Updated
Lisa Michaels
Quickspin’s Crystal Queen is based on the magical Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Snow Queen.” It transports you to a beautiful, snowy land to meet the titular queen and play for cash prizes. But there are some fun features to unlock along the way, too.
Such as? You can reveal three extra frozen rows with the Swooping Reels feature, pick up more wins with Spreading Wilds, and play with 56 paylines in the Free Spins Bonus!
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Crystal Queen has an unusual layout: 5 reels with six rows, but only the lower three are available from the start. The upper three are frozen and only thaw when you land a winning combination. The maximum number of paylines is 56.
Like other Quickspin slots, Crystal Queen has a clean and simple user interface. The controls are below the reels, with a Spin button, Autoplay button, Fast Play button, and buttons for adjusting your stake. The Menu button opens the paytable.
Crystal Queen has nine regular symbols, and all of them only award small payouts (sadly). Four symbols feature characters from the Snow Queen: Gerda, Kai, the Snow Queen, and Bae, the reindeer.
The lowest-paying symbols are royals. The 10, J, and Q pay up to 1.20x your stake, while the K and A offer up to 1.60x.
Bae, Kai, and Gerda award up to 2.40x, 3x, and 4x your bet, respectively. But at the top of the paytable, the Snow Queen pays up to 5x your stake.
A Wild, Spreading Wild, and Free Spin Bonus Scatter can all land on any spin too.
You can build winning combinations across active paylines with three, four, or five matching symbols.
I was impressed by the range of bonuses in Crystal Queen, especially the Swooping Reels feature. Let’s find out how they work.
The regular Wild symbol can land on reels 4 and 5 in the base game and on reels 1, 2, 4, and 5 in the Free Spins Bonus. It can stand in for all regular symbols to complete winning lines.
The Spreading Wild adds between one and five extra Wilds in random spots adjacent to it. These substitute for all symbols except the Free Spin Bonus Scatter.
The Swooping Reel feature triggers on all winning spins. The winning symbols vanish, and symbols from above fall in to replace them. New wins are added to the current win, and the feature retriggers. It only ends when no new winning combos form.
On top of that, each consecutive swoop unfreezes a new row on the grid and adds 12 more paylines.
All new rounds start with an x1 multiplier. But each consecutive swoop increases the win multiplier to boost your payouts (x5 max).
Get three or more Free Spin Bonus Scatters to win ten free spins. All six rows and 56 paylines are in play from the start of the feature. Winning combinations pay from left to right and vice versa until the round ends, too.
I was disappointed to find that Crystal Queen’s max win is capped at 829x your bet. That’s incredibly low, and there are countless other slots with far bigger payouts on offer.
The Return to Player (RTP) for Crystal Queen is 96.16%, so it’s only a little over the average (96%), and the volatility is medium. I won several times when testing the game and managed to unlock all six rows (but not for long).
Crystal Queen is a gorgeous slot. The snowy setting and icy reels look terrific, and the cartoony character designs are filled with colour and charm. I really enjoyed the music: its gentle tone and sweet sound capture the fairy-tale feel perfectly.
Try our free Crystal Queen demo and play with thousands of virtual credits!
Like many other slots, Crystal Queen is inspired by a classic story featuring magical characters. How does it compare to three similar games?
Avalon 2 is based on the legends of King Arthur and offers a generous top prize of 16,200x your bet.
The Green Knight is inspired by the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and pays up to 10,000 your bet.
Jack and the Beanstalk is one of the most famous fairy tales ever, and Beanstalk Bonanza brings it to life with a max win of 10,000x your bet.
For my money, Crystal Queen has a lot to like — but there is a pretty big issue to keep in mind if you decide to try it. I’m referring to the max win: at 829x your bet, it’s just so much smaller than the payouts available in plenty of other games.
Fortunately, Crystal Queen boasts multiple features that make it worth playing if you’re not concerned about the size of the potential prizes.
Lisa started off as a croupier at her local casino. However she found her niche in writing and has subsequently used her real-world gambling experiences to help produce and review the many online slots that are released monthly. Lisa also contributes to keeping you up to date with Canadian newsworthy stories.
