Coba Reborn

Coba Reborn: Slot Overview

Like a snake charmer playing their flute to raise a serpent from a basket, ELK Studios has played a tune of its own with similar results. What this means is the slithering snake in a jungle action found in Coba has returned in the form of Coba Reborn. The original wowed with its unusual serpent symbol eating mechanic and overall dazzling design. For the Reborn version, ELK Studios returns most of what made the first game tick while adding in a few flowery extras (literally) and tweaking some of the dials here and there to make a game that is familiar yet new-ish at the same time.

Whilst the music has stayed more or less the same, it's like ELK Studios swapped out the gold filter for a blue/grey one when making Coba Reborn. This game is darker, moodier looking than the original, though hardly less eye-catching. An exotic culture remains the dominant visual influence, though Coba Reborn is located in a danker part of the world than before. A game grid covered in snake heads, on the sides as well as the top, lies buried in deep bush, surrounded by thick fauna and what looks like ancient ruins in the background. Standard stuff in some ways, yet the ELK Studios team has made it look good, drawing on the experience gleaned not just from Coba, but games like Pacific Gold and Voodoo Gold.

As well as some front-end adjustments, changes have been made on the back end too. One notable difference is that the volatility for Coba Reborn has been dialled up to high, compared to medium in the previous game. Another is that the RTP has dipped to 94%. This return value applies whether you're betting 20 p/c to $/€100 per spin in the regular manner or have activated the bonus mode and are buying features from the X-iter menu. Played on a 7x7-sized gaming panel, Coba Reborn's cluster pays win system means rewards are given when at least 5 matching symbols are connected to each other anywhere on the board.

Symbol values, too, have been pruned back, quite significantly in certain areas. Coba Reborn's low pays are a green turtle, blue lizard, and bronze monkey symbol, while the high pays are a green gem, blues gem, red gem, and a gold mask symbol. Landing a 5 OAK winning cluster awards 0.05 to 1 times the bet, and at the upper end, a 15+ sized cluster win awards 1.5 to 50 times the bet. When wild symbols appear, they may be used to substitute any regular paying symbol.

Coba Reborn: Slot Features

It's time for snakes and flowers as we go over Coba Reborn's features. Let's start with winning symbols, which are removed from the board when they form and are replaced by symbols dropping from above. Winning symbols are collected by the snake progress meter, and the Avalanche feature continues functioning like this until no new win appears.

Snake Progress Meter

When the snake progress meter is half-filled, wild symbols are randomly placed on the grid after the symbol refill. If the meter is completely filled, snakes are released depending on the level reached. Reach levels 1, 2, or 3 and 3 snakes are released from random entry points on the sides of the grid. Reach level 4, and 6 snakes are released from random entry points.

Snakes

A snake is a linear cluster of symbols that grows as the snake moves across the grid. Snakes are at least 5 symbols long and always form part of a winning cluster or part of a larger cluster. A yellow body snake means it will survive till the next avalanche; a blue body means it may die. Snakes always start in a yellow survival state, surviving the first avalanche drop. The first symbol a snake moves over becomes the snake's symbol, indicated on its head. Snakes become wild if the first symbol is an orchid. Symbols a snake moves over are transformed into its symbol, except for orchids or wilds.

If a snake moves over the same symbol type as itself, it grows in length, and its body becomes yellow – the same applies when snakes eat wild symbols. If a snake does not move over (eat) its symbol type, wild or orchid, during its whole movement, it dies and is removed from the grid before any win evaluations. Snakes with a wild as their symbol turn crossed symbols into wild symbols. These snakes must eat wilds, multiplier wilds, or orchids to grow and survive. Wild wins pay as the highest value symbol.

Where snakes cross paths, a multiplier wild symbol is created. They start at x2 and are doubled on each cross at the same position. When more than one multiplier is used in a win, the values are multiplied together first. A snake eating a wild multiplier grows and turns yellow. Lastly, a snake that crosses itself or bites its tail without the ouroboros feature active dies and is removed from the reels.

Orchids

Coba Reborn has 4 different orchid symbols, each one possessing its own feature:

• Blood Orchid – when 2 of these symbols are in view, a snake spawns from each. Or, a blood orchid can drain another type of orchid in view and spawn a snake from its position. A former blood orchid position turns wild once the snake has moved. When a snake eats a blood orchid, a random number of snakes appear from random entry points on the sides of the grid.
• Hydra Orchid – when a snake eats a hydra orchid, it spawns another snake behind its head with the same symbol type. If the eating snake has the rebirth or ouroboros feature, these are passed on to the new snake.
• Rebirth Orchid – when a snake eats a rebirth orchid, it can be resurrected from the dead to the same length and keep the ouroboros feature if it had it. The rebirth feature persists across multiple avalanche drops.
• Ouroboros Orchid – when a snake eats an ouroboros orchid, it can cross itself without dying. The crossing grows the snake which enters the survival state (yellow-bodied). The crossing position becomes a multiplier wild.

Snakes may have both rebirth and ouroboros features but cannot eat another rebirth or ouroboros orchid if it already carries them.

X-iter

A staple ELK Studios addition, the X-iter allows players to take on Coba Reborn in different game modes.

• Boosted Chance – one drop for 2x the bet with more than double the chance of reaching the first level on the snake meter.
• Flower Power – 10x the bet for one drop with at least 3 random orchids.
• All Ouroboros – 25x the bet for a game round with double blood orchids. All snakes can cross themselves.
• Bali Boost – 100x the bet for a game round guaranteed to reach level 1.
• Coba – 500x the bet for a game round that starts on level 4 with 6 snakes awarded.

Coba Reborn: Slot Verdict

It took time to form a definitive opinion about Coba Reborn. One reason why it didn't wow right away is because, in some ways, it is close to the original, and sequels often struggle to stand out of the shadow of what preceded them, whether in slots, books, movies, or any creative endeavour. It just didn't have the same shock of being new about it. Following on from the initial reaction was a feeling that with Coba Reborn, ELK Studios giveth on the one hand and taketh on the other. Additions are obvious things like the flower features and higher volatility, which some players may favour (others may not), so in this regard, the gameplay has received a reboot, or rebirth, as the case may be.

On the other hand, ELK has sliced the RTP back, which never feels great, while taking an axe to the pay symbols and decimating the larger cluster values. So while the extra features are doing their best to augment the Coba Reborn experience, reductions are there, holding them back from getting too wild and crazy. On an eyeball level, this balancing act seemed to mean lengthy chain of events can occur in Coba Reborn with, at times, surprisingly limited results. Of course, Coba Reborn has the guns to produce big results, satisfyingly so, too, when the snakes are slithering around doing their thing aided by orchids, which are stunning flowers, BTW. The game has the same impressive 25,000x the bet max win as before, which would be insane to see hit using this particular system.

Still, it was hard to call Coba Reborn a major improvement over the original. At best, it felt about the same as Coba, maybe slightly more elaborate, though when factoring in things like the RTP drop, some might see it as inferior. However, interest in the new orchids and their abilities did grow as the review progressed, as they provided a new slant on how the action in Coba Reborn unfolds. By the end, the reaction was positive enough to recommend Coba Reborn to those who enjoyed the slithering goodness possible in the original Coba slot, with one or two reservations.