ABOUT
5 Lions Megaways is another installment of the Pragmatic Play series containing 5 Lions, 5 Lions Dance and 5 Lions Gold. If you've played the previous slots, you can expect very similar aesthetics but this time with cascading mechanics and a random number of symbols on every reel.
Betting Options and Bonus Features
Firstly, the online slot is a Megaways so each one of its 6 reels can contain up to 7 symbols, which creates 200, 704 ways to win. The RTP is right in the standard range at 96.5% with high volatility, and the maximum win players can expect to get is 5,000x the bet. The bet size begins at $0.2 and is capped at $125.
Thematically, 5 Lions Megaways doesn't stray far from the 5 Lions franchise - still celebrating Chinese culture especially with animal symbols representing luck. Among these symbols, the dragon pays the highest: 25x for a 6x winning combination. The golden lion acts as the wild symbol, substituting for everything but scatters. Whenever a wild contributes to a win, a random wild multiplier is applied, ranging from 1x to 40x.
There's the ante bet feature to double the chance of getting the bonus round by betting an extra 0.25x of the total bet. To achieve the bonus game, players have to spin at least 3 scatter symbols, which look like the yin-yang circle. But even before the bonus round begins, you will be primed with an immediate prize:
- 3 scatters = 3x the bet
- 4 scatters = 5x the bet
- 5 scatters = 25x the bet
- 6 scatters = 100x the bet
In the bonus round, there is no difference in terms of free spins feature and mechanics, but the value of the random wild multiplier is altered. Luckily, you have a ton of customization for how it's altered by choosing 1 out of 7 free spin options:
- 25 free spins with 2x, 3x, and 5x wild multipliers.
- 20 free spins with 3x, 5x, and 8x wild multipliers.
- 15 free spins with 5x, 8x, and 10x wild multipliers.
- 13 free spins with 8x, 10x, and 15x wild multipliers.
- 10 free spins with 10x, 15x, and 30x wild multipliers.
- 6 free spins with 15x, 30x and 40x wild multipliers.
- Mystery options: a random number of free spins and wild multipliers, selected from the above.
Roshtein's Take
The one phrase that best captures 5 Lions Megaways is 'aggressively average'. The premise of the slot brings nothing new to the online casino table and the game mechanics feel very lacking, but it's not a slot game that eats and eats without paying out.
You can choose up to 7 free spin options, which is kind of a novelty. However, there's not much really going on in the free spins and if you don't get many wilds, the bonus round will flash by in the lamest, most disappointing fashion. At least, I like that there's ante bet.
