High spec design is a given with Yggdrasil Gaming and Easter Island is another cracking looking game. Flanked by a pair of mysterious stone statues, the reels include lower value playing card suits which award up to 20 coins per payline as well as 5 brightly coloured animal icon symbols. The best of these is the red bird which pays 125, 250 or 500 coins if you land 3, 4 or 5 in combination.
There’s also a wild that can land on reels 2 and 4 only - when the wild hits, it expands to turn the whole of that reel wild. This is known as the Expanding Wilds feature. As usual, the wild replaces all other symbols.
There aren’t any standard free spins on offer here. What keeps the pace fast are the respins which are awarded following any winning spin as you activate the Symbol Swap Respin feature. They’re not just any old respins though as they come with symbols swaps too. A low value symbol win sees the lower value symbols replaced by the winning symbol on the respin. A high value win sees the higher value symbols replaced by the successful symbol.
The game engine can expand too depending on how many symbols made up your winning combination – this is the Expanding Reels feature. A 3-symbol win awards a respin on the standard 27 payline machine. Land a 4-of-a-kind winner and the respin plays on a 5 row machine that offers 65 paylines. A 5-symbol winner awards a respin on a 103 payline machine. After the respin, the reels revert back to their normal size.
You can expect a steady stream of action courtesy of the expanding wilds and more importantly the respins. This isn’t a very volatile slot game as the variance here is low so expect plenty of smaller win rather than anything that’s likely to break the bank. Saying that, you can win up to 1,880 times your total stake on every spin/respin.
Classy design, an interesting theme and innovative features are what we’ve come to expect from Yggdrasil Gaming and they’ve delivered once again with Easter Island. It might not be volatile enough for some action junkies but for most players the combination of high spec visuals and interesting extras make this journey one well worth making. If you like the theme, Tiki Paradise from Playtech should do the trick.