Merlin’s Mania

Merlin’s Mania Review

Bullshark is back with Merlin's Mania slot, a sequel to the relatively recent Merlin's Alchemy. This time, we're diving deeper into Merlin's mystical workshop, complete with flickering candles, an eerie soundtrack, and a 6x5 grid overflowing with magical ingredients. Both the visuals and the features are familiar, and you still need 8+ matching symbols anywhere on the grid to score a win. That being said, the winning symbols have increased both in number and value.

The symbols have also changed, with cauldrons, spell books, poaches, herbs, and potions adorning the reels. Including the royals, the symbols pay between 50x and 400x your stake for 19+ wins, while ranging from 0.4x to 2x your stake for 8 in view. You can spin the reels with bets ranging from €0.10 to €100, which caters to all player types. The Cascading Reels feature allows for indefinite winning streaks within the same round, and special Wilds play a central part in this follow-up too.

The Mystery Symbols and Activator Wilds are key to unlocking the game's biggest wins. These conspire to build the global win multiplier, just like in the original game. This multiplier doesn't reset in either of the bonus rounds, and it starts at x5 in the added Super bonus round. For some reason, the mystery-revealed potion that boosts the global win multiplier by up to x10 has been removed in this game.

While Merlin's Mania slot retains the core mechanics of its predecessor, there are some notable improvements to the math model. The top-tier RTP has been bumped up slightly to 96.31 %, and the volatility has been toned down to a medium 3 out of 5. This means you can expect a more balanced gameplay experience with a good mix of smaller and larger wins. The max win has also increased a bit, to 12,000x your stake, a tad surprising given the lower volatility.

Merlin’s Mania Features

The mystery symbols do more than reveal matching pay symbols in Merlin’s Mania Bullshark Games, and cascading reels keep your winning streaks going. There are 2 bonus rounds to cover this time, so let’s dive in!

Cascading Wins

All winning symbols are removed from the grid, allowing for a new batch of symbols, as well as existing symbols, to drop down and fill the gaps. This process repeats as long as you keep winning, allowing for indefinite streaks.

Mystery Symbols

You can land between 2 and 30 Mystery symbols on any given base game spin, and these reveal:

• A randomly chosen matching pay symbol.
• A regular Wild symbol that substitutes for any pay symbol.
• An Adder Wild - adds +1 to +100 to the global win multiplier and acts as a wild symbol.
• An Activator Wild - each instance substitutes for pay symbols and applies the global win multiplier to any win they partake in. If they partake in the same win, the multiplier values are added together before being applied.
• Sticky Activator Wilds (bonus rounds only) - same as Activator Wild, but persistent for the duration of the free spins feature.

Global Multiplier

The Global Win Multiplier resets to x1 after each cascading sequence in the base game, but is persistently building in the bonus rounds.

Merlin’s Mania Free Spins

The Wizard’s Favor Bonus Round triggers from 3 scatter symbols in the same cascading sequence or on the very same base game spin. You start with 8 free spins, and the win multiplier never resets for as long as the free spins session lasts. You can prolong the bonus round by landing scatters, each awarding +1 extra free spin.

The Merlin's Insanity Bonus Round triggers from 4 scatters, awarding 10 initial free spins. Here, the global win multiplier starts at x5, while still being persistent for the duration of the feature. To be clear, the multiplier increases per Adder Wild for both bonus rounds, not per cascading win. Landing scatters award +1 extra free spin per symbol.

Merlin’s Mania Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players can check the bonus buy menu via the small round button down to the left. It offers the following 4 options in Merlin’s Mania slot:

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - pay 3x your stake to increase the bonus round hit rate by 5 times.
• Mystery Madness FeatureSpins - pay 40x your stake to get 6+ mystery symbols, guaranteeing 1 Activator and 1 Adder Wild from these symbols.
• Wizard's Favor Bonus Round - pay 100x your stake for this feature.
• Merlin's Insanity Bonus Round - pay 200x your stake for this feature.

Pros and Cons of Merlin’s Mania

Our Verdict

It seems Bullshark has a lesson or two to learn from their more successful partner studio, Hacksaw. A follow-up game needs to bring something new to the table to really make a splash, or at least that’s how it usually works. Hacksaw excels at this, always making each game feel unique with improved or altered visuals, added features and modifiers, and tweaks to the bonus rounds. Judging from our SlotRank system, which takes lobby positions across all online casinos into account, Merlin's Alchemy wasn’t exactly a smash hit.

Merlin’s Mania Bullshark Games admittedly has a better ring to it, but this release feels more like a relaunch attempt with a more favorable math model than a true sequel. The visuals are a bit too similar, almost to the point where you wonder why they bothered changing them at all. Both the base game and bonus round settings are more or less the same as before, but look a bit different. Merlin himself now wears a hooded cape for some reason, while still completely fixated on the yellow potion in his hand. It’s like Bullshark is trying some alchemy of their own, hoping that stirring up the old ingredients and smoothing out the math model will help them strike gold.

To be fair, both installments are pretty decent games in my opinion, although I prefer this one over the first game. The lack of attention is probably more because it takes time to build an audience in this competitive business. With a more balanced math model and lower volatility, while increasing the max win, Bullshark is clearly aiming for broader appeal. The mystery symbols multiplier system is fairly engaging, but it can be tough to build a large multiplier in the bonus round.

You need the special wilds in abundance, unlike in so many games where each cascade adds to the win multiplier, boosting all wins instead of just special wild wins. Still, the 12,000x max win makes this another playable release from Bullshark, but they will probably continue to struggle in Hacksaw’s shadow until they truly find their own voice. Perhaps they should focus on conjuring up more original ideas instead of just rehashing old ones. After all, in the world of online slots, innovation is the real magic potion.