Starlight Princess - Oranje Jackpot Slot Review

If you're a fan of Pragmatic Play's anime-themed slots, you'll feel right at home with Starlight Princess - Oranje Jackpot. It takes everything people love about the original game, the 6x5 grid, the tumbling gems, and the pay-anywhere system, and adds a progressive jackpot to the top of the screen. It's a fun addition, but to be completely fair, chasing that jackpot comes with a pretty noticeable trade-off in the math.

The core of the game still relies on the free spins feature. You can trigger 15 free spins by landing four scatters, use the Ante Bet (costs 25% more) to double your chances of landing them naturally, or just buy the bonus outright for 100x your stake.

During the free spins, the game drops multiplier symbols ranging from 2x all the way up to 500x. If one of these lands during a winning tumble, its value is banked into a persistent total multiplier. But here's the downside: that running total only applies to a win if a fresh multiplier symbol lands on that exact same spin.

I actually bought the bonus during my session and walked away with about 150x my bet, which is a solid return! However, the way the math works can feel a bit teasing. Early in my round, a cluster of multipliers hit on a win, pushing my banked total to 23x and giving me a great payout. But for the next several spins, I kept getting small wins with no new multipliers attached. Because of the rules, those wins paid out flat, and my big 23x multiplier just sat there unused. It's the nature of the game, but it can definitely be a little frustrating to watch.

So, is the jackpot version worth it? It really depends on how you play. Both this version and the 2021 original share the same 5,000x max win. But to fund the new four-tier progressive jackpot, the RTP (Return to Player) drops from a very generous 96.50% down to 92.10%.

An RTP drop is completely normal for a progressive jackpot slot: that prize money has to come from somewhere. The real issue is when the jackpot is active. The jackpot is strictly a base-game feature, won at random at the end of a spin and revealed on a pick-and-match screen. Once you enter the free spins, it turns off. This means if you are a player who exclusively uses the Buy Free Spins feature, you are paying for a lower-RTP version of the original game with the main jackpot feature completely disabled.

Pragmatic has tweaked this multiplier mechanic in other games (like Gates of Eddie Super Button, which applies the total to every win regardless of new multipliers, or Kadita Ocean Fury). They've also released sequels like Starlight Princess 1000 that offer 15,000x max wins with better RTPs.

Oranje Jackpot isn't a bad game at all; the mechanics are as solid and entertaining as ever. It just caters to a very specific crowd. If you love the base game and want the thrill of a random progressive jackpot, this is a great spin on a classic. But if you prefer buying bonuses or want the best mathematical return on your spins, you're definitely better off sticking to the original or one of its direct sequels.