Grand Monarch review

As one of the more popular releases by IGT, the Grand Monarch does leave everyone with the impression of being in the presence of a royal. Nonetheless, considering the fact that its name is inspired by a type of butterfly typical for the North American region, players are likely to be better of searching for Nature’s regal on the slot’s reels.

Theme and Storyline

The name itself is directly indicative of the theme, which aims to celebrate Nature among an online, fully digital casino gambling environment. While it contrasts the greater portion of the lot, it has still managed to attract enough player audience to remain a desirable addition to any online casino’s game selection.

If you ask me, it probably would have achieved it anyway, considering its visually appealing exterior, caterpillar-butterfly implied transformation and the rather satisfactory underlying rewarding potential.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

Regarding the slot’s visual aspect as its primary contact point with a potential player, it is important to emphasize the Grand Monarch’s depiction of nature. Its 5x3 reel grid is set against a forest-like backdrop, decorated by flowers, trees and watery mist. The animations on the reels are rather straightforward, including the standard spinning reels and payline triggers. However, they feature a much greater colour palette which changes between the base game and the bonus free spins round, and the Stacked Wild animation, you will learn more about in the below paragraphs.

Gameplay

Players who love Nature and the outdoors will be most appealed to try this slot’s gameplay, but they would still expect to get their money’s worth. For this purpose, the IGT team of developers have constructed the slot’s grid with a range of flowers where the Grand Monarch butterfly could possibly stand – sunflower, zinnia, gladiolus and lotus flower. Other than these symbols, which offer the higher payouts on the slot’s grid, players can also encounter the lower value symbols – 9, 10, J, Q, K and A.

The Grand Monarch butterfly is present itself as part of the gameplay, triggering the highest payout of 1000x bet per line for five on a payline. This symbol further functions as the Wild of the slot, and the caterpillar – the Scatter.

Bonus features

IGT titles, much like this one, feature more or less the same bonus feature pattern, and this title only slightly differs from the rest. Namely, the connection of the caterpillar and the butterfly symbol only go so far, as the former acts as a Scatter – 3 such Scatters on reels 2, 3 and 4 will trigger the Free Spins bonus feature. This awards 5 freebies to the respective player, as well as the option to get this bonus retriggered by landing another 3 Scatter caterpillars during these spins, up to 255 free spins maximum.

As for the Grand Monarch butterfly Wild symbol, it substitutes for the flowers and the cards in order to build the most rewarding combinations. It can be stacked for greater payout potential across the maximum of 50 potential paylines.

Bet size and payouts

The Grand Monarch is rather straightforward in the maximum win it provides to the player pool – 25,000,000 coins is the amount at which winning at the Grand Monarch has been capped. With the coin size ranging from as $0.01 to $50, players are bound to have enough freedom to specify the amount that best suits their online staking exploits.

RTP and Variance

As for the RTP percentage, this slot title by IGT is estimated at an approximately 95%, i.e. 94.97% to be most precise. With a low to medium variance, it may rank lower than other slot titles in the industry, but still offers players significant chances at winning payouts.

Conclusion

To sum up, the Grand Monarch has managed to introduce a portion of Nature into the virtual casino lobbies of all the platforms that include the title in their offering. Judging by its entertaining visual effects and elements, as well as the rewarding features, it is likely to stay within these game selections for some time more.