Bet365 Vegas Review: Fruit Shop Slot

Retro styled slots are certainly making a comeback. As the online slot industry works towards developing ever more involved and complex slots with a myriad of different bonus features, there is an equally strong movement of people who want to get back to enjoying slots how they were. In simpler times when we called slots “fruit machines” or “one armed bandits” (even if they didn’t use a lever to be operated). Fruit Shop by NetEnt is a slot that certainly takes a couple of steps towards the retro end of the slots spectrum, but it is also packed with enough high quality features and clever presentation to make it appeal to fans of more modern slots too.

Available to play now at Bet365 Vegas, and there is even a Christmas version of the slot you can play too, Fruit Shop is a 5×3 reel game that has a total of 15 paylines in operation on the slot. You can spin from as little as £0.15 per spin, or if you are a higher roller, you can ramp up the value of those spins to a massive £150 per spin. That means that regardless of your bankroll and how much you want to wager, you will find Fruit Shop is a game you can afford to play. You can easily increase the value of your coins and the Bet Level on each spin to increase or decrease the value of your wager.

This is a slot which, as the name suggests, has its roots in the older style fruit machines, yet there are enough modern touches to ensure that fans of more modern slot games will find plenty to enjoy here. However, it should be noted that this is what I would term a ‘stripped down’ slot. Many of the features you would find on more modern slots are not available on the Fruit Shop slot and as such, this is a game that will appeal to people who enjoyed the thrill of simply spinning the reels on a slot and not having to trigger different features in order to access bonus games and bigger wins.

Key Information

What you have with the Fruit Shop slot is a game that has the usual mix of playing card low symbols and the higher value symbols are the fruit symbols, many of which you will recognise from the older style slot games. The styling of the slot is retro so the graphics are never going to blow you away, though it is safe to say they certainly do the job and the slot looks easy on the eye and plays very well regardless of what device you are playing from.

To help you land additional wins there are Fruit Shop Wild symbols on the reels which is the Fruit Shop Logo. This only appears on the second, third and fourth reels and when you use a Wild to complete a winning payline, then you receive a 2x multiplier on that win. As you play the slot you will come to recognise that Fruit Shop is a medium variance game, you can play at times and strike some very decent sized wins relatively quickly, but other times the slot can play very tight and it can be a real slog to elicit any positive returns from the game. Over the longer term though, the return to player value isn’t too bad.

The only other bonus on the game that is available in addition to the base game wins is the Free Spins bonus. Unlike modern slots which usually require you to hit three or more scatter symbols to trigger the bonus, on Fruit Shop you receive a free spin whenever you land a payline win involving two or more of the Cherry symbol. Two Cherries on a payline awards you one free spin and if you can get five cherries on a payline, then you get five free spins. Furthermore, if you land a plum, lemon, watermelon or orange on a payline of three or more symbols you get a free spin, four or more gives you two free spins and five on a payline triggers five free spins.

Once you have triggered the Free Spins bonus then the free spins will begin immediately but the great news here is that all wins during free spins involving any of the high value or low value symbols will trigger additional free spins, which will then be added to your total. Furthermore, any wins in the free spins round are automatically subject to a 2x multiplier and if you can land a Wild symbol on a winning payline, then you get a 4x multiplier for any win using that symbol.  By triggering wins during free spins it is possible for the free spins bonus round to last considerably longer than the initial free spins award.

How to win at the Fruit Shop Slot

One of the most pleasing aspects of the Fruit Shop slot is that it is a game which allows you to access all the big features direct from the base game. Free Spins are awarded, but they come as part of any base game win involving the combinations of fruit symbols outlined above. So it never feels as if you are too far away from hitting some free spins and of course, with additional spins available in the bonus game, once you hit them often you feel like you can trigger many more spins and indeed, this is the best way to land the better value wins in the slot.

The Wild symbol offers great use for players here with a 2x multiplier in a base game but Wild wins in the free spins round offer a 4x multiplier, which when activated on some of the bigger value wins is where you will land the greater value slot wins here. Indeed, Wild symbol wins are the best and only way to land the jackpot wins of 2,000 coins.

What you should note with Fruit Shop slot above all other things however is that this is a medium variance game, so to get the best out of it, you need to play it over the longer term and when you do, you will stand a far better chance of making a profitable return when playing.