Tropicool 2 Slot (Elk Studios) Slot Demo & Review

It’s hard to believe that almost a year has passed since we had the original Tropicool game sent over for review – time flies when you’re having fun like they always say! Like most ELK Studios releases, the original game had a bucketload of modifiers and features, and yet I still have absolutely zero doubts that the developer will have come up with plenty of new ideas to build into their new Tropicool 2 online slot! Let’s start with the basics, as we always do – the payway count remains the same at 46,656, whilst the RTP has unfortunately taken a dip down to just 94% – a full 2 points below the industry average. On a brighter note, the top win has more than doubled and now stands at a mammoth 25,000x – can this be enough to make up for the poor RTP? Let’s find out.

Providing a quick summary of the features in a game as jampacked as this one can be a bit of a challenge, but let’s give it a go! A strange animal-like character named Elmo is the first star to feature in Tropicool 2, providing a redrop feature that can keep the reels in motion indefinitely until he decides to wander off the screen, of course! Elmo can also scare the birds which normally appear on the reels, which turns them into wild symbols for some reason – who am I to argue? The reels include tons of special symbols in addition to the regular paying ones, and there are even a few giant 2×2 and 3×3 blocks to look out for. The main bonus round can award up to 15 free spins – or drops, in Tropicool parlance – and all of these features can be purchased for cash via the X-iter bonus buy menu.

Okay folks, that’s quite enough introduction – after all, how much convincing can you really need to take a trip down to the beach?! But before you continue, why not give our free demo slot of Tropicool 2 a few spins? It’s available to play below:

Tropicool 2 Slot
ProviderElk Studios
Reels6
Rows6
Paylines46,656
Bonus Rounds1
Bet Range0.20 - 100
VolatilityHigh
Max Win25,000x
Bonus BuyYes
RTP94.00%
Our Rating7.8

Tropicool 2 Slot Casino Bonuses


Tropicool 2 Slot Free Play


Tropicool 2 Slot Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols

Tropicool 2 Slot Paytable
Tropicool 2 slot paytable

The first Tropicool game was released by ELK Studios in April 2021 and was met with generally positive reviews from most online slot sites. Our own review here at Demoslot made few complaints, with the music standing out as the most negative aspect of the game overall. I’m pleased to say that the soundtrack presented in Tropicool 2 is a definite improvement, but the loop is still on the short side, and this meant that I was still inevitably reaching for the mute button within just a few minutes of beginning to write this review. The remainder of the presentation is extremely similar to the original game – a beach setting, tropical animals, and plenty of fruits on the reels. The colour scheme is a little bit garish for my tastes, but perhaps that is just nitpicking!

Any game that offers tens of thousands of payways is bound to struggle when offering sizable line hits on its paytable. The highest prize that Tropicool 2 can manage is just 3x the total stake for a six of a kind hit of the strawberries, whilst the next-highest coconut symbol will pay you 1.5x your bet for all six. A full payway of pineapples is worth just 0.9x the total stake, whilst the lime and watermelon symbols have returns of just 0.6x and 0.3x, respectively. Considering that those are the high pays, I’m sure you can guess that there is little to get excited about on the lower half of the paytable! All the smaller fruits share identical payouts of 0.25x the stake for a six-of-a-kind combination, and I think that’s ‘nuff said, don’t you?

The minimum/maximum betting limits in Tropicool 2 have been set at €0.20 and €100.00, respectively, and whilst I have no issues with those numbers, I think that the lack of intermediate bets could turn out to be a problem. Those with larger bankrolls, in particular, are quite likely to be frustrated at this machine’s very limited choice of bet levels.


Base Game & Modifiers

Tropicool 2 Slot Base Game
Tropicool 2 slot base game

The base game of Tropicool 2 takes place on a 6×6 reel set, spanned by a massive 46,656 payways. Three additional ‘cool reels’ are shown above the main reel set, but these can only show feature symbols, empty ice cubes, or blank cells.

All winning combinations you hit in this game will explode immediately after landing, allowing the feature symbols shown on the ‘cool reels’ to drop onto the main reel set. The available feature symbols are listed below.


Feature Symbols

These symbols appear only on the top three ‘cool reels’ and do not take effect until they are dropped onto the main reel set below:

  • Wilds: Substitutes for all other symbols except bird symbols.
  • Mystery: Reveals a paying symbol at the end of a drop.
  • Locked Wild: All wild symbols are charged and last for three wins.
  • Row Swap: One symbol replaces others on the same row, except for wilds, scatters, and Elmo symbols.

There are two further feature symbols that can only appear when the bonus mode is activated:

  • Extra Drops: Adds extra free drops to your bonus round.
  • Multipliers: Increases the win multiplier for the duration of the feature.

Tropicool 2 Slot Bonus Features

Tropicool 2 Slot Free Spins Feature
Tropicool 2 slot free spins feature

The main bonus round is triggered by hitting three or more bonus symbols during the base game. A minimum three-scatter trigger will award six free drops, whilst four, five, or six scatters offer increased prizes of 9, 12, or 15 free drops, respectively.


Free Spins

During the bonus round, the cool reel has additional feature symbols added to it that award extra drops and bonus multipliers. See the Feature Symbols section of the previous paragraph for details.

In this part of the game, all wins are boosted by a global multiplier that will increase by 1x each time a winning combination is removed from the reels. This multiplier can also be increased by the feature symbols that appear on the Cool Reels.

Additionally, all locked wild symbols that appear on the reels during this part of the game will stay in place for the remainder of the bonus round.


X-iter Bonus Buy

ELK Studios always treats us when it comes to their bonus buy features, and Tropicool 2 is no exception! There are five options on the menu, although some of these may only be available in certain countries or jurisdictions.

  • Big Blocks: 10x the normal bet will guarantee you a few giant symbols on your next spin, including at least one giant feature symbol in the Cool Reels section of the playfield.
  • Turbo Spins: This isn’t really a feature buy per se, but instead will instantly run 25 spins behind the scenes and then reveal the results. Think of this as playing slots without the slots – it’s a little bit redundant, but hey, if you are just hoping to win money and don’t care about the graphics, this is undoubtedly the fastest way to reveal whether you are broke or rich!
  • Elmo’s Redrops: Guarantees a single Elmo symbol will appear in the Cool Reel area of the playfield on the next spin and that he will drop onto the reels as a result of a winning combination. What happens next is entirely random, but during my game testing, I rarely recovered by buy-in of 50x the normal spin price when purchasing this feature.
  • Bonus: The standard free spins feature, as detailed above, costs 100x the normal price per spin.
  • Super Bonus: This mode does not appear to be reachable naturally and offers a set of free spins which will start with a guaranteed 10x multiplier. The number of triggering scatters is determined randomly, which means that you are likely to receive the minimum of six most of the time. At 500x the normal cost of a round, I’m not sure if this one is worth the money – your mileage may vary, though, as they say.

Tropicool 2 Slot Review Final Thoughts

Like the original Tropicool, I had plenty of fun while testing this new machine, but I have a few issues with it. Firstly, each game round can seem to take a very long time for wins to finish building up and being removed from the playfield. Sometimes a single spin can take multiple minutes, despite only resulting in a very small win.

Next, the Elmo feature doesn’t seem to be anything special – the bonus buy feature gives it a value of 50x the normal cost per spin, which is crazy based on my experience. All in all, I can’t help wondering if ELK has just added new features into Tropicool 2 for the sake of it – the maximum win might be larger, but I have serious doubts about whether anybody could ever reach it.



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