Magic Portals is a brand new slot compatible with mobile devices that is from the respected NetEnt development company. Unlike the majority of their other slots, Magic Portals offers a very different take on how Wild and Scatter bonuses will be triggered, with the key to the game being the two purple ringed Magic Portals that sit in the middle of the first and fifth reels. Get used to looking at these two spaces as they quickly become the most important spaces on the reels when you spin.
What you have here is a mystic themed slot which pitches a group of white-eyed mystics, mages and witches together with their chosen animal of choice (Dragon, Wolf or Owl) complete with a glowing orb representing their colour (red, green or blue). These are the nine standard symbols on the slot and they offer a range of payouts from just a few coins for three on a payline up to a maximum win of 500 coins on a payline for five of the red witch symbols.
There are a total of 25 fixed paylines in play across the 5×3 reels and you can wager from as little as Ā£0.01 per payline up to Ā£1.00 per payline on each slot. Furthermore, you can increase the Level meter to increase the number of coins you wager on each payline. This gives you a very large range of bets available from the minimum bet of Ā£0.25 up to a maximum bet of Ā£125 per spin. The biggest possible win on the slot is a very appealing 64,000 coins, which played at the higher coin value of Ā£1 represents a significant cash win. Ā The slot is available to play right now at the hugely popular Bet365 Vegas site, where Bet365 houses all its NetEnt slots.
The base game plays very much as a standard slot with the usual payline wins in play. However you will notice that there are no Wild symbols on the reels on an initial spin, although there is the Free Spins scatter available on the first and fifth reels. The reason for this is how the Magic Portals interact with the symbols to create the two key features of the slot which we will explore in more detail below.
Key Features
There are essentially just two key features on the Magic Portals slot, the first being the Wild symbols, how they work and how they are activated. As we have already noted, there are no Wild symbols on the standard reels when you start spinning but you can generate Wilds by landing any two of the same symbols in the two Magic Portals slots on the reels. When this occurs, not only will it turn these two symbols Wild, but any other of the same symbols anywhere else on the reels will also turn Wild too.
Obviously, this can be a highly variable bonus as on some spins, when you do land two of the same symbols on the reels, if you don’t have too many of the same symbol on the other reels, you may not generate a big win at all. However, there are times when you land several of these symbols across the reels and when all these turn Wild they can produce some of the biggest available wins in the base game.
The Free Spins bonus is also kicked off by the two Magic Portal spaces. This time, you need to land two of the Free Spins symbols on both of the Magic Portal spaces on the reels on a single spin. When you do you trigger the Free Spins bonus which sees you rewarded with 10 free spins (which can be retriggered by landing the Free Spins symbols on the Portal spaces once again during the bonus round).
The big bonus available to you in the Free Spins bonus round however is that you do not have just two Magic Portal spaces on the reels for the duration of the round. That’s because two additional Portals will be generated on every spin and will appear on the middle three reels in a variety of random positions. Essentially this means that you have four Magic Portal spaces during Free Spins which makes hitting Wild symbols on each spin considerably easier and of course, that can lead to a significant increase in the number of Wilds you land across the reels, and hence the size of the wins in this round tend to be considerably higher than in the base game.
How to win at the Magic Portals slot
As a more medium variance game, Magic Portals is a slot which is easy to play but takes time to get the most out of. As such, it is prudent to ensure you play to a stake that will allow you plenty of spins without pressuring your bankroll too greatly. To get the better features of this slot activated and generate some of the bigger wins is going to take time and patience so someone looking for a quick fix will probably not get the best out of the slot.
Although you can win some decent amounts in the standard base game, particularly with the Wizards and Witch symbols on the reels, the real money spinning rounds come when you activate the two bonus features via the portals and you quickly learn that getting the most from this slot is about triggering these two bonuses as often as you can.
The Wild Bonus is a nice touch and this is triggered more frequently than the Free Spins round, though even so it is rather difficult to hit and you don’t get as many Wild symbols on the reels per spin as you would a standard slot. However what you do find is when you trigger the Wilds, you end up with more Wild symbols on the reels in that spin. It’s a good trade off as one of these big value wins can easily be more than you would receive had you won 10 times using a Wild but only triggered smaller value wins.
The payouts from the Free Spins round are a little hit and miss at times. They can be very lucrative, but also can be very small amounts, which is a tad frustrating given how long it can take to trigger the bonus in the first place. Retriggering the Free Spins by landing the two Free Spins symbols on any two of the Four Portals available in Free Spins is the best way to give yourself a better chance of a high value win.
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