Almighty Hera

Almighty Hera by Indigo Magic: the power behind the god-king

The goddess Hera is much more than just Zeus’ jealous wife: she’s a quite powerful deity by herself and an eminent figure in the ancient Greek pantheon. Despite the popularity of the theme of Greek mythology in slot games, only a few titles are based on her specific role and importance, and Almighty Hera by Indigo Magic from Bragg Studios finally does her some well-deserved justice. As the mother of other famous deities and protector of women, wives, marriage and childbirth, her nurturing role complements the purpose of other gods and makes her a great protagonist of a game that can provide prosperity, well-being and good fortune to her loyal players and followers.

General Overview

Almighty Hera is a high-volatility game with a 5x4 grid and 40 paylines. Royal symbols are easily distinguishable with angular characters and bright backgrounds, mid-paying ones have golden backgrounds and include a royal diadem, a lyre and Zeus holding a thunderbolt, while Hera and the wild symbol, represented by the peacock, Hera’s spirit animal, are top-paying ones with matching values of 50x the bet for a five-in-line. Scatters don’t carry any value, they are oval in shape to stand out from the rest and show the top of Mount Olympus with the royal palace where Zeus and Hera reside. Symbols’ functions are very much straightforward: wilds substitute for all symbols except scatters, while three or more scatters trigger the bonus feature…

Features and Mechanics

…which gets us to the game’s mechanics and features. The game revolves around Hera’s support for the player which comes in many shapes and sizes. In the base game, Hera randomly awards super-stacked symbols, super-stacked wilds and win multipliers. The first means that a symbol is chosen that appears stacked across the entire reel if it lands, and all symbols except scatters and wilds land stacked, while the second one delivers at least one guaranteed full stack of wilds. Win multipliers, however, create a guaranteed win spin where the win is randomly multiplied by x2, x3, x5 or x10. So far so good, but the game starts to shine even more in the free games feature. Three, four or five scatters trigger the free games feature with 15, 20 or 30 free games, respectively, that starts with a draw of bonuses that will be active during the feature. They are similar to those that are randomly triggered in the base game, however, they are stronger, there are more of them and there’s also a nice chance of landing two bonuses instead of just one. First, you may win a random cash prize: a x10 or x20 bet multiplier or one of the four in-game jackpots, and second, you could win a sweet multiplier from x2 to x10 for all wins in this phase. Third, you could win super-stacked symbols or super-stacked wilds, and finally, you may hit the lightning boost symbol that triggers the draw of a second prize to complement the first one and create even more and better payouts...

One simple and very welcome tool at the player’s disposal is the side bet option which we found to be quite handy and favorable: the benefit of improving the chances of triggering the free games feature by at least 6x more than justifies the extra cost of 25% more on your bet. After learning what exactly it does, we gladly kept it on for the remainder of our gameplay.

In practice, all this means that instead of chasing the activation of a certain bonus within the main bonus feature to win big, players can look forward to several different ways of achieving this goal and creating rich payouts. The game flow is less predictable this way, a bit different every time you trigger the main feature, and consequently maintains the player's attention and dedication easier and longer than in other games.

Artwork and Appearance

As expected, the artistic style follows the recognizable ancient Greek aesthetics which is most obvious in the royal symbols that are typically angular and look like they were carved in stone. The grid is bordered on both sides by two pillars with Doric pillar heads and in the background, you can see an animated Hera sitting on her throne on one side and on the other side, the view on the divine royal palace with huge pyres burning in front of it. Scatters, Zeus and Hera symbols are animated as well, which emphasizes their importance by attracting attention to them and creates additional expectation of something beneficial happening on the grid. The musical background includes classical string arrangements and percussion passages that create a sense of divine and majestic epicness, whereas reel spins and stops create unconventional sounds that distinguish the game from many others that often employ lackluster and cliché SFX. The creators of the game apparently put a lot of attention into such details, and with excellent results.

Our Final Verdict

Almighty Hera may feel plain and simple in that it only has one main feature, but the diversity of its outcomes and mechanics makes up for its simplicity and significantly diversifies the game flow. When there are several ways leading to huge payouts, players like to explore and try them all out. It feeds the completionist streak that is present in all of us and entertains with different and satisfying ways of creating payouts - which is why we play slot games after all. Surprisingly (or perhaps not that surprisingly), the most played slot games aren’t always the prettiest ones: what makes them truly popular is their mechanics that feed into the player’s expectations even if the game appears crude and basic. In this case, we have a feeling the creators did manage to tickle our slot bone and make the game a future evergreen with a strong loyal following. This is, after all, what makes gods strong, powerful and willing to award bountiful rewards to their faithful. Hera is almighty indeed and her fervent followers are nothing short of that either.