Neon Villains

Neon Villains DoubleMax: Slot Overview

Hey all, anyone keen to do some virtual treasure snatching might be interested in Neon Villains DoubleMax, an online slot from software provider Yggdrasil Gaming. In this game, you join a bunch of 'professional tricksters' as they go about, err, tricking people in order to lay their hands on rich stuff. Something like that. On the gaming side of things, Neon Villains DoubleMax is a continuation of the DoubleMax range of slots where participants can look forward to a multiplier which doubles in value after each dropdown win.

The original DoubleMax slot was Raptor DoubleMax, set way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, pre the extinction event. It was a gorgeous-looking game, which set the bar high. Visually, Neon Villains DoubleMax wasn't as eye-catching right off the bat. There are lashings of neon, fair enough, yet the game world wasn't as absorbing as its reptilian sibling's. The base game takes place in like an alley before free spins shift into what is presumably the vault, or the vault's location at least. The audio-visuals get the job done without being strikingly remarkable.

Like before, the gaming is held on a 5-reel, 3-row grid, but one change has been pulling out the 25 paylines and replacing them with a 243-ways-to-win system instead. To get a win, at least three matching symbols must land on three consecutive reels, starting from the left. There's no both ways pays as was used in Florageddon. As expected, the volatility has been rated as super high, and several RTP versions are available, the highest return value being 96%. When picking a stake, the base levels vary from 10 p/c to £/€40 per spin, with the option of activating the Golden Bet if it is available. The Golden Bet doubles the chance of triggering free spins for an increased stake cost of 20%.

Symbols are next, and there are eight regularly paying tiles. These are the card suits, spades, clubs, diamonds, and hearts as the low pays, then four character symbols as the high pays. Should a five-of-a-kind win land, players are awarded 0.5x the bet for the card suits or 1-2.5x the bet for the premium symbols.

Neon Villains DoubleMax: Slot Features

Neon Villains DoubleMax does a lot of the same things Raptor DoubleMax did, so players can look out for dropdown wins, a progressive win multiplier, free spins, and a buy bonus.

Dropdown Wins

When a winning way hits on the board, a couple of things happen. First, the winning symbols are removed from the reels, making space for new symbols to drop into the gaps. However, one of the gaps is always filled with a wild symbol before the rest are refilled. If a new win happens after the dropdown, the process repeats.

DoubleMax Multipliers

On the left side of the grid is a multiplier trail. After every dropdown, the multiplier doubles in value. The multiplier resets in the base game between spins; however, in free spins, it does not reset until the session has ended.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards players with 7, 9, or 11 free spins, respectively. Free spins cannot be retrigged when they are active, and as mentioned, the multiplier does reset between free spins.

Buy Bonus

If available, players can buy free spins rather than trigger them naturally. The cost for buying 7, 9, or 11 free spins is 100x, 200x, or 500x the bet, respectively.

Neon Villains DoubleMax: Slot Verdict

Yggdrasil Gaming has made a few changes between Neon Villains DoubleMax and Raptor DoubleMax. However, in practice, the two remain very comparable. It certainly didn't deviate as hard as Florageddon! did. Interestingly, 243 ways to win are a lot more than the 25 paylines of the older game, but this system has a lower hit rate than before. Statistically speaking, the hit rate in Neon Villains DoubleMax is roughly 10% points less than its dino predecessor. Kind of ruins the point of transition to a ways system? Maybe, maybe it simply comes down to how players would prefer potential wins to line up on the board.

The theme will be a personal preference, too, and for our money, Neon Villains DoubleMax wasn't as sensorially impactful as Raptor DoubleMax. The previous game had a lush, jungly, MultiFly! sort of look which almost glowed on screen. This one, ironically, given all the neon, felt flatter. The graphical quality is alright, yet the scenery lacked excitement, and the villains themselves came across as a little generic. The game's story talks about 'stealthiest mission' and searching for 'riches within the vault.' But for a heist slot, it wasn't overly engaging, kind of like watching an Ocean's film on a muted smartwatch. Something was just lacking in that department.

Technically, Neon Villains DoubleMax can pull off the same sort of tricks with its multipliers as before, though. Unlike Florageddon!, the multiplier is back to doubling on every win rather than incrementing in certain amounts, so the process was more familiar. Since the multiplier doubles, it doesn't take very long to reach impressive levels when things are really flowing. The game sheet mentions the multiplier having the 'potential to climb to infinity' which is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it, but the game is limited by a default max of 25,000x the bet. 5k more than either Raptor or Florageddon!, if you were wondering.

In the end, Neon Villains DoubleMax wasn't quite as exciting to play as Raptor DoubleMax was. On a technical level, it's as good as the games which preceded it, and the potential is greater; it's just the presentation felt a bit hollow, and the changes it has weren't exactly monstrous improvements on what was already available.