Aiko and the Wind Spirit Slot – Free Demo

Dated art over a 4,516.00 close

Aesthetically, it unquestionably appears a tad dated. I played 480 spins of it at a 2.00 stake, starting from a balance of 5,000.00.

Aiko and the Wind Spirit is a 5-reel, 4-row slot with 14 paylines. A win needs matching symbols along one of those lines on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost reel. It takes wagers between 0.10 and 100. Feature buys can cost more than that 100 maximum. Pivotal to this slot is the Expanded Wild Spirits mechanic that enters into action in both the base game and the free spins mechanic, and the Zephyr Crest is of considerable weight as well. Only one Spirit symbol can land on a reel at a time. In respect of volatility it seems to be rather high up on the spectrum. Across my 480 spins, 107 paid anything, and 56 of those returned less than the 2.00 stake.

Aesthetically, it's a huge failure, I have to admit, regrettably, and it appears worn and aged.

But outmoded graphics is not inevitably a showstopper when it gets to slots. You realise that if you like playing Nvomatics or WMS for instance. After all, not even Dreamworks themselves could rescue a slot with a lousy maths model, so it's time to examine Aiko and the Wind Spirit on a deeper level. My session ended at 4,516.00 after 960.00 wagered and 476.00 won, a 49.6% return set against the stated 96.29%.

Royals, white cats and an owl on top

The game ships with a collection of 5 low-win symbols and 5 high-win symbols, and the low-worth symbols are depicted by 10 to A royals. Five of any royal on a line pay 1x the stake. The greater ones arrive in the shape of leaf tiles, pan flutes, white cats, Aiko and owl spirits. Five Aiko symbols pay 8x the stake and five white cats pay 6x. The latter is the premier symbol, granting you 10 times the stake for 5 of a kind. Three owl spirits pay 2.5x the stake, and five Spirit symbols also pay 10x.

Aiko and the Wind Spirit also contains a Spirit symbol and a Zephyr Crest symbol. Neither an FS scatter nor a Zephyr Crest can appear above a Spirit symbol on the same reel. I will describe both in the pertinent section below, and the Wild Spirit can land on the reels in both the base game and the bonus. A Spirit symbol landing on the top row still counts as an expanded Wild Spirit if it forms part of a win.

What a Spirit symbol has to do before it turns wild

Aiko and the Wind Spirit is all about the free spin mechanic. My one round of Spirited Spins, on spin 68, paid 80.00, or 40.0x the stake, and was my biggest win of the session. That is the sole portion of the game where you can hit respectable wins, as the base game is desperately feeble. That bonus made up 17% of the 476.00 I won over the session. But before I chat about the bonus, I'm going to clarify the Expanded Wild Spirits mechanic. It is the little sibling of the free spin mechanic.

In the base game, a Spirit symbol that forms part of a win stretches upward to the top of the grid into a Wild Spirit, and it's here that the multipliers enter into action. The expanded Wild Spirit acts as a Wild on every position it covers. Each Wild Spirit reveals a multiplier from 2x to 100x. The values in between run from 2x to 10x in steps of one, then 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x and 75x. Multipliers in the same win are added together. On spin 457 I had Wild Spirits on reels 2 and 3 carrying 5x and 2x, added to 7x, for a win of 54.00. Watch out for the Zephyr Crest. Only one of them can be on the grid at a time. When it lands with at least one Wild Spirit on the grid, every Wild Spirit is nudged one reel left, a Respin is awarded and each Wild Spirit receives a fresh multiplier. A Wild Spirit already on the leftmost reel stays where it is, and new Spirit and Zephyr Crest symbols can land during the Respin to set off more Wild Spirits and nudges.

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The Free spin mechanic may seem akin to the Expanded Wild Spirits mechanic at first but is a distinct affair entirely, and landing 3 FS scatter symbols carries you to Spirited Spins. Those 3 scatters have to land at the same time in the base game. There, 10 free spins are run with increased chances of Spirit and Zephyr Crest symbols. Mine started with 10, picked up 2 more from a pair of scatters and ran to 12. If fortunate, punters can land 4 scatters for Whispering Winds or 5 for Midnight Magic. Each of those also begins with 10 free spins, and Midnight Magic guarantees at least 2 Wild Spirits on every spin.

In Whispering Winds, a Memory above each reel stores the Wild Spirit multipliers. Each Memory starts at 0x and keeps its value for the rest of the bonus. A fresh Wild Spirit on that reel combines its multiplier with the stored one. The combined total applies to every win that reel is part of and goes back into the Memory for the next spin. During free spins, 2 scatters award 2 extra free spins and 3 award 4, which can you keep you running for rather some while. Neither Whispering Winds nor Midnight Magic triggered during my session.

Twelve Spirited Spins and a Memory I never met

What Hacksaw Gaming might have faltered with here is to instantly make it clear for punters where the promise is and precisely how it's attained, and this, I reckon, is especially damaging to a volatile slot with meagre payouts in the base game as punters might neglect to remain driven. In my session, 373 of the 480 spins paid nothing. It's a tad convoluted. The longest dry run lasted 16 spins and ended on spin 216. You could probably discern that from reading the write-up, although it should be spelled out that it makes greater sense when really playing it. The balance never climbed above the 5,000.00 it started from.

The bonus is capable of landing a blow. Behind its 80.00, my best base game wins were 54.00 on spin 457, 34.00 on spin 304 and 26.00 on spin 294. Still, it is nowhere near what I have grown to anticipate from decent slots these days, and furthermore, the restricted paylines on the 4-row reel layout yields a heap of blank spins and small payouts, rendering the base game sluggish and tedious without much vigour.

The Minty Breakdown: 480 spins returned 49.6% against a stated 96.29%, and 80.00 of the 476.00 I got back came from a single Spirited Spins round. Take that round away and the base game handed back well under half of what it took, and the added-up Wild Spirit multipliers were behind the best of what it did pay.