18+ Only. Play Responsibly.
The yokai had given me five prophecies.
Every one of them said J.
Five glowing Mystery symbols had landed across my opening €1.00 spin beneath a full moon, a torii gate and a red horned creature large enough to make the shrine look underinsured by comparison.
Nothing ordinary connected.
The reels went still.
The five Mysteries opened together.
J symbols.
All five.
There were already enough J symbols sitting elsewhere for the revelation to form a win.
€2.00.
They disappeared.
Fresh symbols dropped.
The multiplier moved to x2.
Nothing else connected.
That was my introduction to Spirited Wonders.
A moonlit world of yokai had opened five supernatural envelopes at once and sent me the same letter.
I decided not to ask what the J stood for.
The enormous red yokai on the artwork looked capable of answering.
Three eyes.
Two horns.
Arms folded across a body that seemed to have been designed after somebody had already finished drawing the torii and realized there was still half a screen available.
A pale woman stood nearby.
A fox-like spirit occupied another part of the artwork.
Petals moved through the purple night.
The moon hung over everything with the calm expression of an object that had clearly seen worse summoning attempts.
On the reels, the spirits were less orderly.
Some arrived at normal size.
Others occupied two, three or four spaces at once.
A four-space yokai did not feel like a symbol.
It felt like the shrine had accidentally booked a supernatural guest who required several floors.
One fox-like spirit arrived almost the full height of a middle reel.
No win.
It disappeared on the next paid spin.
A creature large enough to block moonlight had visited, stood there and accomplished less than the earlier five Js.
The Mystery symbols became my real problem.
They waited.
That was the unsettling part.
A normal winning group would disappear first.
The reels would collapse.
Another win might happen.
Another fall.
Only when the ordinary business was finished would the sealed red Mysteries finally open.
It gave them the atmosphere of spirits refusing to speak while everybody else was making noise.
A single Mystery landed a few spins later.
No win around it.
The reels stopped.
It opened into the 10 symbol.
Nothing connected.
The spirit world had delivered a number this time.
Still no useful prophecy.
Then three Mysteries arrived together.
The normal symbols around them found a small win first.
€1.40.
Those disappeared.
The reels collapsed.
x2.
Nothing else connected.
The three red Mysteries remained untouched.
Only then did they open.
All three became the pale woman.
There were already two more of her on the reels.
For one second, half the shrine appeared to have been occupied by the same woman arriving through several supernatural entrances.
The x2 win paid €4.80.
Those symbols vanished.
Fresh yokai fell into the empty spaces.
x3.
The red horned Wild appeared among fox-like spirits.
They connected.
€6.60.
Another collapse.
The multiplier reached x5.
Nothing.
The whole sequence finished at €12.80.
Now the Mysteries had my attention.
Five of them becoming J had been a joke.
Three becoming the exact premium symbol already waiting across the reels felt different.
The sealed symbols had gone from useless prophecy to coordinated possession.
Every new red Mystery now looked less like a question mark and more like something behind the torii holding its breath.
The ordinary spirits kept misbehaving around them.
A tall blue-grey yokai occupied three positions and joined a €2.60 win.
The symbols vanished.
The reels fell.
x2.
No continuation.
The towering creature disappeared with the end of the sequence.
Another oversized spirit arrived later and did nothing at all.
Four spaces of supernatural presence.
No relatives.
No payout.
Gone.
There was something wonderful about a world filled with enormous folklore creatures being repeatedly defeated by basic social organization.
The horned Wild was more useful.
He appeared only on the middle reels, usually with that same fixed stare.
One paid spin brought him into a small connection for €3.20.
Collapse.
x2.
Another group formed.
€5.40.
Fresh symbols fell.
x3.
Nothing.
Another sequence reached x5 and left it sitting there unused beneath a collection of creatures, card ranks and one Mystery seal that eventually opened into a Q.
The shrine had raised the ritual to x5 so a supernatural symbol could reveal the letter Q in premium lighting.
Then the Scatters arrived much sooner than I expected.
One on a quiet spin.
Two a few rounds later.
Then three appeared across the next paid spin.
That already meant ten Free Spins.
The sixth reel stopped.
A fourth Scatter landed.
Twelve.
No twenty-minute pilgrimage.
No endless procession of two-Scatter near misses.
The gate opened almost immediately.
Spirited Wonders had apparently decided the Mystery symbols would provide enough uncertainty without making me camp outside the torii first.
The feature began with twelve Free Spins and a different multiplier ladder.
Every spin started at x3.
A successful collapse would raise the next round to x6, then x9, then x15.
The game cover had promised multipliers up to x15.
The red horned yokai remained above the reels.
With three eyes, he seemed unnecessarily well equipped to supervise four multiplier stages.
The first Free Spin dropped two Mysteries.
No normal win.
The red seals opened together.
Both became Q symbols.
No connection.
Twelve Free Spins had begun with the yokai world returning to alphabetic communication.
The second spin was better.
Fox-like spirits connected immediately at x3.
€3.60.
They vanished.
x6 waited.
Fresh symbols fell.
Nothing.
The third spin brought a Mystery symbol surrounded by several copies of the pale woman.
No ordinary win arrived first.
The Mystery opened.
Pale woman.
That was enough.
The group connected at x3 for €9.00.
Collapse.
x6.
Dead.
The fourth Free Spin did absolutely nothing.
No Mystery.
No Wild.
No useful family of yokai.
Just a full moon shining over six reels of supernatural beings who had apparently agreed to haunt quietly.
The fifth spin started with a Wild.
A group connected through it at x3 for €4.50.
The winning spirits disappeared.
Fresh ones dropped.
x6.
Another group formed for €6.00.
Gone.
x9.
Two Mystery symbols remained sealed among the new arrangement.
Nothing ordinary connected.
The Mysteries opened.
Both became fox spirits.
There were already enough foxes waiting.
€7.50.
The spin finished at €18.00.
The foxes disappeared.
x15 appeared underneath the shrine.
Nothing else fell into place.
The multiplier had reached the deepest part of the ritual and found an empty floor.
The sixth Free Spin contributed €4.50 and died immediately.
Then the seventh spin arrived.
Five Mystery symbols landed.
Five red seals scattered through the centre of the shrine.
They stayed shut.
The initial arrangement already contained a win.
At x3, it paid €4.50.
Those symbols vanished.
The five Mysteries remained.
Fresh yokai fell around them.
x6.
Another normal combination formed.
€7.20.
Collapse.
The five red seals remained exactly where they were, refusing to speak while the ordinary spirits continued tearing holes through the reels around them.
x9.
Another win.
€10.80.
Gone.
The multiplier climbed to x15.
Fresh symbols dropped.
Nothing connected.
The shrine finally went still.
Five Mysteries remained.
No ordinary win.
No more falling symbols.
Just five sealed red shapes beneath the moon and x15 glowing above the reels.
The timing was ridiculous.
They had survived three winning rounds without opening.
They had watched the multiplier climb from x3 through x6 and x9.
Only at x15 did the shrine become quiet enough for them.
The five Mysteries opened together.
Fox spirits.
Every one.
The middle of the reels abruptly filled with the same sharp-faced yokai.
More matching foxes were already waiting outside the Mystery positions.
What had been five sealed questions became a fox congregation in one flash.
They connected.
x15.
€48.00.
The foxes vanished.
The shrine collapsed again.
x15 remained.
A red horned Wild landed in the centre of the fresh arrangement.
More matching yokai gathered around him.
€18.60.
Then the moonlit machinery finally ran out of spirits willing to cooperate.
The seventh Free Spin finished at €89.10.
That was the session.
Five Mystery symbols had sat silently through three collapses, waited for x15 and then all chosen the same yokai at exactly the moment the multiplier became dangerous.
The cover told me to obtain the magic scroll and rule the world of yokai.
For one spin, the scroll appeared to contain a single instruction:
foxes.
More foxes.
Still more foxes.
The eighth Free Spin was dead.
Completely.
After €89.10 of coordinated spirit activity, the entire supernatural population seemed to have gone behind the torii for a moment.
The ninth produced €6.00.
The tenth did nothing.
The eleventh found €13.50 across a short collapse sequence.
Two Scatters appeared during it.
No third.
The feature could retrigger.
The yokai considered the possibility and remained at two.
One Free Spin remained.
A lone Mystery symbol appeared near the centre.
The ordinary symbols found a small x3 win first.
€3.60.
They disappeared.
x6.
The Mystery stayed shut.
Fresh symbols fell.
No normal connection.
The red seal opened.
Blue-grey yokai.
There were matching copies waiting.
They connected at x6 for €8.40.
The final spin ended at €12.00.
No x9 continuation.
No retrigger.
No second fox invasion.
The twelve Free Spins closed at exactly €155.70.
The arithmetic matched the haunting: €3.60 from the second spin, €9.00 from the third, €18.00 from the fifth, €4.50 from the sixth, the huge €89.10 seventh spin, then €6.00, €13.50 and the final €12.00.
Several Free Spins had barely moved.
x15 had appeared and found nothing more than once.
Some Mystery symbols had opened into ordinary card ranks with all the supernatural authority of a damp fortune slip.
But that five-seal fox reveal had swallowed everything around it.
The feature comfortably erased the weaker base-game stretch and left the session strongly ahead.
The shrine returned to normal.
Multiplier back at x1.
The moon remained.
The torii remained.
The giant horned yokai still towered over the artwork, arms folded, looking as though €155.70 was a minor side effect of whatever larger problem he represented.
A few more €1.00 spins followed.
One Mystery opened into an A and found nothing.
Another became a fox spirit and helped a €2.40 win.
Collapse.
x2.
Nothing behind it.
A tall yokai occupied three spaces and failed to connect.
The Wild appeared later and helped a modest €5.20 sequence.
Everything had become smaller after the five-seal possession.
Then one final Mystery symbol landed.
No ordinary win.
No collapse.
The red seal sat alone in the centre beneath the enormous horned creature.
The moon glowed behind the torii.
Petals crossed the purple night.
The Mystery opened into the 10 symbol.
After an entire session of yokai, twelve Free Spins, a five-spirit revelation at x15 and enough moonlit possession to make the magic scroll briefly believable, the supernatural world had one final prophecy for me.
It looked exactly like the number ten.
Even the autoplay in Sticky Bees looks tired.