Vanessa

Vanessa Overview

Vanessa is an anime-style video slot from SimplePlay, released on 22 April 2021. It runs on 5 reels, 3 rows and 30 paylines, and SlotCatalog lists an RTP of 96.07% with high volatility. No official maximum win has been published.

The heroine is a sword-wielding fighter in a neon city, and the bonus is built like a fighting game: during the free spins she battles an opponent, and a knockout unlocks the Power Wheel with its Power Spin, Power Climb and Power Prize features. Three jackpots – Major, Minor and Mini – sit in the top right corner.

A Neon Cyber City

The reels float in front of a rainy skyline of skyscrapers and glowing signs in green, purple and blue. Vanessa herself stands to the left of the grid in a red and black outfit, holding her blade, while the gold logo with its electric trim hangs above the reels.

The top symbols are three characters: Vanessa, a villain in a purple cap and a schoolgirl in a dark blazer. Below them come a pistol, a camera and a futuristic ray gun, and the card ranks A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 fill the low end. A red and white armoured sphere also appears on the reels.

Paylines and Bets

The game rules are short. All symbols pay left to right on adjacent reels from the leftmost one, except the scatter; only the highest win on each line is paid; and scatter wins are multiplied by the total bet and added to the line wins. The rules screen shows the 30 fixed lines across three rows of patterns.

In our session the coin was 0.01 and the line bet 10, giving a total bet of 3.00. All paytable values are in coins and are multiplied by the coin value and the line bet.

The Paytable

Vanessa and the villain in the cap pay 200 coins for five, 100 for four and 50 for three. The schoolgirl and the pistol pay 150 for five, while the camera and the ray gun pay 130. Among the card ranks, A and K pay 120 for five, Q and J 100, and 10 and 9 pay 80.

At our stake, five Vanessa symbols on a single line would pay 20.00 – about 6.7 times the total bet – so the big results come from several lines connecting at once or from the bonus.

Base Game Wins

With 30 lines, wins arrived often. We recorded spins paying 10.00 and 15.00 from Vanessa symbols stacked on the first reels, and a 29.00 win – nearly ten times the stake – from a screen of spheres, cameras and pistols under a purple sky.

The Scatter and Free Spins

The scatter is a winged silver heart with gold trim. In our session four of them landed together and the message bar announced a scatter game, which started the free spins.

The free spins screen changes the scene: the villain in the purple cap takes Vanessa’s place on the left, and above the reels an Opponent bar faces a Player bar. In our round a column of fire covered the middle reel, and the two bars track the fight as the spins go on. After two free spins our win stood at 38.00.

Knockout and the Power Wheel

When the round ended the game declared “Opponent KO and win Power Wheel Feature”, with the free spins total at 123.00 – 41 times our 3.00 stake. The schoolgirl character then appeared next to a large wheel.

The wheel is split into segments showing the characters and labels such as Power Prize, Power Spin and Power Climb. SlotCatalog lists these three as separate features, together with a bonus wheel and a progressive jackpot. The game does not explain on the reel screen what each segment pays, so we only report what we saw. The wheel screen also shows the running win, which in our case still stood at 123.00 when the spin button invited us to enter the feature game.

During our session the panel showed Major 139,541, Minor 2,947 and a Mini that moved between 321 and 322. SlotCatalog tags the game with a progressive jackpot, which fits the small change we saw in the Mini value.

Only one symbol breaks the normal line rules: the winged heart scatter, which pays anywhere in view and starts the bonus. Everything else pays on the 30 lines from the leftmost reel. The armoured sphere is not listed among the regular paying symbols on the paytable screens we saw, so we cannot say what role it plays in the base game.

The character symbols often land stacked, as in our 10.00 and 15.00 wins, where two or three Vanessas filled the first reel. With 30 lines crossing the three rows, a stack on the left can connect with the next reels on several lines at the same time.

The Fighting-Game Bonus

The free spins round is the part that makes Vanessa different from most SimplePlay slots. Instead of simply counting spins, the screen shows a duel: the opponent’s portrait and health bar on one side, Vanessa’s on the other. The round keeps going until one side wins, and a knockout leads straight into the Power Wheel, so the free spins and the wheel work as two stages of one bonus.

In our session the whole bonus – from the scatter trigger to the knockout – produced 123.00, the largest total we saw by far. Compare that with the 29.00 top win in the base game and it is clear where the high volatility rating comes from.

Desktop and Mobile

Vanessa runs in the browser like the rest of the SimplePlay range, on desktop and mobile. The coin value and line bet selectors sit at the bottom left, and the Max Bet, spin and Auto Play buttons on the right.

Our Verdict

Vanessa stands out in the SimplePlay catalogue thanks to its fighting-game bonus. The base game pays small but frequent line wins, and the real value lies in knocking out the opponent and spinning the Power Wheel. With a 96.07% RTP and high volatility, it suits players who enjoy anime visuals and multi-stage bonuses. The free demo above is SimplePlay’s own and needs no registration, so the whole bonus chain – scatter, duel and wheel – can be tried before playing for real money.

Where to Play Vanessa

You can try this game on AztecParadise Online Casino. There’s a unique casino bonus offer of 300% up to £2000 for a limited time.

Vanessa by SimplePlay was listed in all six of our partner casino libraries when we checked on 24 September 2026.