Zeus Lightning Power Reels

Zeus Lightning Power Reels: Overview

Possibly inspired by the success of Megaways, the team at Red Tiger has been experimenting with all sorts of different mechanics. So far we've had Power Lines, Super Lines and a Multiline slot, but none of them appear to have worked as well as the Power Reels series.

Red Tiger’s fifth slot in the Power Reels range has found divine inspiration from the Ancient Greek gods. The King of Olympus, Zeus, is the man around here and his power over the elements adds flare and wins to the expanded grid format. There seem to be two ways of approaching these Ancient Greek slots. You either go light and fill a cartoon slot with smiling, cheerful deities, or you do what Red Tiger has done and taken a darker, more serious treatment of the theme.

As such, Zeus and the rest of the symbols have that lack of humanity to them that you find in Greek theatre. Think of those actors that hide behind blank, soulless masks, for example. On a brighter note, Zeus Lightning possesses one of the better RTP rates to come our way in a while. We’ll take a look at that and everything else that the all-father of the Greek pantheon has to offer.

Zeus is known as the god of thunder, so this being a religious slot, in a classical sense, where else could the game be set? The 7 reel, 6 row grid has been elevated to Mount Olympus and surrounded by a heavenly complex made up of floating temples, loads of columns, and plenty of gold trim. It's all highly detailed, visually crisp and pleasing to the eye.

The paytable includes 9 regular pay symbols, any of which can become stacked. It starts with four low pay card suits, so, diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades in a baroque flowing design. The high pays follow and are a selection of mostly animals such as a serpent, bird, bear, ram, and a pan/humanoid figure. Payouts occur when three or more of a kind land on a payline. Best case is the pan symbol which works out at 150 times the stake for a line of seven. Also worth mentioning is that, even thought the gameplay is restricted to 30 paylines, wins pay from either side of the reels, or in the middle, which ups the odds.

On the technical side of things, things look positive as well. The volatility is high at 5/5, but so is the hit frequency which also is rated 5/5. Things become even more interesting when you look at the RTP which is set to 97.73%. There were some gripes about the RTP in previous Power Reels titles, and Red Tiger seems to have taken the heat on board and come out guns blazing. There have been a few over 97% RTPs recently, which is nice, and the rating here blows other Power Reels slots out of the water. On that note, set a bet from 10 p/c up to $/€20 per spin, and let’s see how the features fare.

Zeus Lightning Power Reels: Features

As you would imagine, Zeus plays a central role in most of the features on offer. The first is as the 1x3 wild which can substitute for any of the pay symbols. Also, when he lands in full, he brings the lightning and zaps a random symbol as part of the Expanding Lightning feature. The zapped symbols then expand to cover their respective reels, and this process can lead to the whole grid full of the same symbol. The other helpful aspect of expanded reels is that they pay anywhere on a payline. In other words, they do not need to be adjacent to each other, similar to the Book of Ra special symbols dynamic.

The second feature is a round of Free Spins which is triggered when 3 scatter symbols land in view. When this happens, 8 free spins are awarded which players can collect or gamble with a neatly designed gamble wheel. The wheel is split into 10 segments with a 60% chance of ending up with 4 free spins, 30% for 12, and a 10% chance of collecting 20 free spins instead.

At the start of free spins, two more Zeus wild symbols are added to the reels, which means up to 3 can land on a single spin. When more than one Zeus does land, the first one expands random symbols as before, while the others can expand more symbols, or upgrade the already expanded symbol to the next highest on the paytable. Lastly, scatter symbols also pay out x2 for two in view, or x5 when 3 are in view.

Zeus Lightning Power Reels: Verdict

Zeus Lightning Power Reels is one of the better entrants into the Power Reels series and has some good things going for it. For one, it’s easy on the senses with a game world that has been quite well set up. The Expanding Lightning feature works well at keeping the win rate up during the base game, and the Ra-like pay system can be fun. More importantly, the generous RTP alone makes this game worth exploring as it offers some pretty good value.

The main downside during testing was that hitting three scatters was no easy feat. Two popped up now and then with their consolation prize, but getting three to trigger the bonus game was a Herculean task. This may not come as a huge surprise for veterans though as Red Tiger slots often come with a relatively low bonus frequency.

When it did hit, however, the gamble feature can also really hurt when it doesn’t go your way - especially if it has taken an age to finally activate the bonus game. On the plus side, wild Zeus’ are capable of piling up coins, and help give the game a potential of over 5,000 times the stake which is decent, if not totally divine.

All in all, Zeus Lightning Power Reels has its uses. Any players looking for a larger reel format, or those that want a more seriously toned Ancient Greek slot, might enjoy what it has to offer. Apart from that, with its decent RTP, it might be a good candidate for powering through a wagering requirement perhaps.