Merlin: Journey of Flame: Slot Overview
Wands, swords, and grimoires at the ready, players, for it is time to experience a bit of fantasy with developer Play'n GO in the online slot Merlin: Journey of Flame. It's not totally clear how realistic the Arthurian Legends were, so perhaps Merlin: Journey of Flame is a step into history as well? Then again, it's got a dragon, so… Anyway, enough second guessing ourselves, what we do know is that Merlin: Journey of Flame is a clone of Play'n GO's slot Scroll of Dead, which means players are invited in for some expanding special symbol action à la Book of Ra, but with a mediaeval, fantasy twist.
Play'n GO has crafted an extensive number of both Arthur-themed as well as 'Book of' slots, honing its talent for doing so over an extended period of time. Merlin: Journey of Flame then is a fairly striking-looking game held in a cavernous region with pointy rock structures and what could be fireflies. A dragon's lair, perhaps. Whilst not Play'n GO's most stunning piece of work, Merlin: Journey of Flame is nonetheless rammed with the sort of professional touches you'd expect from a studio which has successfully been making these sorts of games for a while now.
Something that is obviously apparent when Merlin: Journey of Flame hits the screen is the locked sixth reel. Till this reel activates in free spins, Merlin: Journey of Flame is played on a 5-reel, 3-row gaming panel with 10 paylines available for the purpose of making win evaluations. With a 9 out of 10 rating, Merlin: Journey of Flame is a highly volatile slot designed with several RTP configurations, out of which 96.28% is the highest. Before pursuing their mission, players need to choose their angle of attack by picking a bet ranging from 10 p/c to £/€100 per spin.
Regular line wins in Merlin: Journey of Flame start from the leftmost side of the reels and land across adjacent reels – not so the expanded symbol wins, as we will see in the next section. On the lower side of the paytable, we've got green, blue, red, orange, and yellow runically inscribed stones, then a bottle, book, staff, and Merlin as the 4 premium symbols. When landing a 5 OAK low pay win, the rewards are 10 to 12.5 times the bet, while 5 winning premium symbols award 50 to 500 times the bet. Where it gets interesting is when the sixth reel is unlocked. Then, a 6-symbol low pay win is worth 15 to 20 times the bet, while a 6 symbol high pay win awards 100 to 750 times the bet.
Merlin: Journey of Flame: Slot Features
Here, we've got two features to delve into – a bonus round of free spins and a gamble option. One of the keys is the Dragon Egg symbol which is both wild, so it substitutes for any pay symbol and the game's scatter.
Free Spins
Landing 3, 4, or 5 Dragon Egg Wild scatter symbols in the base game awards 8 free spins plus a payout of 2x, 20x, or 200x the bet, respectively. When free spins are activated, the sixth reel unlocks, becoming available for landing additional symbols. Also, when free spins trigger, one symbol is randomly chosen to be the special expanding symbol. When expanding symbols can form a win, they expand to cover all positions on their respective reels. Expanded symbols pay all active paylines and do not have to be adjacent to each other – they pay from any position, in other words. It is possible to squeeze extra mileage out of the bonus round by landing 3 or more Hatched Dragon Egg Wild scatters, awarding an extra 8 free spins. No limit is set on how many times this may occur.
Gamble Feature
A bit of an anachronism in this day and age, but Merlin: Journey of Flame comes equipped with an optional Gamble feature. A main game extra, the Gamble feature lets players attempt to double or quadruple (or nothing) a win by correctly guessing the colour or suit of a face-down playing card. Limits on the Gamble are that it can be played 5 times max, up to 250x the bet.
Merlin: Journey of Flame: Slot Verdict
If there are two topics Play'n GO digs, it's the Arthurian Legends and 'Book of' style games. Merlin: Journey of Flame reinforces this impression by bringing both of those two things together into one convenient spot. Speaking of convenience, Merlin: Journey of Flame can thank Play'n GO's earlier release Scroll of Dead for its existence. The reason is Merlin: Journey of Flame is basically a straight reskin, resurrecting the same stats, features, gameplay etc. Scroll of Dead did upon release. Credit then to Play'n GO's talented art team, who have done well to create an atmospheric rendition of Arthurian subject matter, and in so doing, help downplay some of the negativity brought about by the cloning, reskinning process, which can sometimes occur.
To the gameplay then and here, Merlin: Journey of Flame shines as brightly as Scroll of Dead ever did. Its selling point from a 'Book of' perspective is the sixth reel it dangles in front of players in the base game before unleashing it in the free spins bonus round. Not only does it look cool, but on a practical level, having an extra reel makes a significant impact on Merlin: Journey of Flame's ability to potentially payout. It would have sucked if Play'n GO had tinkered with the symbol values, dramatically lowering them to accommodate the extra reel. But it hasn't, really, so five-reel full-screen wins max out at the benchmark 5,000x the bet level, increasing to 7,500x for a six-reel full-screen win.
On a slightly sour note, an Arthurian-skinned clone of a 'Book of' slot isn't the most creative game a studio could conjure up, especially one as skilled at designing slots as Play'n GO is. But, putting these sorts of criticisms aside for a moment, Merlin: Journey of Flame is a handsome, expanding pay-anywhere symbol game that can perform at a higher level than a lot of 'book' slots do, so it is a viable option for those keen on this style.
