Winterberries 2 - Slot Review: RTP 96% & $1,0M Max Win

Slot	Ternion	Winterberries 2	Dork Unit	Lady Wolf Moon	Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin

Review	Review and Play	Review and Play	Review and Play	Review and Play	Review and Play
RTP	96.2%	96%	96.28%	97%	96.7%
Dev	Play'n GO	Yggdrasil Gaming	Hacksaw Gaming	BGaming	Pragmatic Play
Paylines	20	20	16	10	147456
Layout	4-4-4-4-4	3-3-3-3-3-3	4-4-4-4-4	3-3-3-3-3	8-8-8-8-8-8
Max Win	11111	10000	10000	27000	20000
Bet	$0.2 - 100	$0.1 - 100	$0.1 - 100	$0.1 - 20	$0.2 - 240
Graphics	4 / 5	5 / 5	4 / 5	5 / 5	5 / 5
Sound	3 / 5	4 / 5	3 / 5	5 / 5	4 / 5
Gameplay	4 / 5	5 / 5	4 / 5	5 / 5	5 / 5
Rewards	3 / 5	4 / 5	4 / 5	5 / 5	4 / 5
Originality	4 / 5	5 / 5	3 / 5	5 / 5	4 / 5
Overall

Overview

Okay, now that you've seen my full rating breakdown, let's get into the nitty gritty of what this slot is all about!

Winterberries 2 is a juicy fruit-themed video slot with 6 reels, 3 rows, and 20 paylines. The game takes place against a gorgeous backdrop of a snowy hillside and blossom tree, with the reels centered within the tree's branches.

The symbols consist of 4 different yummy berries - blueberries, gooseberries, cloudberries, and raspberries - along with the standard card suit symbols. There are no Wilds in the game, but 3 Scatter symbols can appear: Silver, Gold, and Diamond bees.

The slot features locked symbol respins, increasing reel multipliers, and a free spins round with even more multipliers. Let's take a closer look at how each of these works:

Locked Symbol Respins - Any winning combination triggers a respin, with the winning symbols frozen in place. If more matching symbols land, they also freeze, triggering another respin. This continues until no new winners appear, boosting your overall payout.
Increasing Reel Multipliers - Filling reels completely with frozen symbols boosts multipliers, starting at 1x on the leftmost reel and climbing up to 32x on the right. In free spins, multipliers start at 2x and go up to 64x!
Free Spins - 3 or more Scatters award 10 to 20 free spins. More Scatters landing add spins and boost multipliers up to +15x!

As you can see, the features all work together beautifully to create huge winning potential in both the base game and free spins. This sequel was clearly designed for big payouts!

My Thoughts Overall

As I already hinted at with my 5 star rating, I think Yggdrasil absolutely knocked it out of the park with Winterberries 2! This is a stellar example of how to bring new life into an older classic slot.

Visually, this game is miles ahead of the original Winterberries, with crisp modern graphics and flawless rendering of the juicy fruit theme. Yggdrasil always brings their A-game when it comes to art and animation, and it really shines here.

The gameplay itself has been modernized as well, with exciting features that utilize locked symbol respins and multiplying reels in intuitive yet innovative ways. I always love when slots integrate multiplying elements, as they can lead to some huge hits when you get on a roll. Winterberries 2 executes this wonderfully.

And the sheer potential for gigantic wins here is just the cherry on top! With stacked symbols, big multipliers in base and free games, and all those added spins and boosts in the bonus round, you can easily see wins climbing into the tens of thousands.

The high volatility means bonus hits don't come around often, but when they do, you're in for a treat! I'd happily take the patience required between features for a chance at one massive payout.

Overall, as both a sequel and a stand-alone game, Winterberries 2 checks all the boxes for me. Thoughtful improvements across the board, smooth and compelling gameplay, and rewards that can absolutely explode make this a 5-star slot in my books!

Bonus Features

Now let's explore the three main bonus features you'll encounter when spinning this fruity reel adventure:

Locked Symbol Respins

The core of the action comes from the locked symbol respins. Any winning combination, no matter how small, will trigger a respin with all contributing symbols frozen in place.

If any new matching symbols hit the reels on the respin, they too will freeze, triggering another respin. This continues until no new winners appear, boosting your overall payout from that initial combination.

Even though the feature can end quickly if no new matches show up, I love the anticipation it builds as you hope for more frozen symbols leading to bigger wins. Small hits get your hopes up, then you cheer when you see more matches add to the respins!

Increasing Reel Multipliers

In both the base game and free spins, you can unlock multipliers by filling reels completely with matching frozen symbols. Starting from the leftmost reel, fill the whole reel to activate the multiplier above it.

In base play, the multipliers climb from 1x up through 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, all the way up to 32x on the 6th reel. When you hit the bonus game, they double to 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x, 32x, and a whopping 64x!

Even just hitting a handful of respins with a 16x or 32x multiplier in the base game can lead to a monster win. But when you're in free spins and boost the multiplier into the 64x range, you have the potential for truly insane payouts! This is an element that can make the slot really pay.

Free Spins

Of course, the feature all players will be gunning for is the free spins bonus round. This is triggered by landing 3 or more Scatter symbols anywhere in the base game.

The number of Scatters that hit determines your starting spins:

3 Scatters = 10 free spins
4 Scatters = 12 free spins
5 Scatters = 15 free spins
6 Scatters = 20 free spins

Once in free spins, things get even more exciting! Right off the bat, all the reel multipliers are doubled compared to base play. Plus, any additional Scatters that land will now add 1 spin each AND increase the multipliers.

Silver Scatter - Adds 1-3x to all multipliers
Gold Scatter - Adds 4-8x to all multipliers
Diamond Scatter - Adds a whopping 10-15x to all multipliers!

As you can see, the bonus game takes the features that make the base game fun and amplifies them to new heights! Starting with more spins and doubled multipliers already has you off to a great start. But the chance to add many more spins AND boost multipliers up by 64x makes this round extremely lucrative.

This is where you can really hit the huge 10,000x max win if you're lucky enough to fill the gameboard and boost those multipliers sky high!

Win Potential

Speaking of max wins, let's talk about just how high your rewards can climb in Winterberries 2. In short - VERY high!

The maximum possible win clocks in at a mouth-watering 10,000x your bet amount. This is a giant leap up from the original Winterberries which only offered a 2500x max payout.

As we just covered, that gigantic jackpot is only achievable if you make it to the free spins round and fill the entire gameboard, reel by reel, boosting the multipliers all the way. The stars really need to align perfectly to hit 10,000x, so don't count on it!

Realistically, you can expect to hit some nice rewards of 100-500x in base gameplay from getting a few stacks of matching symbols and boosted multipliers. Small and mid-sized hits like this are frequent enough to keep your bankroll ticking along nicely.

But of course, the thrilling prospect is triggering that free spins round. Starting with a nice stack of spins and doubling all multipliers means your very first spin could instantly be valued at 100x or more if you hit a full stack right off the bat.

Adding the potential for MANY more spins from landing Scatters, along with scaling the multipliers up and up, means payouts of 1000-5000x are very achievable. Maybe not huge 10K wins every day, but certainly enough to make any player's week with a single bonus hit!

So in summary, while the base game provides smaller frequent payouts, the free spins is where you unlock Winterberries 2's full potential for gigantic wins. And that's exactly how I like my slots - patience and persistence pays off eventually with one monster reward!