888 Cai Shen Slot Review
Daybreak at a temple gateway, and the flagstones are already buried in gold. Carved dragon brackets curl out from the red-tile eaves, twin moon-gates frame a hazy pagoda on either side, and coins spill across the floor in drifts. 888 Cai Shen spends more of its effort on this gateway than on anything behind it. The artwork is the richest thing in the game, and what’s underneath it is a much smaller machine.
It’s a vein CQ9 Gaming has worked before: Fa Cai Shen 2 worships the same god of wealth, and Golden Horus and Mahjong Rich Ways sit close by in the studio’s range. This one runs on a 5×4 grid with a glossy, heavily gilded 3D finish. Its whole offer sits behind a buy menu, and it doesn’t dress that up as anything else.
Base Game & Features
888 Cai Shen plays out on a 5×4 grid, with the temple architecture built around the reels rather than behind them. The red clay-tile roofline arches over the top of the frame, sky and pale clouds showing behind it, and the grey flagstone floor runs beneath the reels with coins scattered across it. The setting isn’t a backdrop; it’s a frame the game sits inside.
Each side of the screen carries a moon-gate archway, and through both of them the same hazy pagoda sits in the distance. It’s a symmetrical composition, and the gilded 3D rendering gives every surface a mirror shine. The look is dense, deliberately so.
Nothing in the frame is left plain: roof, arches and floor all carry the same gilt treatment. The pale morning sky behind the eaves is the only quiet note in the whole scene.
The symbol set stays close to the theme, with prosperity icons on the premium end and a familiar royal run filling the rest:
- God of Fortune (Cai Shen himself)
- Money tree, styled as a bonsai
- Jade symbols
- Golden toad
- Coin pot
- Royals: A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9
There’s a clear hierarchy in how the two halves of that list are treated. The premium icons are fully modelled characters and objects, drawn from the temple setting around them. The God of Fortune, the money tree and the coin pot all belong to the same world as the archways and the coins on the floor.
The royals are the flat, functional end, and they carry most of the spins. Six of them, A through 9, doing the job royals do in every game of this kind: filling the gaps between the icons worth waiting for.
They’re rendered in the same gilded palette, which keeps the frame consistent even when the symbols themselves are at their least interesting. It’s a small mercy, but it’s noticed.
The Buy Feature button is the other permanent resident of the base game. It sits on the left side of the frame in the base-game view and stays visible through play, so the route into either bonus round is never more than one click away. For a game whose entire feature offer lives behind that button, keeping it in permanent view is a sensible piece of design.
888 Cai Shen Free Games & Bonus Buys
Both of the game’s bonus rounds are offered through the Buy Feature, which sits on the left of the frame in the base game and stays visible during play. There are two on the menu, and the gap between them is wide.
Free Game
The standard buy. Rather than one fixed award, it presents its spins as a set of win options:
- 10 free spins
- 15 free spins
- 25 free spins
All three sit behind the same ticket. It’s the entry point, and the spin count is the only variable the menu offers. What the three tiers share is the round itself: whichever count you land on, you’re playing the same Free Game, just for longer. The step from 10 to 25 is a straight volume increase rather than a change in how the round behaves.
Super Free Game
The premium option, and the more defined of the two. It awards a fixed 12 free spins, and every one of them comes with a wild guaranteed on the reels. There’s no variable spin count here and no element of chance in what you’ve bought: the wilds are part of the purchase.
That guarantee is the whole difference between the two rounds. The Free Game sells quantity and leaves the reels to their own devices. The Super Free Game sells fewer spins with a wild in each one, which changes the character of the round rather than just its length.
On a 5×4 grid, a wild on every spin has room to work. That’s the pitch, and it’s a clear one.
Bonus Buy
Both rounds are bought rather than waited for, and the two tickets price up like this:
- Free Game: ¥420.00, awarding 10, 15 or 25 free spins
- Super Free Game: ¥900.00, awarding 12 free spins with wilds in every one
The arithmetic is worth spelling out. The Super Free Game costs a little over double the standard ticket. Measured per spin, ¥420 across the Free Game’s tiers works out at ¥42 a spin for 10, ¥28 for 15 and ¥16.80 for 25, while the Super Free Game’s ¥900 across twelve spins runs at ¥75 a spin – and every one of those spins carries its wild.
Read that way, the two buys are aimed at different instincts. The Free Game is cheapest per spin at its biggest tier and rewards committing to volume. The Super Free Game charges the highest per-spin rate in the game and puts the difference into guaranteeing something on every spin. Neither proposition is vague; you know exactly what each menu contains before you pay.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 6/10
Playing 888 Cai Shen is mostly staring at a very beautiful doorway and deciding whether to pay to walk through it. That’s not a criticism – the temple gateway is genuinely lovely, and it’s the reason anybody stops here in the first place.
The Super Free Game is the best thing in the game, because it’s the one promise that can’t come back empty. A wild in every spin means no dud rounds, no twelve dead spins after a ¥900 outlay. The Free Game can’t say the same.
The weakness is that the doorway is basically all there is. The base game is a holding area between purchases, and every ticket has to be judged on its price alone. This one’s for fans of the Chinese prosperity style who are happy to judge a bonus on what it guarantees. Anyone who wants numbers before paying won’t find them; anyone who wants the god of wealth in full gilded glory will.
888 Cai Shen FAQs
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Who makes 888 Cai Shen?
CQ9 Gaming. It’s one of several prosperity-themed titles in the studio’s range. -
What is the grid size of 888 Cai Shen?
The game runs on a 5×4 grid, framed by the temple gateway artwork. -
Can you buy the bonus on 888 Cai Shen?
Yes. A Buy Feature button sits on the left of the base-game frame, opening a menu with the Free Game and Super Free Game options. -
What does the Free Game buy give you?
The Free Game buy awards its spins as win options of 10, 15 or 25 free spins, all behind a single price of ¥420.00. -
What is the Super Free Game?
It’s the premium buy at ¥900.00. You get twelve free spins, and a wild is guaranteed on every one of them. -
How do the two bonus buys differ?
The Free Game sells spin volume, at ¥420.00 for 10, 15 or 25 free spins. The Super Free Game costs ¥900.00 for twelve spins, and a wild is guaranteed on every single one, so you’re paying for certainty rather than quantity. -
Which symbols appear in 888 Cai Shen?
The premium symbols are the God of Fortune, a money tree, jade symbols, a golden toad and a coin pot. The lower end is made up of the royals: A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9. -
Is 888 Cai Shen part of a series?
It shares the god of wealth theme with Fa Cai Shen 2, and the prosperity style with much of CQ9 Gaming’s wider range, but it isn’t a numbered sequel.
