The team at Big Time Gaming are back with another release, and this time they’re heading
to Greece to bring🏧 us an Apollo themed game, packed with potential – Apollo Pays. With
up to 117,649 ways to win thanks to🏧 BTG‘s famed Megaways mechanic, respins, Win
Exchange™ and free spins, this highly volatile release is capable of producing wins up
🏧 to 116,030x bet, aided by a Default RTP of 96.56%. Let’s take a closer look at Apollo
and everything he🏧 has to offer…
Visually, we’re in Olympus, with a stunning neutral
town in view – or maybe it’s just a huge🏧 estate for Apollo himself. Either way, it’s
certainly soothing. There are clouds, clear blue waters glimmering in the sunlight,
bright🏧 green shrubbery, waterfalls, and mist adding to this aesthetic. The reel edges
are adorned in ornate gold tying in with🏧 the theme, and the reels themselves are a deep
navy, helping to contrast and make everything easy to see, and🏧 follow. Audios are
pleasant and calm, with harp sounds and lighter than usual reel sounds, making the
whole thing feel🏧 very light and soft.
Apollo Pays Base Features
Taking place across 6
reels, wins are formed by matching at least 3 symbols🏧 on adjacent reels, beginning with
the leftmost reel. Each reel can contain up to 7 symbols, for a combined total🏧 of
117,649 ways to win. When it comes to the payable, things are a standard Big Time
Gaming affair, with🏧 the lower end consisting of 9, 10, J, Q, K and As, paying between
0.05 and 0.15x bet for 3🏧 of a kind matches, increasing to wins between 0.20 and 0.30x
bet for 6 of a kind. At the premium🏧 end, it’s the green, blue, red and purple symbols
we would expect – this time in the form of Grecian🏧 jewels. Land 3 green or blue jewels
to see wins of 0.20x bet, increasing to 0.40x bet for 6 of🏧 a kind, whilst red jewels
pay between 0.25x bet and 0.50x bet for matches between 3 and 5 of a🏧 kind. The highest
paying purple jewel is also the only which pays for 2 of a kind, awarding wins of🏧 0.20x
bet, increasing to 5x bet for 6 of a kind. Finally, we have a rainbow Apollo wild which
can🏧 land on reels 2-5, substituting for all symbols except the golden harp
Scatter.
There’s two things to keep your eye on🏧 within Apollo Pays – respins and the
Win Exchange, but we’ll take a look at respins first. Whenever a win🏧 occurs, the
winning symbols are locked into place, surrounded by a golden glow. At this point, all
other symbols on🏧 the reels are respun. If at least 2 more symbols improve the win, they
will lock into place during the🏧 respin and 1 more respin is awarded. Respins continue
until less than 2 new symbols improve the win, at which🏧 point the win is paid.
During
respins, Scatters will be locked into place regardless of their reel placement, and new
symbols🏧 can land to form new combinations. The requirement to trigger another respin is
to have at least 2 symbols improve🏧 the overall win, rather than improve the specific
win respins started with. This means if a wild is locked into🏧 place on reel 2 with Ks
forming a win, Qs on reel 1 and 3 may lock into place on🏧 the next respin, as these will
improve the overall win awarded.
Next up it’s Win Exchange™, which Big Time Gaming
first🏧 introduced to us in Gold Megaways. With Win Exchange, whenever you win 100x bet
or more, you have the option🏧 to exchange 100x bet for 10 free spins. If you have won
more than 100x bet, only 100x bet will🏧 be exchanged, and the remainder will be added to
your free spins win.
If you win between 25 and 99x bet,🏧 you have the option to exchange
the entire win for a chance to be awarded 10 free spins – by🏧 gambling. The chance of
winning the gamble is represented by green on the wheel, and the chance of losing is
🏧 represented by red. The higher x bet the win, the more green will be present on the
wheel.
Apollo Pays Bonus
To🏧 trigger free spins naturally, you must land at least 3
Scatters – 3 Scatters will award 10 free spins, with🏧 an additional +2 free spins
awarded for each Scatter beyond the third. During free spins, things continue much the
same🏧 as within the base game, with the addition of an unlimited Win Multiplier.
Each
time a respin is triggered in free🏧 spins, the win multiplier increments by +1. The
multiplier begins at x1, and has no limit on how high it🏧 can go, however respins do
behave the same as within the base, with at least 2 symbols improving the win🏧 required
to award a respin.
Landing 3 Scatters during free spins will award an additional +4
free spins, and a further🏧 +2 free spins for each Scatter beyond the third.
First
Impression
If you’re a fan of Big Time Gaming, Apollo Pays could🏧 be calling your name –
it doesn’t get more BTG than this. On a design front, it’s clean, crisp and🏧 well
executed, but it’s nothing particularly new in terms of styling. It is the first
Grecian release we’ve seen from🏧 the team, so the elements themselves are new, but the
aesthetic and style feel like classic Big Time Gaming. There’s🏧 nothing wrong with that,
of course, but if you’ve been spending extended amounts of time playing some of the
other🏧 releases on the market packed with extreme graphics, you would be forgiven for
thinking Apollo Pays is pretty tame.
There are🏧 further new aspects for the team within
the game play, beginning with the respin feature, particularly with this being possible
🏧 in every spin within the base game and free spins round. This leads to the potential
for some pretty hefty🏧 wins, as can be seen above in our screenshot (144x in the base
game), however it can feel more difficult🏧 than one would first think. With respins
available, it feels like achieving the 25x bet necessary for Win Exchange should🏧 be
easy, but it isn’t landing as often as you imagine.
It is good to see Win Exchange
making a comeback,🏧 with my only issue being that if you bypass the 100x mark, the win
count up is also bypassed, instead🏧 taking you straight to the Win Exchange screen. This
does remove some of the excitement of seeing the win count🏧 up and wondering how far it
will go, although this blow is obviously softened by the opportunity to exchange, or
🏧 gamble, for free spins.
Free spins do what they say on the tin, taking the base game
action and elevating it🏧 with the win multiplier available, culminating in an experience
that builds the right kind of tension. There is potential for🏧 some huge wins in this
highly volatile release – up to 116,030x bet, specifically. Overall, a solid release
from the🏧 team.
*The screenshots taken of games reviewed on this site are taken from
Demo Play, as reviews are often written before🏧 games are released for real play.
