Leprechaun Joy

Leprechaun Joy is the latest in a long line of slots with an Irish/Leprechaun theme, with NetEnt opting to go down the tried and tested route of something that is clearly popular with the slot-playing population.

The game has a classic look with a 5 reel 4-row grid with 25 paylines.

Low-paying symbols follow the deck of cards approach with clubs, spades, hearts and diamonds paying from 0.1x up to 4x.

High paying symbols are familiar with the leprechaun theme with items such as smoking pipes, horseshoes and harps. The payouts of these range from 0.3x up to a whopping 50x. The game runs with an RTP of 96.09% and a theoretical max win of 6,549x.

Leprechaun Joy appears to have a lot going on from a graphical point of view when entering the game. A winding path leads you to the reel array which has the impression of being set in a tree house with the neighbouring houses scattered around.

As mentioned, it’s a tried and tested theme, but NetEnt has done a great job using the visuals to reinforce what the player should expect.

Base Game and Features

At first glance the base game looks and feels very standard and traditional with usual win lines and no special symbols, however, there is a bit more to it.

At the top right of the grid, there is a symbol highlighted with a x2 multiplier, this symbol remains highlighted until a win with that symbol is hit.

The win is multiplied by the value of the multiplier highlighted. This multiplier can be increased by landing the leprechaun symbol, with each leprechaun increasing the multiplier by one.

Once a highlighted symbol has been present in a win then a new symbol is selected with the multiplier reset to x2. Whilst big wins seem hard to come by, the base game is forgiving with small regular wins.

Bonus Round

The bonus round is triggered by landing three scatters, scatters are only present on reels 1,3 and 5 meaning no additional ones can be landed. The bonus round begins with 10 free spins and a starting multiplier of x2. All wins are multiplied, as opposed to in the base game where it is just one symbol.

Each leprechaun symbol that lands increases the progressive multiplier by one and the multiplier remains throughout the bonus round.

Three scatters landing awards 10 additional spins, which in conjunction with the progressive multiplier is extremely valuable. The game does possess a bonus buy feature at the cost of 40x your bet.

First Impression

The leprechaun/Irish theme may feel somewhat saturated in the current market, and, understandably, many might think that this is just another unnecessary addition to it. It’s understandable from NetEnt’s perspective, if something isn’t broken then why fix it?

As touched upon this game is certainly on the lower end of the volatility scale, it is just possible though that it goes hand in hand with the theme of the game. The vast majority of slots following a similar theme are slightly older and with that are less volatile.

Is there room in the market for a more volatile slot within this style of game? However, on this occasion, NetEnt has gone with the safe option.

Overall Leprechaun Joy is a fun little slot which plays nicely in the base game and has a high bonus frequency to help to keep you engaged and compensate for lower potential.

For those looking for that enormous win, that will be hard to achieve without a big dose of Irish luck.

*The screenshots taken of games reviewed on this site are taken from Demo Play, as reviews are often written before games are released for real play.