Dolphin Coast is a game that is indeed themed around ocean life and dolphins in particular, but it’s more than that. It has a huge number of ways to win, so it’s a different game experience than you would expect from a slot machine, which is definitely a point in its favor. The design also seems to be good enough, though I would’ve loved to see a bit more vegetation, not just pretty sea creatures and blue water. It comes from Microgaming, and you can read more about what it has to offer you below.
Dolphin Coast not only uses ways to win on its 5 reels, but it manages to cram 3125 of them in that space, though to be fair they expanded the reels quite a bit to get to that number. They were generous with the features as well, so you get stacked wilds, scatters, free spins and a bonus game. You’re not going to win a lot of money in this game, not at once anyway, but you’re going to win often.
Features of Dolphin Coast
If those ways to win weren’t enough, the game also provides you with stacked wild symbols, with bonus games, scatters and free spins.
The 3125 ways to win advertised by the game remove the need for paylines in this case, so you only need the symbols to be on consecutive reels and starting from the left, without being on prearranged positions. It’s a common feature in slots launched in the last couple of years, but most of them stop at 243 or 1024 ways to win. In order to accommodate the large number used here, the reels have five symbols on them, instead of the more usual three or four.
The Dolphin is a stacked wild, but it has this ability only in the base game, and only on the 2nd and 4th reels. The free spins get regular wild symbols, but they’re not limited to only two reels. You’re not getting prizes from the wild directly, but it will try to assist you as often as possible, by substituting for other symbols. The only two symbols it doesn’t do that for would be the bonus and the scatter.
With a scatter symbol appearing in multiple positions on the reels, you can expect one or two things to happen. If it’s 2+ symbols, you get a prize, which increases from the original 1x the bet, up to 100x the bet, depending on how many are there. With 3+ symbols, you get the free spins bonus triggered as well.
Free Games Feature
Getting into the free spins is possible with the help of the scattered School of Fish symbol. Three of them will get you 15 spins, four will trigger 20 and five will trigger 25 spins. You can retrigger these free spins, but you can’t activate the bonus game while you’re in them.
At the same time, wild symbols appear alone, not stacked, but they’re no longer limited to the 2nd and 4th reels.
Wild Dolphin Bonus
This is both a wild symbol, and a trigger for a bonus game. It appears on the 3rd reel, and when it does this it activates the feature. You get to pick one of the three visible dolphins, and you get a multiplier between 2x and 4x for your prize. While used as a wild, it can substitute for all symbols, with the exception of the scatter.
Betting options and jackpots
The game’s betting range is surprisingly small when you consider how many ways to win are used. The equivalent of 50 lines are used for betting purposes, with the line bets using 1 to 10 coins that are at $0.01 or $0.02. That means a maximum line bet of $0.20, while the total bet is at $10.
The paytable does mention hundreds of thousands or millions of coins that could potentially be won, but when you’re playing the game the regular combinations only award up to 250x, which means about $50.
Design and symbols
There is no question about it, this is an attractive game. The clear blue color of the ocean is visible everywhere, both in the background and in every single symbol. On the symbols, the images used are a combination of playing cards and beautiful looking sea creatures. The design is stunning, great work on the part of Microgaming, but I just wish they would’ve skipped using the boring playing cards.
Symbols: Dolphin Coast Logo (wild), School of Fish (scatter), Dolphin (wild), Tortoise (250x), Orange Fish (220x), Jelly fish (200x), Stripe Fish (175x), Seahorse (150x) and Star fish (125x).
Is It Worth Playing?
It’s a beautiful game, it has a huge number of ways to win, and some good features, so play it for all those reasons, but don’t expect to get rich in the process.
This Dolphin Coast slot is offered by all online casinos with Microgaming software, playable either in practice or in real money mode.
