Total Eclipse Supreme

Special Eclipse Symbols are the key to accessing the game's main bonus. Landing five triggers Hold & Spin Supreme, after which additional Eclipse symbols become responsible for developing and expanding the feature.

This is where the fairly ordinary base game starts showing what it's actually building towards.

We've already encountered Eclipse symbols in earlier games from the series, so there's nothing particularly original about their presence. Their role in Supreme, however, is considerably more ambitious because they ultimately contribute towards opening an enormous multi grid playing area.

Five Eclipse symbols trigger Hold & Spin Supreme, the game's enhanced version of the familiar Hold and Spin mechanic.

Collected Eclipse symbols remain relevant while additional qualifying symbols develop the feature. What separates Supreme from the enormous number of Hold and Spin slots available today is that you're not simply trying to fill one static grid.

The playing area itself can continue developing.

That gives the bonus a proper sense of escalation. You start relatively small, gradually open additional sections and potentially end up staring at something considerably more intimidating than the little 5x3 fruit machine you started with.

The headline mechanic is the Supreme Grids, which I'd categorise as an Expanding Multi Grid feature.

As Eclipse symbols are collected, additional reel areas can become active until five separate grids are operating. Across them are a total of 50 positions that can potentially be filled.

This is a much more interesting form of expansion than simply adding another row to the top of the reels.

Every newly activated area visibly increases the scale of the feature and gives the player another objective. By the time all five sections are open, Hold & Spin Supreme barely resembles the modest base game.

Total Eclipse XXL went bigger.

Supreme appears to have decided XXL wasn't quite big enough.

The final reel area operates as a dedicated Power Up Reel, introducing special modifiers that affect the accumulated prizes elsewhere in the feature. Confirmed Power Ups include Booster, Payer, Multiplier and Collect.

This is probably the most important improvement over Total Eclipse XXL.

Expanding the playing area is visually satisfying, but the Power Up Reel gives the different sections a reason to interact. You're no longer solely concerned with occupying another position because modifiers can alter the values already sitting elsewhere.

That gives the latter stages of Hold & Spin Supreme considerably more depth than a standard Cash Prize collection bonus.

The Booster increases existing values within the feature, improving prizes that have already been collected.

It's a familiar modifier, but it works particularly well in a multi grid environment because there can potentially be numerous accumulated values available to improve.

The further you've progressed, the more interesting a Booster potentially becomes.

That's good feature design. A modifier becoming more useful as the bonus develops gives you another reason to care about reaching those later stages.

The Payer distributes its own value across the active feature area, providing another way of increasing the prizes already present.

We've seen similar mechanics in Blitz Coins, but the scale is very different here.

Instead of manipulating a tiny 3x3 grid, Total Eclipse Supreme can have multiple areas operating simultaneously. That gives the Payer considerably more scenery to work with once the bonus is properly underway.

The Multiplier increases qualifying accumulated values during Hold & Spin Supreme.

Again, a multiplier isn't remotely revolutionary by itself.

What matters is where Apparat has placed it. The Power Up Reel arrives within a bonus where values are already being accumulated across several sections, allowing the multiplier to interact with the feature rather than simply multiplying a conventional line win.

This is exactly why we're scoring features on how they work together, rather than counting how many branded mechanics appear in the game description.

The Collect modifier performs the familiar Cash Collect role, gathering qualifying values from the connected feature areas.

Normally I'd barely give another Cash Collect mechanic a second glance by this point. Online slots aren't exactly suffering from a shortage of them.

Here it makes more sense.

The expanding multi grid structure means there's potentially a substantial amount happening before Collect arrives. Booster, Payer and Multiplier modifiers can influence what's available, making the eventual collection the conclusion of a sequence rather than simply numbers appear, Collector lands, numbers disappear.

Fill all 50 positions across the five reel areas and Total Eclipse Supreme awards the 10,000x Grand Prize.

I'd categorise this as a Fixed Jackpot, rather than a progressive jackpot.

I like this implementation because the Grand has a clear gameplay objective attached to it. You're not waiting for an unrelated random jackpot wheel to appear. The enormous playing area physically shows you what needs to happen.

Fifty occupied positions is a formidable target, but at least Apparat has the decency to show you the mountain before asking you to climb it.

An optional +Bet increases the wager in exchange for an improved probability of triggering the main feature.

Under our standard terminology, this is a Feature Bet.

It doesn't receive additional rating credit because it doesn't add another mechanic. It simply changes the probability of accessing Hold & Spin Supreme.

Where permitted, Buy Feature provides immediate access to Hold & Spin Supreme for 110x the stake. Independent sources list the Bonus Buy configuration at an RTP of around 96.19%, although this should again be checked against the actual game configuration.

As always, the Bonus Buy itself earns no extra points in our rating.