Whenever I come across a game such as Cleopatra Megaways – made by one developer whilst also incorporating the Megaways mechanic from Big Time Gaming – I can’t help but wonder how much profit can be left for the primary developer once all the bills are paid. You might expect the RTP to take a hit in such a situation, but that still stands at 96% – bang on the industry average. As with most Megaways games, up to 117,649 payways are available to score a prize, with the maximum win coming in at 10,000x bet.
Most of the features from the original have been brought back for this 2023 refresh, but iSoftBet has wisely decided to add a few new tricks to its repertoire as well. There are four modifiers which can add additional wilds, mystery symbols, or scatters to the reels, as well as iSoftBet’s traditional ‘max Megaways’ modifier. The main bonus round is a three-spin feature with lots of potential for a big win, but as this is a very volatile game, you can expect the outcome of most bonus rounds to be relatively low. The reels used in the bonus round include four special symbols which work similarly to those in Relax’s Money Train slots, although you’ll be lucky to see them during most sessions – I barely hit any of them at all whilst testing the game for this review!
Do you remember the original Cleopatra online slot? The game holds a fair bit of nostalgic appeal for me – if you’re the same, then I’m sure you’ll be eager to try our free demo slot of Cleopatra Megaways – available to play below:
| Provider | iSoftbet |
| Reels | 6 |
| Rows | 7 |
| Paylines | 117,649 |
| Bonus Rounds | 1 |
| Bet Range | 0.20 - 20 |
| Volatility | High |
| Max Win | 10,000x |
| Bonus Buy | No |
| RTP | 96.00% |
| Our Rating | 7.0 |
Cleopatra Megaways Slot Casino Bonuses
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Cleopatra Megaways Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
I don’t think you’ll need many guesses regarding the theme of Cleopatra, will you? This is obviously another Ancient Egypt-themed online slot, adding to our rapidly growing library of similar machines. As such, you’ll find plenty of period-accurate imagery splashed on the reels, including tablets filled with hieroglyphs, scarab beetles, and of course, the great Queen herself. Most of these symbols have been ported over directly from the original game, ignoring the updates made in Cleo II – a game that never really seemed to find any traction online, despite being extremely popular on the casino floor.
The huge number of payways offered in Megaways games doesn’t leave developers a great deal of room when deciding how much each combination should pay. The highest-paying symbol of the bunch here is the golden tablet, which has a return of 50x the total stake for a complete payway of six of a kind. That’s a whole lot better than the Eye of Ra, which awards just 7.5x your bet for all six symbols, which is again much better than the 2x payout attached to the Scarab beetles. The final ‘high paying’ symbol is a pair of fans which pay 1.75x the current bet for a full payway, with the remainder of the table consisting of three pairs of royals. Six aces or kings will get you 1.5x your bet back, whilst the queens/jacks and tens/nines offer just 1x or 0.8x, respectively.
iSoftBet still uses a ‘coin value’ system for determining stakes in their games, which somewhat limits your options. The minimum/maximum coin sizes offered in Cleopatra Megaways are €0.01 and €1.00, respectively, resulting in total bet sizes of €0.20 and €20.00.
Base Game & Modifiers
If you’ve played one Megaways machine, you’ve more or less played them all as far as their base games are concerned. Some include an additional horizontal reel, but iSoftBet hasn’t bothered with that little quirk for this release. Instead, each of the six main reels divides between two and seven segments during each game round, meaning you can still have up to 117,649 Megaways on a particularly lucky spin. However, more payways don’t mean much if you don’t hit any wins on them, and the game’s four modifiers certainly help in that regard.
Cleopatra Modifiers
Whenever a single scatter symbol lands anywhere on the reels, there is a chance that one of four modifiers could trigger on the next spin:
- Wild Add: Adds between two and five wild symbols in random positions.
- Mystery Symbols: Adds a random number of mystery symbols to the reels, eventually transforming them into one symbol chosen randomly from the paytable. If that’s a high-paying symbol, you’re in for a good time!
- Max Megaways: Guarantees that the current game round will land with seven rows on all six reels – this doesn’t guarantee that you will win anything, at least not according to the paytable. However, I always seemed to hit at least something whenever I saw this modifier activate.
- Bonus Add: Just like the earlier ‘wild add’ modifier, this one will add a random number of bonus symbols to the reels, improving your odds of triggering the Hold & Win bonus round on the current spin.
Cleopatra Megaways Slot Bonus Features
There’s quite a bit to unpack regarding the bonus round of Cleopatra Megaways, but getting there can be quite a challenge – you’ll need to hit a massive five scatter symbols to trigger the re-spins, which is quite an ask on a game with just six reels!
Hold & Win Respins Feature
Congratulations if you made it this far – all you need to do now is beat some insurmountable odds and come out on top! I hope your triggering spin had lots of Megaways available, too, as the structure of the playfield is carried across directly to the feature. This has a significant effect on your chance of having a successful bonus round, in my experience – the more payways, the better!
Each symbol that lands in this mode can have a random cash value attached to it of between 1x and 10x the current stake or can also be worth one of four jackpot prizes. These jackpots are fixed amounts, set at 20x (MINI), 100x (MINOR), 500x (MAJOR), and 2,000x (GRAND). Filling any of the six reels with symbols during the re-spins feature will apply the multiplier shown at the bottom of that reel to all the cash values you have previously collected above it. Filling the entire screen will instantly award the GRAND jackpot.
The game includes four ‘reel boosters’ to help you win big during this feature, but unfortunately, they only show up rarely. There’s a 2x multiplier, but this only doubles the value of any prizes you have won on the reels directly adjacent to it. The collector symbol will round up all of your current winnings and sum them up, effectively doubling the value of your current win. The extra life symbol gives you four chances to land new symbols before the feature ends rather than the three you are given initially, whilst the expansion symbol will add an extra row to the current reel.
Pros
- A classic theme that is likely to be remembered – and therefore, likely tried – by many players.
- Lots of modifiers and special symbols during the bonus round.
Cons
- The special symbols that can land during the bonus feel too difficult to hit – I barely saw any of them, despite playing more than two dozen features over a couple of hours of play.
Final Thoughts
As we’ve discussed, there are far too many negatives to Cleopatra Megaways for it to be a big success, in my opinion. This is a real shame, as iSoftBet was on the right track here. My views as yours, though, are purely subjective, so you might think this is an absolute winner. Sadly for me, though, I'll stick to the original.
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