Casino Bonuses
Provider | Microgaming |
Reels | 5 |
Rows | 3 |
Paylines | 20 |
Bonus Rounds | 1 |
Bet Range | 0.40 - 200 |
Volatility | Medium |
RTP | 96.01% |
Our Rating | 8.2 |
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Game Overview
Ah, Avalon. The mythical land from the King Arthur legends and one of the oldest of Microgaming’s slot machines that is still popular in 2022. The sequel was a bit of a flop – a 243-way game that forced you to play through its various bonus rounds in a sequence, rather than letting you choose your favourite like previous titles such as Immortal Romance. This game is from a very different time – an RTP of 96.01% and 20 pay lines are the vital statistics, combined with a maximum win of 1,050x achievable only during the free spin’s bonus.
The main feature of Avalon online slot is a free spins bonus round which awards 12 free spins that can also be retriggered. Each spin that results in a win will also have a random multiplier of between 2x and 7x added to the final sum as well.
With Avalon being such an old game, there are still many links on the web pointing to either the old version of the game, which is blocked by all modern web browsers, or a demo version which has been removed. Our free demo slot of Avalon has been checked and fully working on all modern browsers and devices.
Avalon Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols
As mentioned earlier, the legend of Avalon has persisted throughout generations – the Lady of the Lake, the wizard Merlin, King Arthur, and his Knights of the Round Table – all of this is related, but only play a small part in the original Avalon video slot. The sequel, Avalon II, makes much better use of the legend, but that’s a story for another day. As far the graphics are concerned, this is an older game – the resolution was increased when the game was remade in HTML5, but it doesn’t look any different overall. Sound wise, the music is very ambient and undistracting, so there is no danger of that bothering you.
The top symbol on the paytable is the wild, paying 150x your stake for a full line of five. After that you have the chest, which pays 50x but also acts as a second wild during the free spin’s bonus. This makes several extra combinations possible which cannot be won during the base game, but a full line featuring five chests will only pay the usual 50x times by any multiplier you are lucky enough to be awarded. The remainder of the picture symbols pay 40x, 30x, 25x, and 20x for five-of-a-kind. Avalon video slot is classed as a medium volatility game, which means you shouldn’t be surprised to see numbers such as these – nevertheless, the game does seem to throw a lot of dead spins at you considering the lack of anything resembling a monster hit on the paytable.
As for the betting range, this could be a quirk caused by testing the Avalon online slot in demo mode whilst writing this review, but the minimum wager per spin appears to have been doubled from €0.20 per spin to €0.40 when the game was converted from Flash to HTML5. I can’t see any good reason for Microgaming to choose to do this, however – a penny per line is perfectly normal in a low to medium variance game. The HTML5 version also removes the ability to bet on less than the maximum number of paylines as well – something Microgaming opted to do with every game they updated. If I am only depositing a few euros on an evening to play with, €0.40 per spin puts Avalon outside of my comfort zone, so I hope this is only a demo mode issue.
Base Game & Modifiers
Experimentation was still in its early stages back when Avalon was first released – from memory, I’d guess this was sometime around 2005. A 5×3 play field with 20 paylines is the most common setup used by all slot machines back then, and Avalon doesn’t try anything flashy to break away from the mould. There are no modifiers in the base game either – just scatter symbols, a free spins bonus, and that’s your lot.
Whether this is a bad thing is up to your own preferences – I remember enjoying this game a lot when it was offered by Microgaming as part of their daily freeroll slots tournaments, but I never really put much of my own money through the game. Coming back to it today, I feel definite pangs of nostalgia – but little else. It’s a slot which is difficult to get excited about, even as someone who remembers enjoying it back in the day.
Note, some sites list this games RTP as being 97% – I’m unsure where this figure came from, as the help file included within the Avalon slot game lists the RTP specifically at 96.01%. This is likely to be a mistake that has been copied without due diligence by other review sites or automated bots.
Avalon Slot Free Spins Feature
The solitary bonus round in Microgaming’s Avalon slot game is a free spins bonus round which is triggered by hitting three or more scatter symbols. Two scatters do pay out 2x your stake, which is a little consolation for missing the feature – but not much more than that. Three scatters pay 4x your stake, as well as awarding the bonus round. Four and five scatters pay 20x and 200x respectively.
Landing three or more scatters awards 12 free spins, in addition to the cash pay outs mentioned previously. Each free spin will also have a random multiplier applied to it of between 2x and 7x. A five-scatter retrigger can therefore pay 1,400x your stake if you are lucky enough to be awarded the 7x multiplier at the same time – but retriggers seem to be rare full stop.
Five-of-a-kinds of every other symbol are much more likely during the free spins feature because of the addition of the second wild symbol – the chest is wild during the bonus round, in addition to the castle symbol. It is theoretically possible to win 3,000x your stake from a single spin if some reviews are to be believed. Without examining the reel strips, this is a difficult claim to verify, although it is certainly possible to win more than 3,000x your stake from a full free spins feature.
Avalon Slot Review Final Thoughts
I had fun returning to Avalon after a break of perhaps seven or more years. Medium volatility games can be dull at the best of times, but Microgaming seem to have a knack for this type of game. With a few modifiers in the base game and a little bit of shifting of the RTP from the lower paying symbols to the higher ones, Avalon could be something quite special.
Unfortunately, the sequel was a huge let down – at least, for me personally – due to the requirement to complete all the bonus features in sequence before you could play your favourite bonus again, This, among other reasons, ensures that I’d much rather play this original Avalon video slot than Avalon II today.
- Game Types:
- Low Volatility Slots
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