Slot machine
- Slot and Slots redirect here. These terms can also refer to positions in a player's party.
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This article is incomplete. Please feel free to edit this article to add missing information and complete it. Reason: a full list of slot symbols and their payouts for each generation |
A slot machine is a standard game at Game Corners in the Pokémon games, having appeared in every generation to date.
Slot symbols and their payouts tend to vary between generations, but the highest single payout is 300 coins for three same-color sevens in the first three generations (this is reduced to 100 coins in Generation IV).
In the games
Generation I and FireRed and LeafGreen
Slot machines in the first generation and their third generation remakes consist simply of inserting coins and stopping the reels with the A button.
Slot machines can be played for 1, 2, or 3 coins. Playing slot machines for 1 coin allows payouts only on the center line. Playing for 2 coins allows payouts on all three horizontal lines. Playing for 3 coins allows payouts on all three horizontal lines as well as two diagonal lines.
Generation II
Slot machines in the second generation are similar to the ones from the first, except that having two 7's line up on the first two reels of two symbols may cause something special to happen when stopping the third reel, which will either cause a third 7 to line up and pay out the jackpot, or end up one space away from lining up to tease the player. Very rarely, a Chansey may appear in this situation; it will use Egg Bomb on the third reel repeatedly until the last 7 falls in place.
Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald
The third generation is where slot machines began to become more complex. While fundamentally the same as in the first two generations, the third generation introduced bonus games to the slot machine experience. Bonus games in the third generation allow for better odds of landing big payouts during the duration of the bonus game. Getting the biggest payout in a bonus game in this generation immediately ends the bonus game.
Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum
Starting in the fourth generation, slot machines can only be played for 3 coins at a time. However, bonus round spins only cost 1 coin.
Slot machines in the fourth generation control slightly differently than in the past three generations. Instead of simply stopping the reels from left to right with one button, reels are now stopped with their own buttons: the left reel uses the Y button, the center reel uses the B button, and the right reel uses the A button. The jackpot has been reduced to 300 coins, but winning a jackpot also triggers a bonus game. The bonus game in this generation involves trying to keep a Pokémon happy. The Pokémon can be a normal-colored Clefairy, an Template:Shiny2 Clefairy, or a Ditto pretending to be a Clefairy. In the bonus game, each time the slots begin to spin, the Pokémon will point at a wheel. If the player stop the wheels in the order Clefairy points out, the player will land on three Replay symbols and automatically win fifteen coins. Keeping the bonus game going as long as possible involves strategy, and it ends when the Pokémon leaves the scene.
Slot machines are not playable in the European versions of Platinum, apparently due to European Union anti-gambling laws. Instead, they have been replaced by game machines.
HeartGold and SoulSilver
Slot machines in the remakes of the second generation games play differently than in their originals. Pressing A stops the reels from left to right; however, the Control Pad controls both coin insertion and reel starting. Additionally, slot machine payouts can actually vary per machine, and are typically more in line with the Sinnoh games as opposed to the original Generation II games.
As players use the slot machine, a Smeargle depicted on the top screen and seen painting can change the background of the top screen's monitor, and any change in background changes slot effects. A green background signals normal play, a red background signals that it's easier to obtain a 7 or Poké Ball, and a blue background signals that it's easier to obtain a Pikachu or Marill.
Smeargle has an 8-bit signed integer mood value, which starts at 0. When at 0 or lower, the mood value increases by 1 with each spin unless a winning combination occurs. When the mood value is positive, it will increase by a varying amount whenever two Poké Balls or two 7's line up on the first two reels, but the third reel stops in a way that results in a loss. Its mood value must be positive for a background change to occur; the higher its mood value, the more likely a background change will occur. After a background change, its mood value will reset to a random negative value, usually between -1 and -15. Smeargle will pop up thought balloons depending on its mood value after each spin, unless its mood value is 0.
| Mood value | Thought balloons |
|---|---|
| -13 or lower | 5 yellow smiles |
| -12 to -10 | 4 yellow smiles |
| -9 to -7 | 3 yellow smiles |
| -6 to -4 | 2 yellow smiles |
| -3 to -1 | 1 yellow smile |
| 0 | N/A |
| 1 to 3 | 1 red X |
| 4 to 6 | 2 red X's |
| 7 to 9 | 3 red X's |
| 10 to 12 | 4 red X's |
| 13 or higher | 5 red X's |
The jackpot for three 7's is 100 + 2x, while the jackpot for three Poke Balls is 100 + x, where x starts at 0, may increase whenever a non-jackpot symbol is lined up, and and resets to 0 after every bonus game.
A bonus game is started by winning a jackpot. Lining up three 7's starts a 15-round bonus game, while three Poké Balls will trigger an 8-round bonus. In this bonus game, players attempt to perfectly line up a randomly chosen one of Johto's starter Pokémon, and the machine may provide some assistance. Bonus game payouts vary depending on success, as well as the slot machine's speed during bonus games. At the end of a bonus game, the background automatically becomes red. This lets players "chain" together jackpots and bonus games; however, the bonus game difficulty increases (up to a maximum) with each chained jackpot.
The payout for each success in a bonus game is 20 + d * Floor(n / 2) coins, where n is the number of previous successes in the current game and d is a number from 1 to 3, based on the difficulty setting for the current bonus game (the harder, the higher the value). The maximum possible bonus win (not counting the 15 or 8 coins spent) is 447 coins for a 15-round bonus, or 196 for an 8-round bonus. At the end of the bonus game, Smeargle's mood value is set to -n.
The slot machines in these games are replaced by Voltorb Flip outside of Japan, likely to maintain compliance with the new, stricter European Union anti-gambling laws.
In the anime
Typical slot machines have only appeared in the backdrop of Neon Town in The Song of Jigglypuff. There, one slot machine was shown to stop on two Vulpix symbols and then a Psyduck symbol.
However, a slot machine of a different variety is an integral part of a standard Professor Oak's lecture, displaying Pokémon silhouettes prior to the featured Pokémon being revealed.
Trivia
- Slot machines also appear in Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, in the room at Realgam Tower that would house Battle Bingo in the latter game. The slot machines in those games are noninteractive, however, probably due to the fact that the Coin Case does not exist in those games.
- The reels do not always stop exactly when the player presses "A". Sometimes they will slip one or two symbols to get another symbol aligned with the first and second reels (and therefore pay out a prize), but following Japanese slot machine regulations, they will never slip for more than 0.19 seconds (four symbols).[1] They will also slip to avoid paying the Jackpot (and any other prizes) too often, but will also slip in favor of the Jackpot on certain spins.
- The Reel Time featured in Generation III slot machines is also a real feature on Japanese slot machines. The maximum bonus is 660 coins, which falls in between the 400 to 711 coins mentioned in the Wikipedia article. However, unlike real Japanese slot machines, these payouts come all at once, instead of 15 coins at a time.[1]
