Spin that reel – Easter Island slot review

The first surprise of the year! It almost sounds like we start this review with a verdict and maybe it is. But why should we wait with expressing our enthusiasm for this slot until the end of the review? Easter Island is a new game from Yggdrasil Gaming and it’s a game with some clever features and enticing animations, making this slot great fun to play. The huge, stone Moai heads of Easter Island play a starring role in this game.

Easter Island is a five reel slot with three rows and a nice twenty seven paylines in the base game. Two of the Moai heads watch you closely when you spin the reels and they react to your results. Their enthusiasm is really fun to see and makes the game a joy to play. But the Moai heads don’t stop there, they have some other features that make the game even more interesting to play.

The high value symbols are colourful representations of various animals which look like birds, frogs, foxes, lizards, and fish; the lower values are nicely carved symbols that represent the usual playing card symbols.

The wild is a big, blue ‘Wild’ on a golden mask, and this symbol only appears on reels two and four where it will substitute for all others increasing the chance on winning combos. It will also expand to fill all positions on its reel if doing so will complete a combo.

Bonus Features on Easter Island

The game comes with symbol swap respin and expanding reels which are all adding a lot to the game. All the features in Easter Island are connected to landing winning spins in the base game:

Three symbol combo – awards one free respin with the winning symbol replacing all low or high values depending on whether it is low or high value.
Four symbol combo – awards one free respin with the whole game growing an extra two rows for a total of 65 paylines. Symbols are replaced as above.
Five symbol combo – awards one free respin with the whole game growing an extra four rows for a total of no less than 103 paylines. Symbols are replaced as above.

These features are independent of each other so that it’s not possible, for example, to trigger the four symbol respin from the three symbol bonus.

Symbol Swap Respin

Every winning spin in the base game triggers a respin (wins in respins don’t trigger further respins). The symbols at the top show wether a respin or a an expansion of the rows is activated. Respins always award the Symbol Swap feature to increase the potential win in the following way:

If the winning symbols were low pay symbols, all the other low pay symbols are replaced with the winning symbol for the respin (the 3 other low pay symbols are replaced).
If the winning symbols were high pay symbols, all the other high pay symbols are replaced with the winning symbol for the respin (the other 4 high pay symbols are replaced).

The Bet size cannot be changed during the respin. The symbol swap feature is activated before the respin reels stop.

Expanding Wilds

When wild symbols land on winning spins in both the base game and in any respin, they expand to cover the entire reel.
Wilds that landed in winning base game spins are sticky for the Symbol Swap Respin and also expand to cover the full reel with the Expanding Reels feature.

Our verdict

Easter Island is very well made and the animations of the stones are very entertaining and come together with very well matching music and sound effects. The bonus features of winning combos are a little harder to come by than most games but each time you land one there’s a feature waiting. This game comes with an RTP of 96.10% which is not the highest we’ve seen. If you need a game that will put a smile on your face with a good chance of landing some nice wins, Easter Island should definitely be on your list. The award for mood booster game of the year is for Easter Island, that is for sure.