Emerald Isle is one of Cryptologic’s designs, a title they’ve created by using the Irish theme as an influence. The various themed images available inside will all remind you of these people and their folklore, a few quick examples being the rainbow, leprechauns, pots of gold, clovers and red headed girls. That’s about it for the game actually, since all the other symbols are playing cards. It’s not a great looking design, though I wouldn’t call it ugly either, all in all an average effort and a game that doesn’t manage to impress.
You get up to 20 lines on the 5 reels of Emerald Isle, with the bets you make on them offering up to $30,000 in exchange. Though graphics or theme wise the game fails to make a good impression, they’ve approached the feature section with a bit more care, so you get a nice mix of wilds and scatters, plus the typical free spins and multipliers.
Features of Emerald Isle
The special symbols and bonus rounds you get in Emerald Isle would be the ones that improve the game significantly, as the theme and the overall experience are not enough.
A Leprechaun is the symbol that is considered a wild in Emerald Isle. A symbol with that role is capable of substituting for other symbols, only regular ones, if that action allows for a new combination to be created, resulting in a payout for the player. It’s always going to be a nice symbol to get though, even if it doesn’t manage to assist you with a new combo, since the wild offers prizes for the symbols of this type you have on the same payline. Getting 1 to 5 wilds on a line will result in prizes in the range of 2 to 6,000 coins (top jackpot).
The Rainbow is another image that is common in the Irish folklore, and it is said that the Leprechaun hides his pot of gold at its end. Well, it’s somewhat true, as the scatter can offer you up to 100 times your wager in prizes, as long as you have up to 5 Rainbows on the screen, during the same round.
Free Games Feature
The scattered Rainbow triggers the first of the two bonus rounds available. This one needs 3+ Rainbows to appear scattered on their own reels, but they still have to appear starting from the leftmost reel. The 10 free spins you get as a result will take advantage of a x3 multiplier and you can also retrigger them.
Bonus Round
The wild is not the one to trigger bonus rounds usually, but in this case the developers have made an exception. The wild may appear on any reel it wants, but when it does so on the 1st and 5th reels, at the same time, the bonus round starts up. You can get up to 3 bonus rounds out of it, and in each one you have to match three symbols and get the prize that is displayed. Each prize gets you up to 100x the triggering wager. If you don’t get the three identical symbols, you win a consolation prize instead.
Betting options and jackpots
You’re not going to dig too deep into your pockets to be able to place a bet in this game, the maximum wager asking only for $100 per spin. Since that can still be a lot of money for many people, you have the option to reduce the denomination (down from $5, to $0.01 if needed) and how many coins you’re using (maximum is 20).
The actual cash value of the 6,000 coins jackpot depends on the denomination you’ve chosen for your wager, the largest one meaning $30,000 cash.
Design and symbols
The slot’s design is just as average as the choice of the theme, with a dated look that belongs about a decade into the past. When it was released, I’m sure it was considered a good looking slot, so it’s not going to be unpleasant to play on, on the contrary. However, it doesn’t measure up that well when put next to a modern release, and there are more than a few Irish themed slots out there that look stunning compared to this one.
Symbols: Leprechaun (wild, 6,000x), Rainbow (scatter, 100x triggering wager), Redhead Girl (1,500x), Pot of Gold (500x), Clover (500x), Ace (150x), King (150x), Queen (125x), Jack (125x), Ten (100x) and Nine (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
If you look at the features and their effect on the game, the answer would be yes. You can find the same features, plus much better payouts and graphics, in other titles, so I’d recommend you pass on this one.
This Emerald Isle slot is offered by all online casinos with Cryptologic software, playable either in practice or in real money mode.
