Ultimate Slot of America Demo: Free Play and Review

Liberty Gems hold their squares for a Freedom Respin

A spin that lands a Liberty Gem is not over yet. Every Gem stays where it is while every other square spins again, which the game calls a Freedom Respin. Another Gem on that respin earns one more, and the chain ends on a respin with no new Gem or when no square is left. Lines pay at every step.

A Gem substitutes for all paying symbols. Two or more on one winning line have their values added, and their total multiplies the line, so a 2x Gem beside a 3x one gives 5x. FS scatters and Gems are never on the grid together.

Lines are read from reel 1, three of a kind upwards. J, Q, K and A pay 0.2x to 1x the bet, baseballs and the stars-and-stripes hand 0.4x to 2x, Uncle Sam 1x to 5x and the eagle head 1.5x to 10x; five Gems on one line pay 10x as well.

Spin 157 gave us the longest chain: a 1x Gem on the first drop, one more on each of the next four respins, then a fifth respin that added nothing. Each of the six steps paid a line or more, and together they came to €18.40, or 9.2x.

Gems in the base game ran small. Across 499 spins without a bonus, 169 of them landed on 76 spins, all 1x except 7 at 2x, and between them those spins earned €248.60 of the €376.20 that all 499 returned.

From a 2x2 square up to the whole 5x5 grid

Four Gems that form an exact 2x2 merge into a Gem Cluster, and the Cluster can grow to 3x3, 4x4 or the full grid when respins add the Gems that complete the larger square. An L of four or a row of four stays as four separate Gems. A Classic Cluster turns the sum of its Gems into one multiplier. An Epic Cluster takes that sum and multiplies it again, by a whole number from x2 to x10 or by x20, with nothing in between.

Our top base spin, number 397, works through the sums. Four 1x Gems dropped as a 2x2 in the bottom right corner, a Classic Cluster worth 4x, and the drop itself paid nothing. The first respin put a 1x Gem in the centre square. On the second, five of the same symbol ran diagonally from the top left through that lone Gem and two squares of the Cluster: 1 + 4 = 5x on a €4.00 line, €20.00. The Cluster counted once even though the line crossed two of its squares, and the spin ended at 10.6x.

The only other Cluster in the log, on spin 28, was another four 1x Gems, on reels 4 and 5, paying 4x on a line of five letters, €8.00. Epic Clusters and squares larger than 2x2 we know only from GAME INFO, because none came up in our session.

Three bonuses, sorted by how many FS land at once

A trio of FS symbols on one spin opens Spin-Dependence Day, 10 free spins that play like the base game except that Gems land more often. Four open Red, White, Bling!, where every Gem and Cluster that lands stays for the whole round and Gems give no Freedom Respins. Five open Pursuit of Riches, the hidden bonus, which plays like Spin-Dependence Day with at least five Gems on every free spin, respins not counted. Each of the three grows by 2 spins when two FS land inside it and by 4 for three.

We bought Spin-Dependence Day for €250.00 to film it. The first free spin held those six Gems, none of them in a square, and paid €35.20 across its respins. Later spins added little; one held a 5x and two 2x Gems and paid only €1.20, none of it through the 5x.

TOTAL WIN showed €62.40 after 10 free spins, 31.2x the bet for a 125x price. GAME INFO puts the long-run return of this purchase at 96.33%, and a single round says little about that.

One Spin-Dependence Day, on the spin after the low

Our log is 500 paid spins at €2.00, with nothing bought. One bonus landed, Spin-Dependence Day on spin 238, from three FS symbols across the top row. The balance had reached its lowest point, €4,686.60, on the spin right before it.

The ten free spins brought 22 Gems, against 169 in all the base spins, and the 4x and 5x values we never saw outside the bonus. Free spins 4, 7 and 9 paid nothing. Free spin 5 paid €265.20: a 5x and two 1x Gems down reel 3, a second 5x beside them on the first respin, and on the next one five lines through Gems of 1x, 1x and 5x, each multiplied by 7, lifted that respin to €205.00. Free spin 8 added €99.60, and the round ended at €418.20, 209.1x the bet.

The high, €5,105.80, came two spins later. From there the balance slid back to €4,794.40, a return of 79.4% on what we staked. On their own, the 499 spins around the bonus paid back 37.7% of their cost, and no dry spell lasted longer than 16 spins.

Gems on order: Freedom and USA Epic Drop

Of the five cards, the first three are FeatureSpins, and each keeps charging per spin until it is switched off. The cheapest, BonusHunt FeatureSpins at 3x, puts the bonus chance at five times its usual level and carries the menu's single Very high label. For 25x a spin, Freedom FeatureSpins puts at least four Liberty Gems on the grid. USA Epic Drop FeatureSpins, the 100x card, promises a 2x2 Gem Cluster or better on every spin, meaning a Cluster of the smallest size and not necessarily an Epic one. Neither of these two modes can land FS symbols.

Spin-Dependence Day costs 125x as a one-off purchase and Red, White, Bling! 200x. For scale, one USA Epic Drop FeatureSpins spin costs €200.00, close to half of what our natural bonus paid.

Two RTP figures circulate for the top version. The demo server reports 96.37%, and the five cards sit a little under it, from 96.27% to 96.34%. Casino listings print 96.35% instead, with 94.34%, 92.30% and 88.26% below it, while the studio's own game page names none of them. A real-money lobby can carry any of those versions, and some leave the buy screen out entirely where local rules forbid it.

Where squares of wilds turn up on this site

Red Rascal shares this game's 5x5 grid and 19 paylines, and its squares come in the same sizes, with any 2x2 to 5x5 block of Rascals turning into one Colossal Rascal. Its squares wait for a pendulum to make them coins or Wilds, while a Gem Cluster is wild from the moment it forms.

Demonic Dolls also adds the multipliers of wilds that share a win, from 2x up to 100x, and merges pairs of them into 2x2 and then 3x3 Colossals, on a grid that pays clusters instead of lines.

Gems that stick, Gems that respin, and when

Red, White, Bling! and Pursuit of Riches never came up in our log, so the answers below lean on GAME INFO.

In our session the base game lived on 1x and 2x Gems and two 4x Clusters, and the bonus carried the result. That pattern sits well with Hacksaw's middle rating of 3 out of 5.