gems

Our Verdict

PG Soft continues to churn out mobile-friendly slots, but the Asian mythology theme of this game is not your typical opulent gold and red-infused experience. The presentation is clean and polished, as usual, but the backstory of the fortune-bringing bird adds a dash of exoticism and depth to the game. It might not entice Western players with no interest in folklore and myths, and PG Soft is clearly aiming to mainly please the Asian market with this release. It should have a broad appeal over there, given the bird's popularity across different countries.

The first thing I noticed after the visual impression had settled was the soundtrack. It’s not your typical Oriental tune, perhaps, but it flows smoothly in the ear canal like a buoyant stream dancing across sunlit rocks. The gameplay has an equally satisfying rhythm with the turbo switched on, broken only by cascading sequences where winning symbols go poof as wilds are collected in the multiplier meter. It’s admittedly an unusual way to increase the multiplier, but kudos to PG Soft for coming up with something new.

In my experience, this multiplier system works quite well once you get used to it. Whenever wilds land, your chances of winning increase, which again fuels a new cascade with potentially more wilds to be collected and fill the meter. I also like that the meter increases by +x3 each time you collect 3 wilds, which can deliver solid boosts if you hit a lengthy cascade with plenty of wilds. Sometimes, the final wild you need to get a boost appears on the round-ending non-winning cascade, which feels like a saving grace each time it happens.

The bonus round may be too similar to the base game for some players, but it comes with the all-important upgrade of a non-resetting win multiplier. The more wilds you land, the more it increases, building towards a climactic finish. Sadly, PG Soft continues to advertise bloated win caps instead of being honest about the game’s true potential. The 3,136 max win is decent for a medium volatile slot, so why not just be frank about it? Anyway, Garuda Gems is an okay game for some on-the-go fun, but it may be too mythology-heavy for some players.