Power of Merlin Megaways Slot by Pragmatic Play 🎰 Free Demo and Review

Power of Merlin Megaways Review

Merlin is a mythological figure from the legends surrounding King Arthur, and he was basically King Arthur’s friend, mentor, and magical helper. Plenty of online slots have been built around this mysterious character, and you get to meet him again in Pragmatic Play’s Power of Merlin Megaways. He even provides action commentary now and then, or at least when you trigger the bonus round. He looks stern and authoritative in this release, and his voice gave the same impression.

The game plays out on a dynamic grid with up to 117,649 Megaways, and the top tracker reel comes with a brand new innovation called the Lightning Bolt symbol. It turns a randomly selected symbol type wild whenever it appears, and this can happen up to multiple times if the symbol moves via the tumble feature. The multiplier increases progressively per win in the bonus round, and it never resets. This is how you’re most likely to close in on the solid 40,000x potential, which is unusually high for both this developer and the Megaways genre in general.

Power of Merlin Megaways Slot - Reels Screen

Power of Merlin Megaways Slot Features

The premium symbols pay between 2 and 20 x your stake for 6 of a kind wins, and the top-tier Merlin symbol also pays 0.5x your stake for 2 of a kind. The red orb Wild symbol steps in for any pay symbol to help complete and/or improve wins, and wilds can appear on reels 2 to 6 only. The wild holds no value of its own in this game. Winning symbols are removed and replaced via the Tumble mechanic, and this process repeats for as long as you keep winning.

The Lightning Bolt symbol can appear on the top horizontal tracker reel only, and it will select a random pay symbol type when it does. All instances of the selected symbol type will then turn into wild symbols on reels 2 to 5. The Lightning Bolt symbol may change position due to the tumble feature, and if this is the case its modifying effect strikes again each time.

The Bonus Round triggers when you land 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 flaming book scatters anywhere in view, and this gives you 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, or 30 free spins, respectively. You can gamble your free spins on a bonus wheel if you get less than 30, but you risk losing the whole feature if you do. The progressive win multiplier starts at x1, and it increases by +1 for each tumble win. The multiplier never resets for as long as the bonus round lasts, and 3+ scatters in view awards +4 extra spins.

The Bonus Buy feature is available in some jurisdictions, but not in the UK for sure. If eligible, you can hit the “buy free spins” button seen on the left, and the feature costs 150x your stake. The top-tier bonus buy RTP is 96.08 %, which is just a tad lower than the regular top-tier RTP of this game. The bonus round has an organic hit rate of 1 in 418 spins.

Power of Merlin Megaways Slot - Free Spins

Review Summary

We have seen similar Megaways releases from Pragmatic Play before, as this developer tends to rely on different kinds of wild transformation features. Power of Merlin Megaways still sticks out in a positive way though, as the brand new Lightning Bolt symbol has a refreshing effect on the gameplay. It adds unpredictability on a fairly regular basis in the base game, as you never know what kind of wild pattern the symbol transformation will amount to.

In addition, the Lightning Bolt symbol can even retrigger itself when it moves via the tumble mechanic, so there is no telling what kind of impact it will have in a decent tumble sequence. The progressive win multiplier takes things to the next level in the bonus round, and the 40,000x potential is way above what you usually get from this developer. The 150x bonus buy tells you a thing or two about the average returns, however, but the max win hit rate is a decent 1 in 21,276,596 spins.