Sakura Fortune Epic Bloom Demo: The Princess Back on 40 Lines

One fan on reel 5 decides which free spins you get

The Princess Wild is a 4x1 symbol, a whole reel tall, and the rules count her as a Wild and a Bonus symbol at once. Three of any mix of Princesses and pink Bonus fans start 8 Free Spins, four start 12 and five 16.

The red Super Bonus fan reroutes that count. It can only stop on reel 5, and with two or more Princesses or Bonus fans elsewhere on the board it opens Epic Bloom Free Spins in place of the regular round. Quickspin's sheet credits 2.65% of the RTP to that round and 37.97% to the regular one, without saying how often either comes. In our log the Super Bonus landed on spins 104 and 162, each time with no Bonus fan or Princess on the reels, and paid nothing.

A single full Princess is now enough for a respin

When a Princess lands only partly in view she may nudge to fill her reel. A full Princess, landed or nudged, gives 1 Sakura Fortune Respin with her reel held, and every new full Princess during it adds one more. In our log she covered each of the five reels at least once, where the 2017 game kept her to reels 2 to 4.

This is where our session earned its money. Respins followed 24 base spins, with 15 nudges spread over 14 spins, and those respin rounds paid €146.10, 50% of everything returned. Our best spin, 105, nudged two Princesses onto reels 2 and 3 for two respins: 20.1x on the opening spin, then 10.7x and 18.5x, 49.3x in all.

Wild multipliers, a gamble on the spin count, and the Full Blossom stop

Epic Bloom Free Spins play like the regular round with one addition. Whenever a Princess covers a whole reel, a multiplier of 2x, 3x, 5x or 100x is drawn for that spin and its respin, and a new Princess during the respin can only keep or raise it. The rules give no weights, so how often the 100x appears is not published.

Any of that is cut at 10,000x. Reaching that total triggers Full Blossom, which pays the cap and ends the round on the spot. Quickspin's sheet puts it at about once in 11.3 million spins and a win of 100x or more at 1 in 636.

Before either round starts, a trigger short of the top count comes with an offer, and in the demo that includes a bought round. Free Spins started by three or four symbols can be gambled up to 16, and so can Epic Bloom started by the Super Bonus with two or three. The gamble only raises the count inside the same round: it cannot turn Free Spins into Epic Bloom or back. No odds are printed.

Three Bonus fans started each of our two bonuses. Both times the server offered to gamble the 8 spins, and we collected. Each new Princess added one free spin as well as a respin, a step the rules screens leave out. Spin 179 ran to 10 free spins with two respins and paid 17x, 18.5x with the trigger's own line wins. Spin 232 held a Princess on reel 4 from free spin 2 onwards, ran to 9 and paid 8x.

58.4% back from a cold run, half of it through respins

Over 500 paid spins at €1.00 we staked €500.00 and got €292.00 back. Wins landed on 130 spins, with a median of 0.65x, and at worst 21 spins in a row paid nothing.

• 500paid demo spins at €1.00
• 26%of them paid something
• 49.3xbest single spin
• 2free spins bonuses triggered

The balance never climbed back to €5,000.00 after the first spin. It bottomed at €4,767.80 on spin 486, and a 34.2x respin round one spin later was the last big win before it finished on €4,792.00. Neither bonus came close to the best base spin: the two free spins rounds brought back 9% of our return, while the sheet credits them with 42% of the RTP.

€80 for three fans, €160 for the Super Bonus

The cheaper card starts Free Spins with three Bonus symbols; the dearer one starts Epic Bloom with two or more Bonus symbols plus the Super Bonus. Quickspin adds that some markets do not get every buy level.

In a separate media session we bought the cheaper card at €1.00. Three Bonus fans landed, and before a single free spin the bamboo screen offered to gamble the 8 spins for 12; we pressed COLLECT.

Otherwise the round ran like the natural ones. Princess Wilds took reels 2 and 4, each with +1 FREE SPINS on screen, and stayed until the end.

In all it returned €9.00, the bought spin's €0.60 included, 9x the stake against an 80x price. One bought round proves nothing about the buy's value, and neither card has a published RTP.

Extra Bet is the other lever. Quickspin prices it at 2x the bet, so it doubles the base-game stake (the switch shows +€1 at ours), and raises the chance of Princess Wilds and so of both rounds. None of our 500 logged spins used it.

The third Sakura Fortune, and the first with two rounds to buy

Quickspin has released three Sakura Fortune slots. The 2017 Sakura Fortune shares the 5x4 board and 40 lines, but keeps the Princess to reels 2 to 4, needs two full stacks for a respin and has no buy. Its sheet gives 96.58% and volatility 4.83, the demo server a 1,182.5x largest win.

In April 2022, Sakura Fortune 2 went to 576 ways with Sword Scatters, three buys from 55x and a 19,664.8x top win at 96.03%.

Epic Bloom returns to lines, keeps the top volatility rating and takes a lower ceiling, 10,000x as a hard cap. The gamble and Extra Bet are new to the series. It suits players who want the old respin rhythm with a chance of a multiplied round, while Sakura Fortune 2 keeps the biggest top win.

• Sticky Bandits Thunder Rail review
• Sakura Fortune review
• Sticky Bandits Unchained review

Four more things to know before the blossoms fall

Each answer was checked against the help screens, the game sheet, Quickspin's web page or our log.