Lady Merlin Lightning Chase

Lady Merlin Lightning Chase Overview

Created by the designers at Relax Gaming, Lady Merlin Lightning Chase is a medieval-themed slot game played on an unusually structured game board. The board has five reels in a 3-4-3-4-3 format, creating as many as 432 pay lines. This game also has two playing modes: normal and Boom+ ante. Although it costs more per spin, the latter game mode gives you access to more features and upgrades the wilds in the game.

Sadly, the RTP for Lady Merlin Lightning Chase hovers under the 96% mark at 95.96%, which is disappointing considering the cost per spin.

Features in this game depend on your choice of betting mode. In the regular mode, players are given access to regular wilds, which substitute for other regular symbols and provide a 2x multiplier. However, when in the Boom Ante+ mode, the wild can replace all symbols on the board, including collect and scatter symbols. If in either mode, you are given access to the Hold and Re-spin feature, which is about trying to land scatters on a board in order to fill it up and win multiplier payouts. Finally, there is a free spins round too. However, this feature is only available when you are playing the Boom Ante+ mode.

Theme and Symbols

This game is themed around the myth of Merlin, a figure prominent in the Legend of King Arthur. In this story, Merlin is a magical wizard or prophet with supernatural powers, one of the most notable being shapeshifting. His abilities earned him much respect and notoriety across his life, and his benevolence meant he was always seen as a power for good. Merlin is one of the most popular characters of the Medieval era and still survives in many tales to this day. This slot game has all the spooky aesthetics of a man like Merlin yet has adapted the character at the centre of the action into a female role (perhaps to appeal to the predominantly male audience of these types of games).

The background in Lady Merlin Lightning Chase is a spooky crypt or enchanted forest in which it is implied the magical witch lives. There isn't much to see in terms of background, really, as the whole scene is cloaked in darkness and mist. The mysterious nature of this background helps the clear and bright symbols appear with more vivacity and helps the designers out as they don't have to put a lot of detail into its construction. All you can see are a few silhouettes of trees.
The playing board, on the other hand, is much more interesting to look at. It is a gothic frontage that could perhaps be part of some great church.

The symbols for this game are split into high-value, low-value and special symbols. The low-value symbols for this game are the J, Q, K and A in playing card royals, written in a gothic script. The higher value symbols, on the other hand, comprise the various coloured potions. These start with the modest-looking purple tincture, then the blue, green, yellow, and finally red. The red portion is the most valuable of the regular symbols paying out at £20 for the top combination of five symbols in a row. The specials finally are the wild- a depiction of Lady Merlin in full regalia. Then there is the scatter, Lady Merlin staring into a crystal ball, the collect symbol, and the lightning coil symbol.

Game Play

Lady Merlin Lightning Chase is played on a 5-reel machine with varying row height and 432 fixed pay lines. To win combinations, players must land three or more matching symbols on pay lines moving from left to right, starting from the leftmost reel.
The betting range for Lady Merlin Lightning Chase is 25p to £8 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stake up and down using the tool located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

Further information, including a short tutorial and a display of the paytable, can be found via the menu button in the right-hand corner of the screen. The spin and auto spin buttons are located in the centre of the screen.
Volatility for this slot is rated in the medium to high range. The return to player percentage for Lady Merlin Lightning Chase is 95.96%, which is below average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 25,600x your stake.

Features

As we have said, the features available to you in this game depend on the playing mode that you opt for. Under the normal playing mode, you are given access to a wild symbol. However, it only falls on reels 2 and 4 and comes with a 2x multiplier and substitutes just for regular symbols.

Under normal mode, you are also given access to the Lightning Coil Hold and Re-spin feature. Land six or more of the scatters on the reels at the same time to trigger this game. The triggering scatters then become sticky, and you are given three re-spins. If you land a Lightning coil, wild or collect symbols, the re-spin tally resets to three. The idea in this feature is to try and land as many Lightning Coil symbols as possible by the time you exhaust your re-spins: the more symbols, the greater the pay out at the end when you collect.

If playing with the Boom+ option on, the wild is available on reels 2, 3 and 4 and can also replace collect and scatter symbols.
The Boom+ option also gives you access to a free spin round. Land three scatters to trigger it. This round provides you with ten free games with an increasing multiplier in play. For every wild or scatter that you land, you also add another free spin to your tally.

Conclusion

Playing with the Boom+ option is the only real way to play this game. As much as it's annoying to have to pay a little over the odds per spin, you get a lot more for your money, which in the end, is the only way you are going to win big here. They could have tried a little harder with the theme, but maybe that's just an unfair evaluation of other magical themed slots. Relax Gaming has pulled off a relatively good game here, all things considered.