Review by: Brandon "Potato Gun" Cackowski-Schnell

Of all of the RPG mashups that have been released since Puzzle Quest opened the floodgates, Battle Slots has to be the strangest. In it, you play a hero that is working to save his homeland from a deluge of bloodthirsty beasts, which, by itself, isn’t so strange. The strange part is your weapon, a magical slot machine called the Reels of Fate. Yes, a slot machine. Oddly enough, it works, providing a deeply addictive romp through a fantasy world rife with minotaurs, displacer beasts and giant tarantulas all looking to get smacked around with a five line payout of pain.

The game has a pretty generic fantasy story where you work to rid your homeland of monsters that are attacking at the behest of some unseen enemy. Locations are arranged on the world map, like Puzzle Quest, and as you pick up quests at the local tavern, you’ll travel to new locations, battling beasts along the way until you arrive at your destination and another beast that needs to be defeated. Where the game’s story differs from the usual fantasy settings is in the decision to eschew the fantasy-speak so common to most RPGs. Sure there are dwarves and dryads frolicking about, but the story uses a modern vocabulary to tell its story, along with a liberal sense of humor to spice things up. Side quests involve a failed comedian on a quest to craft a mythical banjo, a hapless uncle with a penchant for being kidnapped and a potato gun wielding ally looking for help visiting his wife’s grave. The side quests are where a lot of the character of the game comes out and they’re all well worth reading, giving the game a much more interesting sheen than what you might expect from the rather generic main story.

Regardless of what the motivations behind your quests are, it all comes down to battling monsters with your magical slot machine. Like any slot machine, payouts occur once a set number of matching symbols line up. In this case, symbols consist of weapon symbols that give attack points, magical symbols that give mana, money and experience symbols and summons symbols that give out benefits such as reduced damage, extra damage or extra cash. The Reels have a fair number of payout lines, so every spin is bound to net you something, however there are times when a spin grants you the big goose egg. Your opponents also have a slot machine, so it is possible for you to get nothing while they rack up attack points and mana, but luckily the selection of spells and abilities helps mitigate the pain of no payout.

As you progress through the story, new spells and abilities are unlocked, as are new slot symbols. While new slot symbols are added to the reels automatically, you choose up to six spells and/or abilities to bring into battle with you. The selection process is more cumbersome as it needs to be, with no ability to sort by point cost or by damage dealt, an annoyance that only grows as you work your way towards the end game and obtain dozens of abilities.The flip side of this is that there are so many abilities, which is a great problem to have. Some spells do stabbing damage, some elemental damage. Some cause lingering poison, or prevent your opponent from acting for a set number of spins. Some add wild symbols, or allow you to do three spins for every one of your opponent’s spins.

Whether you choose to go completely on the offensive, or play a more defensive game, the reels allow for that. As you can use your spells and abilities before spinning, during combat you’re constantly evaluating whether you should spend your points now for some easy damage or wait and risk that your opponent will use one of their abilities to lock up your spells and spins, or worse, deal out a ton of damage. Your opponents have access to abilities that rival yours so picking when to use what abilities is key.