Chronicles of Olympus X UP Slot Review
Slots Basic information
Software: Microgaming
Release: 26.10.2021
RTP: 96.33%
Volatility: High
Wild Symbol: Yes
Scatter Symbol: Yes
Not another Ancient Greece game, surely?
Yes, there have been plenty of them over the years in online casinos everywhere you look, in addition to the land-based ones, where alongside Ancient Egypt and Irish-themed ones, they’re surely the most common on the casino floor.
Rules
It’s a 5×3 reel slot. That reel format has been around since the times of Ancient Egypt. That’s a joke, of course. Online Slots have been around for 20 or so years, not thousands, but yes, that’s the most common type of reel format you’re likely to see at internet casinos.
The game has 243 different ways to win. That’s not to say that it’s going to pay out more often than one with 20 different ways to win, it just means that there’s more variety to how you win. A 24.14% strike rate means that roughly one in every four spins is going to lead to a win of some sort in this game.
Card symbols, as ever, are the low-value symbols. Of greater value are the five Gods. No surprises there.
The Wild will always be stacked when it appears, occupying the whole reel and giving you a good shot at something decent. Keep a lookout for the ‘X-Up’ symbol.
Each time two of them appear on the reels on the same spin, they’ll highlight an X symbol on the Column to the left of the reels. The more times you get two X-Up symbols, the bigger your multiplier will be when you eventually trigger the free spins.
Tips and Strategy
We’ll tell you what happens when you have a Multiplier in play during the free spins in just a second. But what we’re going to tell you now is that if you’re going to give Chronicles of Olympus X Up a decent go, you might as well do so in one long session rather than several small ones.
The reason for that is with a bit of luck, you’re going to be consistently adding to the Free Spins Multiplier as you go along. If you play for half an hour or so, you could well get that Multiplier up to 7x or 10x which will make a big difference to those free spins, when you finally trigger them.
But if you only play for five or ten minutes at a time, you won’t get a decent chance at getting that Multiplier up because it will re-set each time you stop your session. In other words, if you’re going to play this game, best do it all in the same session.
Bonus Rounds
Before we get on to the free spins, just a recap on how the multiplier works when you come to them.
Every two X-Up symbols you receive add to the meter on the left. You’ll need just two X-Up symbols in one spin to get to the 2x multiplier, two lots of two X-Ups to get to 3x, and then again for 4x. But you’ll need three lots of two X-Ups to get to 5x and then again to 7x. Don’t worry if you’re lost, the metre to the left of the reels explains everything.
It’s three lots of X-Up symbols that you really want to see because that’s what triggers the all-important free spins that we’ve waited for for so long to talk to you about!
Free Spins
Three X-Up symbols and you’re headed to the free spins round. You’ll get eight free spins and the Multiplier that you reached while playing in the base game, is the one that will apply here.
Except, you can improve it. Every two further X-Up symbols appearing during the bonus round will carry on filling the meter and giving you the chance to increase that Multiplier even further. The Multiplier can go all the way up to 50x and remember that’s applied to whatever you’ve just won, not to your stake.
But if you get a little impatient at those three X-Up symbols not appearing all at once, you can take a shortcut to the free spins. But it will cost you. You’ll have to fork out 100x the bet to buy your way into the free spins round and before you start it, a Multiplier between 1x and 50x will be randomly chosen to be in play during your eight free spins.
Design
This is presumably set a few thousand years ago but the design and feel of the game are very much of the cryptocurrency and social-media-obsessed times we live in.
Symbols are clean, sharp, and colourful, the in-game animations are powerful and the music playing in the background is that sort of ‘epic music’ you get in long films about serious matters.
You can always turn it off if you wish!
Final Thoughts
The nice thing about a slot like this is that you always feel like you’re achieving something or building towards something. With every two X-Ups you get, you’re building on your Multiplier for when those free spins eventually land. So, it’s a case of permanent ‘work-in-progress’.
Some will feel that the one bonus feature isn’t quite enough, especially when it’s not so easy to trigger. But then again, that’s highly volatile slots for you and a case of ‘you pay your money, you take your chances’.
