Crystal Catcher Slot Review 2024

Crystal Catcher from Push Gaming takes us deep into the mines to mine illustrious crystals in an instalment reminiscent of their previous release, Fire Hopper.

Both Crystal Catcher and Fire Hopper have that popular Jammin’ Jars element, but with a twist to make it stand out.

Crystals, Multipliers and Instant Prizes await in an instalment where the reward gets better the deeper you venture!

Crystal Catcher Slot – The Base Game and Features

Crystal Catcher is a 7×7 grid slot with a cluster pays mechanic.

To form a win, you’ll need at least 5 of the same symbol to connect horizontally and/or vertically. Winning combinations disappear, leaving room for new symbols to fall into the empty spaces via a cascade.

This potentially creates new winning combinations, with the process repeating until no more winning combinations are possible.

Wild Symbol

The Beetle Symbol is a Wild Symbol that substitutes for all other symbols except for the Crystal Symbol and the Bonus Crystal Symbol.

Every Wild Beetle has a multiplier associated with it, but each will start at 1x.

The Beetle will jump to any Crystal Symbol in view and increment its multiplier by +1 for every crystal collected. As it hops from crystal to crystal, it leaves a Golden Beetle in its previous position to act as a wild.

Instant Prize Symbol

The Instant Prize Symbol is a bet multiplier, and its value is awarded when it is collected by a Wild Beetle Symbol.

Instant Prize Symbols can land with the following values – 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 20x, 30x, 50x, 100x, 200x, 300x, 500x.

The multiplier of the beetle applies to Instant Prize Symbols to increase the Instant Prize payout.

Free Spins Feature

A Bonus Crystal may land into view on any given spin, and Free Spins are triggered when it is collected by a Wild Beetle Symbol.

7 Free Spins are awarded during Free Spins.

During the bonus round, the Wild Beetle Symbol is persistent on the reels. Its multiplier is also persistent, and it will continue to grow as it collects more Crystal Symbols.

The potential in Crystal Catcher comes from multipliers working together. This is a feature that has served Jammin’ Jars and Fire Hopper well. If two Wild Beetle Symbols with multipliers contribute to the same win, then the win will be multiplied by the first multiplier, before that total is multiplied by the next one.

If 3 or more connect to a single win with high multipliers, then huge wins are possible.

Crystal Catcher Slot – Bonus Buy

Those outside of the UK have an option for a bonus buy feature.

• Bonus Buy – Triggers the bonus for 75x the bet (96.56% RTP)
• Super Bonus Buy – Triggers a bonus round with increased odds for more Crystal Symbols, Instant Prizes and 3 Higher Paying Symbols for 275x the bet (96.56% RTP)

Crystal Catcher Slot – Our Verdict

Crystal Catcher stands out as a Push Gaming classic, but it’s perhaps not as imposing as some of their more recent games, or even Fire Hopper itself.

10,000x is the maximum win here, which makes it significantly less capable than Fire Hopper, which may put some off. It’s not quite as capable or as recognisable as the infamous Jammin’ Jars either, so it’s not quite a Jammin’ Jars killer, not that Push Gaming would want it to be.

Crystal Catcher still has significant appeal, but it shares some of the frustrations that made Fire Hopper fairly tilting. The normal bonus round is seemingly hit or miss, so if the Crystal Symbols just aren’t landing then it’s sure to be quite an underwhelming bonus.

If the circumstances are right though then big things can happen, and the Super Bonus round certainly does Crystal Catcher justice.

Crystal Catcher takes a big hit when it comes to appeal due to the fact that the Super Bonus can’t land organically, so UK players are locked out of the best feature of the game. A super bonus scatter would have been great, and it could have even put Crystal Catcher above Fire Hopper

Overall, Crystal Catcher doesn’t miss the mark exactly, but it’s hard to love it more than Fire Hopper, but as a Push Gaming Slot it shouldn’t be underestimated either.