5 Lions Megaways

5 Lions Megaways is the fourth game in the 5 Lions series, released by software game developer Pragmatic Play. The game pays tribute to Chinese culture by celebrating the number 5. The number itself is associated with the five elements (water, fire, earth, metal and wood) as well as the Chinese Emperor in Chinese numerology.

Following the three other releases in the series, 5 Lions is back and this time it has a Megaways makeover. Built across six reels, the game has the potential of 204,704 ways to win. If you have played any games from the series, including 5 Lions Gold and 5 Lions Dance, the reel setup will be nothing new, so you know all too well that the number of rows varies with each spin.

Like most of the games in the series, this is a highly volatile game with an RTP of 96.5%. And since there is no bonus buy option, the only helping hand you get in this game is the Ante Bet feature, doubling your chances of triggering the free spins features.

The lowest paying symbols are the usual card numbers, while symbols such as turtles, frogs, fish, dragons and phoenixes payout the most. It does get better. Landing a combination of six higher-paying symbols will payout anything between 2.5 and 25 times your wager.

Short facts

• Developer: Pragmatic Play
• RTP: 96.5%
• Volatility/Variance: High
• Layout: 6 x 2-7
• Paylines: 200,704
• Bonus features: Tumble feature, wild multipliers, standard wilds and free spins bonus round.
• Bets: £0.20 to 125
• Max wins (coins): 5,000x your stake

5 Lions Megaways jackpots

5 Lions Megaways comes with no jackpots attached.

5 Lions Megaways free spins

The Yin and Yang symbols are the ones you must watch out for, as they can award you with a handsome number of free spins. Triggering between 3 and 6 of these symbols can pay you between 3 and 100x your wager.

Once triggered, you are asked to pick the best free spins and wild multiplier combo that suits you best:

• 25 free spins with x2, x3, or x5 wild multipliers.
• 20 free spins with x3, x5, or x8 wild multipliers.
• 15 free spins with x5, x8, or x10 wild multipliers.
• 13 free spins with x8, x10, or x15 wild multipliers.
• 10 free spins with x10, x15, or x30 wild multipliers.
• 6 free spins with x15, x30, or x40 wild multipliers.
• A mystery option that combines free spins with a multiplier option

When you hit a winning combination with a wild symbol during the free spins round, the wild will randomly take a value. You also have the chance of landing the same number of free spins chosen if you land three scatters once again.

5 Lions Megaways bonus features

5 Lions Megaways is not jam-packed with features, but it does well in adding a few bits and bobs that have the potential to boost your winnings, including:

Tumble Feature

Similar to the Avalanche feature first seen in NetEnt’s Gonzo’s Quest, all symbols forming part of a winning combination are immediately removed and replaced with new symbols. This keeps on going until no more winning combinations are created.

To spice things up, the wild multiplier also increases in value with every consecutive winning combination. This can go from as little as x2 all the way to x40.

Golden Lion Wild

The wild replaces any symbol on the reels except for the scatter symbols, in a bid to create winning combinations.

Wild Multiplier Feature

When a wild symbol forms part of a winning combination, the multiplier is boosted with every winning combination formed on a respin.

Ante Bet Feature

Similar to most slot games by Pragmatic Play, there is an Ante Bet Feature. You only need to increase your bet from £0.20 to £0.25 (A slight increase for every other bet size) on each spin to trigger the Ante Bet feature.

The main aim of this feature is to double your chances of hitting the free spins round.

5 Lions Megaways RTP

The 5 Lions Megaways RTP stands at an average of 96.50%. This is a highly volatile game, which means you can expect infrequent big wins.

Verdict

The high volatility of this game is obvious to anyone who plays it. It took us a long time to hit a winning combination. The soundtrack of the slot game is also rather grating after some time which dwindled our optimism. For a Pragmatic Play slot game, we were also a bit disappointed with the graphics of the game.

However, things soon perked up once we hit the free spins bonus round. Picking a bonus from the myriad of options was also daunting considering that this was a highly volatile game. In the end, we settled for fewer free spins with higher wild multipliers. We still did not walk away from the bonus round with humongous wins.

Overall, the game does lack a variety of features. Considering its volatility, players can only hope for a wide range of features to boost their chances, but this is not the case with this game.

Fans of this slot series have nothing to complain about as the game appears to only have got a Megaways upgrade. There is nothing to upset them, but the chance to attract new players to the game.