Holiday Spirits Slot Review

Where To Play Holiday Spirits

Holiday Spirits is a new video slot from Play’n Go that’s released just in time for Christmas 2024! I’ve spent quite a lot of time reviewing Christmas slots already this year, they’re all the rage at online and mobile slots sites at the moment. And while Holiday Spirits isn’t the best I’ve looked at, it certainly offers up quite a unique experience.

In this Holiday Spirits slot review I’m going to be taking a look at what you can expect when trying the slot out for yourself. I’ll also show you how I landed a big win of 6,000 Euros while I was testing the game!

The first thing I noticed – and the first thing I’m sure you’ll notice – is that, as is all too often the case with Play’n Go’s slots, Holiday Spirits is impeccably designed. The graphics are stunning, and the reels are set on a beautiful Christmas scene with a log fire burning to the right-hand-side and a well-decorated Christmas tree placed on the left.

Holiday Spirits is built around a 3-reel, 3-row format – so it’s pretty old school at first glance. There’s also only 5 fixed paylines, adding to the retro nature of the game, and the default RTP is 96.54%; I say default, because Play’n Go offers online casinos the ability to take their slots with different RTP settings. Let’s kick off this Holiday Spirits review with a look at how to actually play the game!

How To Play

Like all Play’n Go slots, Holiday Spirits makes it incredibly easy for you to select the size of your stake, and this is done from the bottom of the screen where you’ll see a scrolling selection of all the bet options available to you. I should point out that Holiday Spirits can be played from between 0.10 and 100 credits per spin, so you shouldn’t have any issues finding a stake size that works for you!

To the right-hand-side of the bet selection menu you’ll see a giant green button. This is the game’s “Spin” button, and once you’ve selected your desired stake you simply need to hit this button to get started!

You’ll also notice a small yellow circular button to the right-hand-side of the green spin button. This is where you’ll find Holiday Spirits’ autoplay function, and this lets you set up to 100 spins to play-out automatically.

Players from outside the UK will also be able to utilise a quickspin function; this is activated by pressing the lightning bolt icon in the bottom left-hand-corner of the screen, and it’s used to decrease the amount of time it takes between spins.

Symbols and Payouts

All of the symbols you’ll find in Holiday Spirits are custom-built for the game, and they’re also all, thankfully, theme-specific. This means that you’ll see a variety of Christmas-y icons, including Snow Globes, Candy Canes, Stockings, and a Christmas Wreath. These are all the game’s lower-paying symbols.

The higher-paying symbols are the four ghosts of Christmas past (yes, Play’n Go has opted to slightly “switch up” the conventional tale), and the best-paying of these is Jacob Marley himself. Landing a 3-of-a-kind combo of Marley will award a payout worth 4X your stake – so it’s pretty low considering it’s the game’s top-paying symbol!

There’s also a wild symbol, and this is represented by Scrooge himself. He substitutes for all other symbols in the game, and he’s also worth quite a decent amount on his own, awarding a payout of 16X your stake for lining up a 3-of-a-kind combo. What’s more, the wild symbol is stacked across all three reels, so it is, technically, possible to land a full screen of wilds.

Bonus Features

Despite Holiday Spirits being a fairly retro-looking slot, Play’n Go has decided to incorporate a wide variety of modern-day bonuses and features into the game – and, in my opinion, this is a “saving grace” for the slot, as it makes it actually pretty enjoyable to play.

Clock Multiplier Bonus

The first bonus to be aware of is the Clock Multiplier bonus round. Above the reels, during the base-game, you’ll notice that a clock sits in place. On any random spin, this Clock can ‘come to life’, and when it does, a multiplier of 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X or 10X becomes active. This multiplier is then applied to any wins that are formed on that spin.

Look next to the clock and you’ll also notice Ebenerzer’s Gift. When the Clock Multiplier feature is activated, this can too light up – and when it comes, it increases the size of the multiplier, up to a maximum of 20X – so if you can trigger both of these features at the same time, it can be a pretty decent win.

Win Spins

The crux of Holiday Spirits is found within the so-called Win Spins, and during the base-game, when two reels are stacked with the same symbols – on a non-winning spin – the Win Spins are activated. It’s a similar bonus triggering mechanic to the one we see in some of Elk Studios’ 3X3 games like Ivanhoe and Route 66.

Once triggered, the stacked reels are locked in place, and you will then be awarded one of the three following Win Spins:

• Win Spins of Christmas Future: this feature is activated by the 2X multiplier, and when awarded, you’ll get re-spins, which continue until a win hits. Each time one of the re-spins plays out and doesn’t result in a win, the multiplier is increased – and this can increase up to a maximum of 10X.
• Wins of Christmas Present: this feature is activated by a 3X, 4X or 5X multiplier, and, like the previous bonus round, it awards you a re-spin which guarantees a win at the multiplier that triggered the feature.
• Wins of Christmas Past: this is the most frustrating of the three bonuses and features, in my opinion, and that’s because while it begins at a 10X multiplier – the multiplier decreases every time there’s a non-winning spin. However, you are guaranteed a win when the lowest multiplier is reached.

Jackpot and How To Win

Despite being a pretty retro-looking game – and being built around a 3X3 format – Holiday Spirits offers some surprisingly decent win-potential. You’ll find yourself able to win as much as 1,600X your stake.

Now, I know; that doesn’t sound like a lot – but when you consider that there are only three reels and three rows – and there’s not even a ‘proper’ bonus round, I think it’s fairly decent from Play’n Go.

I’d only been playing for around 5 minutes – less than 20 spins in fact – when I landed the Win Spins of Christmas Future feature as shown above. Combined with a 10x multiplier, it resulted in this lovely little 6,000 Euro payout.

Naturally, hitting this maximum win of 1,600X your stake is a totally different story – and you’re going to need the stars to align in order for you to have a chance at doing so! But when you land a few big wins like this one, which was easy to trigger and came very quickly when I played, it can soon add up.

To get anywhere near it, you’d need to get the 20X multiplier active in the base-game and land a full screen of wilds – but this won’t actually hit the maximum win cap. In order to do so, you’ll need to land multiple full screens of wilds during one of the re-spin features – so don’t expect to see wins that big very often!

Software

Truth be told, I find it really hard to find any major issues with Play’n Go’s software – and that goes for their games on both desktop and mobile devices. For example, when I was putting this Holiday Spirits slot review together I tried out the slot extensively from my Android mobile phone, and I didn’t run into any problems playing the slot; the graphics rendered fine, there was no lag between spins, and I found it relatively easy to select how much I wanted to bet on every spin.

The only small complaint I had is that, if you press too quickly, an annoying popup comes up asking if you’d like to enable quickspin mode. However, this is being slowly phased out of all UK-facing video slots, so it shouldn’t be a problem for much longer. 

A final note of Play’n Go’s software; Holiday Spirits, like many of their slots, renders in full HD, so it can get a little CPU-intensive. I’d also recommend trying to always play through a WIFI connection if available, as this will ensure the fastest-possible data transfer and will enable you to enjoy spinning the reels of the slot without having to worry about getting disconnected.

Summary

While Holiday Spirits may not be the high-variance monster slot that many players are, today, looking for, it’s a nice little Christmas-y slot to try out, and I really like how relaxed and laid-back the game is. I particularly like the fact that you’re able to stake so little – just 0.10 credits per spin – and this ensures that players on all budgets can enjoy the slot’s action.

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The lack of a main free-spins bonus round may put a number of players off playing Holiday Spirits, but the Win Spins feature appears to trigger fairly frequently – and this means you can enjoy relatively consistent features, albeit low-paying ones.

All in all, Holiday Spirits is a decent effort for Play’n Go, and if you’re looking for a chilled out, laid-back slot to play this Christmas, it’s well-worth trying it out for yourself!

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Last Updated on March 16, 2021