J-POP Slot Review
J-POP is a pop band dedicated video slot that masterfully mixes funny cartoon ‘Monsters, Inc.’-ish pop stars, a candy-gelatin theme, and a top-drive concert plot with contemporary music compositions.
Among other pros of this gambling game are helpful Avalanche mechanics, three types of Wilds, including that with the multiplier, unique Grid Flip & Big Drop features, and Free Drops bonus game, offering up to 20 starting free spins alongside extra ones, activating during the FS round itself. And on top of that is the max win, which is as big as x25,000 here.
Another quite optimistic thing about it is a sufficiently large playfield that, in its maximum size, has a 6x8 grid. Also, take into consideration the 262,144 pay lines, which are active within the most advanced grid version. Yet, even 4,096 starting winning ways don't seem that small an amount. Lastly, the Medium-High volatility presence promises no long pauses between consecutive wins.
J-POP By ELK Studios Video Review
J-POP General Characteristics
- 4,096 - 262,144 pay lines
- 6 reels and 4 - 8 rows
- Medium-High Volatility
- RTP: 94%
- Hit frequency: 22%
- Bet amount: 0.2 EUR - 100 EUR
- Maximum win multiplier: x25,000
- Maximum win value: 2,500,000 EUR
- 12 main symbols
- Additional symbols: Walking Wild, Wild Box, Wild, Grid Flip, Big Drop, Bonus
J-POP Bonus Features
This game has at its disposal a lot of features capable of increasing your potential to win prizes. So, be attentive to further information.
Avalanche Feature
It is the popular bonus function among players that makes all the winning symbols explode & disappear immediately after rewarding their prize, except for a Walking Wild. All the void places are instantly occupied by those pictures above, whereas the highest settled free tiles are filled up with the new dropped symbols. This process continues as long as there are still forming winning sequences on the playfield, making it possible to get giant win prizes even within the base game rounds. Each round starts with the playfield of 6x4 size, but every single Avalanche feature triggering upgrades the number of rows by +1 more until the 6x8 field size is reached.
Big symbols
There is a kind of original specificity that Wilds & all the paying symbols of this video slot have. They can be of four sizes here — 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4. That means, starting with 2x2, those big ones count as if they consist of an appropriate number of smaller ones. For instance, a large 2x2 symbol counts as just four standard ones of the same kind with a 1x1 size.
Every time below the giant symbol forms the empty place, that tile fills up with a picture of the same type as the large, but with a standard 1x1 size. This rule has the only exception to Walking Wild. If, during the new spin start, the highest 4th row gets a gigantic symbol, causing around free horizontal space on the 5th-row level, those void slots fill up by the paying symbols, making the 6x5 size field already on the playing round start.
Big Drop
It is a special symbol that has an appropriate signature on its picture. After landing the reel, it waits until there are no more winning combinations on the playfield and triggers the big symbols falling. Those crush all the normal-sized ones, falling until at least one giant symbol makes it to the 1st row. Upon the process of the big pictures’ dropping is over, the Big Drop symbol turns Wild.
Wild Symbols
There are as many as 3 Wild symbols here. Let’s learn the difference between them.
Wild
It is just a classic special symbol that doesn’t have any other ability than only replacing any paying pics on the reels, serving to make as many winning combinations as possible.
Walking Wild
This one is a sticky special symbol that has a starting multiplier of x1, increasing one more (+x1) upon every next partaking in a prize combination during the current spin round. Also, immediately after contributing the win, it doesn’t explode, yet walks to the next adjacent to the previous empty or occupied by the paying symbol place, precisely adjusting to its current size.
Wild Box
This picture spreads on the reels a random quantity of regular Wild symbols but only under certain circumstances, by which we mean participating in a win. After partaking in a winning combination, it explodes to grant you a random number of standard Wilds, ready to make you win many more prizes.
Grid Flip
It is another example of sufficiently innovative using the playfield with the paying symbols on it. Popped on the reel, a Greed Flip symbol waits until there are no more wins on the reels and triggers the switching feature to swap 1, 6 & 2,5 & 3,4 columns. It also turns into the Wild symbol after grid flipping. If the Grid Flip picture appeared on the reels during the same round as the Big Drop one, the switching feature executes first.
Bonus Symbol
These make it start the bonus Free Drops game. There could be as many as 6 Bonus symbols on the playfield simultaneously, but the more special symbols of this kind, the more extensive the amount of granted free spins.
These fall in both — base & bonus games. Within the first one, they activate the FS round, whereas during the second one, they present you with extra free spins.
Free Drops
There are all the bonus features available during the base game also present within the Free Drops. Besides that, here is an additional Safety Level function. There are also extra free spins available, which are awarded in the same way as in the base game — 10 FS for 3 Scatters landing, and so forth up to 20 FS. An overall number of extra FS allowed per single bonus game isn't limited.
Safety level
This function advances +1 row quantity for every winning free spin. That amount enhances until the bonus FS round ends, but up to 8 maximum, and doesn't reset to the initial 4. An increased number of rows establishes the next free spin after the winning one.
Buy Bonus
There are plenty of tempting Buy Bonus options available for those playing this slot:
• Super Bonus (x500). It guarantees a Free Drop bonus game triggering with a Walking Wild special symbol in it from the very start.
• Bonus (x100). This option lets you buy the regular Free Drop mini-game.
• Walking Wild (x25). It guarantees you 1 Walking Wild landing during the next spin.
• Big Drop (x10). Buying this option provides a Big Drop falling during the next reel spin.
• Bonus Hunt (x3). This variant doesn’t guarantee anything but highly increases the chances of 3 or more Scatters appearing on the playfield.
Our Experience Playing J-POP
This time, we also decided to check this game practically out so that we could get a full-fledged view of how beneficial the video slot is. For this goal, we chose a 300-spin game session with a €1 stake per round, hoping €200 amount balance will be well enough.
The first spin brought us €3.75 due to the successive triggering of two bonus features — Big Drop & Flip Grid. Then there were another 21 wins (22 total), ranging from €0.2 to €8.45, including ten less than €1. The most frequent bonus symbol became Wild Box with its 42 times landing. The final balance after the 100th spin was out totaled €207.95.
Within the second hundred wins, there were 23 other prizes (€0.1 - €38.75), including two big wins of €38.75 & €26.4. Twelve of them became lower than our chosen bet of €1. This time, we also waited for the Free Drop bonus game activation. That earned us €57.45. As a result, the final balance amount upon the 200th spin was out totaled €293.5.
The third hundred spins had the smallest number of wins — just 13, 7 of which were less than the stake (€1). Their amounts varied in a wide range from €0.1 to €7.2. This time, we had the record lengthiest non-wins period in the base game, becoming 15. Luckily, again, we also had the third Free Drop triggering, which brought us €41.3. The final balance amount upon the 300th spin-over totaled €264.1.
The main statement out of all this video slot test drive is, in our opinion, the outstanding Wild Box landing frequency (1 in 2.72 spins), whereas the other special symbols fall on the reels much less often. Below are all the other statistics:
J-POP Verdict
Despite a little bit of a childish atmosphere with those funny pop stars as in the ‘Monsters, Inc.’ animation and the same tonality of the musical accompaniment, the J-POP video slot has a lot to offer to those brave ones who decided to try it out.
The first noteworthy thing that immediately catches your eye is those omnipresent Wilds, which are everywhere and of every kind. Moreover, some special symbols, like Big Drop & Flip Grid, eventually end their life cycle in that newfound identity of regular Wild picture, too. Especially useful are Walking Wild, which sticks to the reels and increases its multiplier from win to win, and Wild Box, scattering all around the playfield after partaking in a winning combination, a random amount of regular Wilds. But that incredible recipe of win-efficiency this slot proposes is just a cumulative result of an innovative mix of Avalanche mechanics & all others outlined above bonus functions alongside a sufficiently wide (up to 6x8) playfield grid. Moreover, as our experiment has demonstrated, most bonus features have a well-enough triggering frequency, including the FS round.
However, it is not without its drawbacks, either. First, the RTP value is less than the average of the top-tier gambling games. Second, most single payments are less than the chosen bet, down to x0,05. Therefore, to come out on the plus side, you will need to gather many of them. Luckily, here is all the stuff you would imagine achieving this goal. The last not-that-big drawback you should be aware of touches the ‘Buy Bonus’ function — even buying the ‘Super Bonus’ option, you can get just ten free spins, as in the Bonus option, which costs five times less.
