Ra Unleashed

Ra Unleashed Review

Well, if Ra wasn’t unleashed from before, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun certainly is now, at least if we are to believe the title of Wishbone’s latest release, simply called Ra Unleashed. As you may expect, you’re taken once again to the land of the pharaohs, and the gold-ornamented 5x3 grid is placed in the middle of an open sky temple. Ra himself is by your side all the way, but he’s not truly unleashed until the bonus round triggers.

More about that in a second, as we’ve got to cover the basics first. You start by choosing your preferred bet level between €0.20 to €40 per spin, catering to most types of players. You win by landing at least 3 matching symbols across up to 20 paylines, starting from the leftmost reel. Ra is the top-tier symbol, followed by an eagle, a vase, a snake, the Eye of Horus, and a scroll. These premiums award between 2x and 10x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, while the royals pay between 1x and 1.5x for the same.

Ra Unleashed Slot - Reels Screen

The Ra symbol is not only the top-tier paying symbol, but also serves as the Wild symbol in Ra Unleashed. As a wild, it substitutes for any pay symbol to help complete or improve wins, and it can appear on all 5 reels. Landing a Falcon scatter symbol and a Max Win symbol on the same base game spin awards the 6,000x Ra Unleashed max win instantly, which is something to keep your eyes peeled for. Also, with a 29.54% hit rate, you can expect to win something around every 3-4 spins on average.

The base game delivers mostly smaller wins, though, as the main aim is to collect orbs that unlock different bonus round modifiers. Up to 6 unique modifiers can be unlocked, but you only get to bring 1 or 2 of them with you into the Hold & Win-style feature each time it triggers. Ra Unleashed boasts an above-average RTP of 96.37% and a max win of 6,000x your stake. However, keep in mind that this is a medium to high volatility installment, meaning bankroll fluctuations are likely.

Ra Unleashed Features

While there aren’t too many base game features to cover in Ra Unleashed Wishbone, there is plenty to dig into when it comes to the bonus round. Take a deep breath, and let’s dive in!

Scatter and Max Win Symbols

Scatter symbols can appear on any reel and may trigger the bonus round in the Ra Unleashed slot. In addition, if you land a scatter symbol together with the Max Win symbol in the base game, the game’s 6,000x win cap is awarded instantly. No other bonus features can be triggered on the spin that unlocks the max win.

Hold & Win Bonus Round

The hold and win-style Bonus Round triggers at random times when a scatter is collected either by the Ra character or by either of the Orbs above the reels. More than one scatter may be collected at the same time, adding more upgrades to the bonus round. The triggering scatter or scatters become sticky on the otherwise cleared bonus round grid, serving as the Collector symbol for the duration of the feature.

The bonus round begins with 3 respins in your counter (represented by hearts). During the respins, only Value symbols worth between 0.20x and 5x your stake and Jackpot symbols can land. Any Value or Jackpot symbols that land become sticky on the grid, resetting your respin counter to 3 each time. The Collector symbol (or symbols) collects the value of all Value and Jackpot symbols that land. The bonus round ends when the respin counter reaches zero, or when every position on the grid is filled with a Value or Jackpot symbol.

Ra Unleashed Slot - Hold & Win Bonus Round

Orb Bonus Round Modifiers

The Red and Blue Orbs above the reels that collect scatters and trigger the hold and win bonus also represent 3 unique modifiers each. These modifiers are unlocked in stages as you play the base game, and this happens via a countdown system. Each base game spin subtracts 1 point from a randomly selected Orb modifier, and the modifier is unlocked when the countdown reaches zero. Unlocked modifiers remain unlocked from that point forward.

If the bonus round triggers from a single orb, a random modifier is chosen if any of them are unlocked. If you trigger the bonus round by Ra collecting the scatter, you get a random modifier from both orbs, if indeed any are unlocked. If you trigger the bonus by both orbs collecting the scatter, you get a modifier from each orb (granted that they are unlocked). The modifiers for each orb unlock when 20, then 50, then 100 points have been subtracted.

The Red Orb Modifiers work as follows:

• Apex (20 points to unlock) - expands the bonus round grid to size 5x5.
• Surge (50 points to unlock) - boosts all Value and Jackpot symbols by x2, x3, or x5.
• Tribute (100 points to unlock) - the current value of the Collector symbol is added randomly to at least one Value or Jackpot symbol.

The Blue Orb Modifiers work as follows:

• Chaos (20 points to unlock) - rearranges the Value and Jackpot symbols to new positions when at least one new Value or Jackpot symbol lands (values are added if positions overlap).
• Echo (50 points to unlock) - spawns a temporary Collector symbol when a Value or Jackpot symbol lands, and it remains active for 1 to 3 respins before paying its value and being removed.
• Reaper (100 points to unlock) - when a Value or Jackpot symbol lands, the Collector symbol persistently collects the value from 1 to 3 randomly chosen Value or Jackpot symbols that have already been harvested.

The Mini, Minor, and Major jackpot symbols are worth 10x, 20x, or 50x your stake, while the 5,000x Grand Jackpot is awarded only if you manage to fill all positions with Value or Jackpot symbols before the bonus round ends.

Theme & Graphics

The Ra Unleashed game takes you into an ancient Egyptian temple area, with orbs rising from what appears to be a pond beneath the grid. The illuminated temple columns are engraved with mysterious hieroglyphs, and the lush palm tree foliage is creeping in under the open sky. The ripped Ra character is standing tall on the left-hand side, scepter in hand, blinking his Horus eye as red and blue orbs are collected. The soundtrack is a modernized classic Egyptian tune, and the reels are adorned with golden eagles, vases, snakes, and Ra himself as the top-tier symbol.

Ra Unleashed Free Play

Perhaps you’re eager to get your hands dirty and try the free Ra Unleashed demo after all this reading, and we hardly blame you. At least you now have a pretty good overview of what this game has to offer in the feature department, but as they say, nothing beats hands-on experience. This is why we offer Ra Unleashed free play for as long as you want here at SlotCatalog, and you’ll find the demo version of the game at the top of this review page.

Pros and Cons of Ra Unleashed

Our Verdict

Wishbone delivers a polished ancient Egypt game with Ra Unleashed, but we can’t help feeling that we’ve seen similar things countless times before. Ra is standing there with his scepter, looking mighty with his ripped body, but it all feels paper-thin and cartoonish. Everything is well-crafted, but there is still an AI vibe hanging over this game. You don’t get the sense that Wishbone has poured a lot of heart and soul into making the experience unique in the visual department, although it certainly gets the job done.

While the pace of the game is solid with the turbo switched on, you’ll soon get tired of the endless orb collection in the base game. At least I did. Orbs of different colors are flying up to be collected on every spin, once in a while interrupted by a small to mid-sized top-up win. That’s the base game in a nutshell for you, as there are no features to break up the grind. Sure, you get wild symbols that help complete some winning combos, but that’s pretty much it.

On a positive note, you can land the game’s relatively solid 6,000x max win out of the blue, thanks to the Max Win symbol feature. Let’s not forget that this requires a scatter in view as well, which may lead to heart-stopping disappointments if you land the Max Win symbol alone. Either way, it’s a nice touch that helps bring some sorely needed tension to the base game, but not enough to elevate the experience to something that can be called truly entertaining.

This brings us to the main attraction, which is somewhat of an oddball in Ra Unleashed. First, you have to grind along for a good while to unlock all the modifiers, and then, if you’re lucky, you may get to bring 2 of them with you when the feature finally triggers. I would’ve preferred at least 3 of them each time to reward me for my persistence and all 6 at best, but no. Ra runs a tight ship, it seems, and it is what it is. Patient players may enjoy the slow build-up and tedious base game of Ra Unleashed, but it will hardly be for everyone.