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Lisa Michaels
Masters of Valhalla Online Slot by Microgaming and Snowborn Games takes a visually bold shot at depicting the legendary Norse Gods in their heavenly kingdom. In this 5x4 reel, high volatility 1024 payline game, I was greeted by opaque reels backed by an image of the mountainous supernatural realm and the visages of terrifying and noble gods appeared as symbols. An innovative feature adds spins to your future bonus rounds and the game’s features include respins and wilds. This title is optimised across all platforms.
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There is an intriguing interplay between the base game and the main bonus feature that makes this title really stand out.
Wild God Respins
The colour-coded wilds each matched one of the high-value god symbols and they were collected as they landed. This randomly led to the bonus feature being triggered where I received a respin and 1-19 extra wilds on the reels. In addition, all the god symbols were replaced with the high-value symbol that matched the triggering wild.
Berserk Booster
When 2 Bonus symbols landed on reels 1 and 3, they were collected in the Bonus Booster meter above the reels. Once the meter filled up, it applied an enhancement to the Valhalla Bonus feature the next time I triggered it.
Valhalla Bonus
Landing 3 bonus symbols on reels 1, 3, and 5 cleared all symbols off the reels and replaced them with 3 wooden shields or 3 golden shields. If I had managed to activate the Berserk Booster, I received 4 spins, otherwise, I was given 3. Any new symbol that landed during this spin sequence would reset my spins back to their starting number of 3 or 4. Several special symbols could make an appearance, each of which came with its own benefit.
The Wooden shields held values of 1x to 9x my bet, while the Golden shields’ value ranged from 10x to 50x. The Thor symbols were valued at 1x to9x and also expanded the reels by one row down with the addition of up to 2 extra rows possible.
When the Freya or Odin symbols appeared, they came with multiplier values that were applied to all symbols that landed on the same spin and any symbols from subsequent spins. Hugin & Munin, the raven observers of Midgard appeared with a multiplier value that was added to all other symbols once.
The infernal hound Garmr brought with it a multiplier value and collected the value of all symbols in view once.
Hel, the goddess of the dark underworld did the same as Garmr but additionally collected other symbols’ values for all the following spins.
Blue lightning bolts would occasionally appear in empty positions, generating the appearance of non-shield special symbols and if I managed to fill the entire grid with symbols I was awarded 500x my bet. over and above the winnings, I accumulated. The round would also end once I ran out of spins and I was paid out the combined value of the symbols in view.
Buy Bonus
I was fortunate enough to be in a territory where I could take advantage of this feature that allowed me to trade 50x my stake to trigger the standard Valhalla Bonus or 100x my stake to activate it with the Berserk Booster enabled.
Masters of Valhalla got my pulse pounding with a thrill-filled bonus round and compelling visuals. Slots about Norse deities are a-dime-a-dozen so it’s always interesting to see if a studio has developed a unique visual approach and I’d say Snowborn’s treatment of the subject matter is different enough to help it stand out. The visuals are rendered in a cool cartoon style with bright-bold visuals and animations. Where this slot truly excels is in the bonus round where the prize values built up with thrilling speed and sent me hurtling towards the game’s impressive top prize per spin of $500 000.
As far as any gripes I have, the studio could have gone a bit more detailed and lifelike with its graphics and the top potential, while salivatingly appealing, would take me having extraordinary luck to achieve within my first couple of hundred spins, largely thanks to the challenging RTP. These feel like minor gripes in the face of a highly competent title that delivers on excitement and potential.
Lisa started off as a croupier at her local casino. However she found her niche in writing and has subsequently used her real-world gambling experiences to help produce and review the many online slots that are released monthly. Lisa also contributes to keeping you up to date with Canadian newsworthy stories.
