One of the criticisms we had of many of Novomatic’s early releases was that they looked a bit rubbish. They’ve really upped their game as far as design goes and Elemental Dragons is another impressive looking slot game. Set against a red backdrop filled with lanterns and watched over by the ice and fire dragons, the reels include lower value royal values plus a selection of objects relating to the Sino theme.
In order of value are flowers, gongs and lanterns which pay up 10 times your total stake per payline. Next come the koi and the firecrackers which award up to 50 times your stake. The best paying symbols are the fire and ice dragon heads, both of which pay 0.5, 5, 25 or 100 times your stake if you land 2, 3, 4 or 5 on a payline.
Wilds are central to the action in Elemental Dragons. On any spin, a dragon can appear on reels 2, 3 or 4 and award the Dragon Wild feature:
- The red fire wild awards a respin with the wild locking in place
- The blue water wild upgrades to a scatter, making it a little easier to trigger the Sticky Wild Dragon Free Spins feature
- The green earth wild is stacked and turns the whole of the reel wild
Land 3, 4 or 5 scatters on the same spin and you’ll activate the Sticky Wild Dragon Free Spins feature - on offer here are 10 free spins. At the start of the round, you’ll see a glow surround reel 1. Land a dragon head in this glowing reel and it turns into a sticky wild. Fill all positions on this reel with wilds and glow moves to the next reel and the process is repeated.
If you fill reels 1 and 2 with wilds, 4 extra free spins are added to your total with 2 more free spins awarded if you fill reel 3 as well. Each dragon head that turns into a wild also adds 1 extra free spin to your tally. That’s 31 free spins in total if you’re lucky.
The mysterious glow can appear in the base game too. If it surrounds all 5 reels, you’ll trigger the Power Reels Bonus feature - 1 wild is added to all 5 reels and a new payout consideration is made.
There’s a bit more going on here than we’ve come to expect from a Novomatic slot game. The expanded range of extras works well though, especially in combination with the improved sound and visuals.
What is familiar though is the variance. Elemental Dragons is a medium to high variance title with top wins of 4,000 times your stake on each free spin. We enjoyed this Chinese-themed release. It’s well designed, delivers plenty of extras and is high variance. Put all that together and what’s not to like. I would also recommend you try Dragon’s Deep by Novomatic which is 1 of their better offerings.