Vikings Unleashed: Introduction

Anyone who has ever played a 117k MegaWays slot will instantly know what's about to go down just by looking at the screenshot above, and as great as the visual presentation and overall production may be, the mathematical model has been tried and tested in absurdum by now. Fundamentally, Vikings Unleashed is a clone of Big Time Gaming's smash hit Extra Chilli which, together with Diamond Mine (Blueprint), all share the identical paytable. It also comes with elements used in its other MegaWays slots, such as the Mystery symbol for example as you will see.

The functionality of the free spin feature itself remains the same with its tremendously popular combination of cascading symbols and growing multipliers, and instead, the designers have focused on bringing about a somewhat new experience with the help of the pre-bonus options on offer. We'll get into that later in the review, but let's first look at the visual presentation.

With a cartoon style design, the reels on this nautical slot are set against the deck of a Viking's ship confidently cruising across the high seas. The waves splashing on the sides and the rockin' of the ship helps convey a sense of motion that along with the colourful graphics and epic battle call soundtrack makes it quite compelling.

Playable on all devices, players can bet between 0.20 and 10 Euros per spin. If you don't feel like waiting for the bonus to drop, which we all know by now can take a considerable amount of time on the Bonanza-type slots, there's a Feature buy button. The 96.5% base game RTP is well within the acceptable range and is slightly increased in the free spin feature.

Vikings Unleashed: Symbols & Paytable

As previously mentioned, the paytable is generic and has been recycled from other MegaWay slots. On the reels we find 9 to A carved wooden royals as well as 4 high-paying characters; a magician, an indigenous girl, the Barbarossa Viking and the gold-bearded hero himself who is worth 50 times the stake for 6 across a full payline.

The game is played on a dynamic reel set with 6 reels that each can reveal up to 7 symbols and expand to a maximum of 117,649 paylines, better known as MegaWays. Above the reel set is a mini reel set that reveals an additional 4 symbols with ever spin and, which unlike the main reel set, can include wild symbols and scatters.

Aside from the standard symbols, there's a mystery symbol included as well that is represented by a Hammer. The Hammer can appear in any position and all Hammers in view will reveal the same random symbol, something that can result in considerable wins.

Vikings Unleashed: Free Spins

The free spin feature can be initiated in two ways; either "organically" by landing at least 4 scatters anywhere on the reels, which gives you 12 free spins + 5 additional free spins for every extra scatter landing on the reels, or by simply buying your way into the feature. When players click the Feature buy button they are presented with 4 options, all with a starting multiplier of x1:

• 5 free spins to a cost of 25 times the stake (96.75% RTP).
• 8 free spins to a cost of 50 times the stake (96.89% RTP).
• 10 free spins to a cost of 75 times the stake (96.90% RTP).
• 12 free spins to a cost of 100 times the stake (96.91% RTP).

In both cases, players will be offered the opportunity to gamble the free spins initially triggered with one pie wheel to gamble the free spins and another pie wheel to gamble the multipliers. Visually, at least, the odds appear to be in heavy favour of the player, something that in our experience turned out to be a legitimate representation. Other players may, of course, have a different experience. Players can gamble their way up to a maximum of 27 free spins and a starting multiplier of x10.

The free spin feature can re-trigger, awarding you an additional 5 or 10 free spins should you land 3 or 4 scatters respectively on the mini reel set.

Vikings Unleashed: Conclusion

When all is said and done, this is yet another typical 117 MegaWays slot so nothing new on the western front. The setup of the gamble feature does give it a bit of a twist, and it's possible that the distribution of the RTP may have been allocated slightly different, it's hard to say, but ultimately it's an ultra-high variance slot like the rest of the lot. Although "unlimited retriggers and multipliers" are used as a sale's pitch, it does come with a max cap of 50,000 times the stake or 250,000 Euros, whichever is reached first. Triggering even half of that potential, however, would probably make any player a lifetime fan of this slot.

We absolutely love the design and the producers are obviously extremely talented, but admittedly we would like to have seen a somewhat more innovative use of the MegaWays mechanics.

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