Everything has a yin and a yang, or polar opposite, throughout the cosmos, as stated by the Law of Polarity. In addition, as stated in the ancient treatise known as the Kybalion, “opposites are identical in nature but different in degree, opposites meet, extremes meet, all truths are but half-truths, and all paradoxes may be reconciled.” The antithesis of Play’n GO’s Moon Princess is their Sisters of the Sun. More commonalities than differences exist between the two games. The changes to the game’s concept and a few of its features have quadrupled its winning potential compared to the original.
Sisters of the Sun is set in one of the sunniest places on Earth; the sun being the polar opposite of the moon. Sisters Sekhmet, Hathor, and Bastet, all daughters of the Sun God Ra, tell their story on the scorching dunes of ancient Egypt. The game is played on a 5×5 grid, and a winning combination is made when three or more identical symbols appear next to one another in a horizontal or vertical line. You’re probably aware that Egypt is a popular subject, yet the Egyptian setting in Sisters of the Sun is a little different from what you’d expect. The Pyramids are visible, but the sky changes from cloudy to looking like a scorching canyon on Mars. It’s not as much of a blast as Moon Princess’s silly anime vibe, but it’s still a unique take on the classic grid slot format.
Play’n GO has tweaked the mathematical model and reworked the visuals to maximize the game’s potential. The standard return to player is 96.2%, which is little lower than Moon Princess, but the volatility is still rather high at 8 out of 10. Keep in mind that RTP is market-dependent and, as a result, may be significantly lower than the standard setting. Slots may be played for as little as 20 cents per spin up to £/€100.
The paytable has seven symbols that pay out, plus a wild and a scatter. At the bottom end of the wage scale, you’ll find items like leaves, kittens, jewelry, and snakes. The three premium symbols—Bastet, Hathor, and Sekhmet—are each worth 10 times the wager for a line of five. If any of the characters line up, you can win up to five times your wager if you used a premium that was not a multiple of five.
The twin snaked wilds symbol is much more valuable, paying out 30 times the wager for five of a kind. In addition to being the highest paying tile, the wild may also replace any other symbol on the board. Only the cascading feature explained below can generate wilds.
Slot Features in “Sisters of the Sun”
Sisters of the Sun often offers qualities that are analogous to those found in Moon Princess. There are no carbon copies, yet the alterations can produce vastly improved returns. When a player gets a winning line, the symbols in that line vanish from the grid and the ones below them drop down, giving them a chance to form fresh winning lines. As long as fresh successes are achieved, the cascading effect will persist.
After a removal of 3 symbols, a wild symbol will replace the middle symbol. If the entire grid is emptied of symbols, you’ll receive a payout equal to 50 times your wager (unless you triggered the Sisterhood feature, which is discussed below) times the current win multiplier.
The Eye of Ra appears in five different spots on the grid at random after each spin. The win multiplier is increased by one if a victory occurs over an eye location. The win multiplier in the base game starts again after every paid spin.
The next feature is called Goddess Power, and it appears on losing spins at random. Any time one of the sisters is shown on screen, she begins using her editing skills:
Sekhmet – change a group of symbols of one type into another.
Hathor — creates one or two extra wilds in the board.
Bastet omits two distinct kinds of symbols from the board.
Don’t lose sight of the illuminated scroll. This is the scatter, and getting even one of these will activate the Sisterhood bonus. The winnings multiplier is reset and the player receives one free spin. Until all three goddesses have activated their modifier, the Sisterhood feature will grant a Goddess Power for every non-winning symbol drop. In addition, free games are activated when the grid is cleared when this function is active.
Players can start with 4, 5, or 8 initial free spins depending on whether they select Sekhmet, Hathor, or Bastet before the bonus begins. In Moon Princess, the risk/reward of the choice with fewer spins is greater, and vice versa. The Sisterhood feature’s win multiplier persists until the feature’s conclusion. Additionally, the number of Eyes of Ra employed has increased to 10. No matter which goddess is choose, her influence will be activated after every losing spin. The scatter symbol still remains, and it offers 4, 3, or 2 more free spins, up to a maximum of 150, whether it appears during the Sekhmet, Hathor, or Bastet bonus round.
Judgment of the Slot Sisters
Sisters of the Sun has a lot going on, and it can get absurdly frantic at times, much more so than the original did thanks to the improvements. Some players may like the increased difficulty and volatility of Sisters of the Sun as a result of the improvements, while others may prefer the technically’softer’ choice of Moon Princess, despite the fact that both games have very identical mechanics.
Getting access to bonus spins might be difficult. Previously, this could be done whenever in Moon Princess, but now it can only be done by clearing the grid during the Sisterhood feature. Outside the Sisterhood, clearing the grid is a consolation reward. However, this has been lowered from 200x the stake during Moon Princess’ free spins to just 50x the bet.
Sisters of the Sun is more challenging to get going due to rule modifications like these and the requirement of Eyes of Ra to boost the multiplier, but once it does, it will power past Moon Princess and leave it in the dust. First, the maximum number of free spins you may win has been increased from 20 to 150, and the previous limit of x20 on multipliers for free spin wins has been removed. As a result of these alterations, the maximum payout has increased to 15,000 times the player’s wager, or three times as many princesses.
Play’n GO has upped the stakes for Sisters of the Sun, but that doesn’t mean it has to replace Moon Princess. Bandai, Moon Sailor, and shojo manga mixed in one, the original combined wild action with an equally out there premise. Sisters of the Sun may appeal to a different sort of player, one who is looking for a more difficult game with the chance of bigger payouts if and when the game accelerates out of second gear.