Lost Relics 2

Lost Relics 2: Slot Overview

In the online slot biz, if a developer really likes something it created in the past, or the team's run out of better ideas, a sequel must be a tempting option. Whichever one of those reasons (or something else entirely) applies in this case, we've got Lost Relics 2 from iconic software provider NetEnt to contend with. The original game, Lost Relics, was released about 5 years before this one, and had a female explorer in the starring role. This time, for whatever reason, the lady's gone, replaced by a rugged dude with a Fedora-style hat and flaming torch. Is this NetEnt cashing in on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which was released around the same time? Too many questions. Let's jump in and see if we can answer any of them.

However, two more puzzles arose when the game loaded - where exactly in the world are we, and which culture is getting raided this time? Lost Relics 2 doesn't offer explicit answers, but if we had to guess, the visuals have a Central/South American look and feel to them with the heavy blocks of stone, green flora, the general style of the carvings and so forth. The sun-like device on the floor when the grid's absent is a bit of a giveaway, too, as it looks similar to the Aztec sun stone carving housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, which has been called 'the most famous work or Mexica sculpture' by Wikipedia, our modern fount of knowledge. The Americas it is then, it seems.

Standing on firmer ground, we turn to Lost Relics 2's nuts and bolts. In the base game, the action occurs on a 6x6 gaming panel, which creates wins when at least 5 matching symbols are adjacent to each other in horizontal or vertical directions. Highly volatile with a default return to player of 96.03%, there is one way to play Lost Relics 2, and that is, pick a bet of 10 p/c to $/€4, then hit the spin button. One of the objectives in the game is to destroy stone blocks beneath regular symbols, and the state of the grid is saved when changing bets.

Eight regular paying symbols land on the board. The lower value four are card suits, clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades, while the high pays are four angry-looking mask shards. When hitting a 5-6 of a kind winning cluster, the payout equates to 0.1 to 0.8 times the bet, or at the uppermost limit, a 20+ size cluster is worth 8 to 50 times the bet. When wilds appear, they are able to substitute for any paying symbol.

Lost Relics 2: Slot Features

Lost Relics 2 possesses a rather tidy max win and provides a number of features for possibly achieving it. These are Hidden Chests, Hidden Chest Prizes, and free spins

Hidden Chests

Treasure chests are randomly hidden beneath the stone blocks sitting below regular symbols on the gaming matrix. When a winning cluster hits, the stone blocks beneath each winning symbol are destroyed, which may reveal parts or all of a treasure chest. Destroyed blocks remain like this between spins. When a whole treasure chest is revealed, it awards prizes, then the uncovered blocks are reset. In the base game, there is always a single chest. In free spins, there are 3 or 4 chests, except on the final third level, where only one exists.

Hidden Chest Prizes

There are three types of chests that increase in size - Silver, Golden, and Amethyst. Chests are randomly picked and may contain more and bigger prizes depending on their size:

• Multiplier – a multiplier of x2, x3, x4, x5, x6, or x7 is applied to all winning clusters on the current spin. In free spins, the multiplier is stacked and active for the whole round.
• Random Wilds – up to 7 wilds are added to the reels. In free spins, these added wilds stay locked in position until the session ends.
• Cash – instant cash prize of 2x to 250x the bet is awarded.
• Free Spins – the free spins round is triggered. The prize during free spins is 2 to 6 additional free spins, depending on the chest size.
• Level Up – only available in the free spins round. This one increases the gaming grid up to 10x10.

Free Spins

Free spins are triggered by treasure chest reveals or by landing 3 scatters symbols. The round starts with 10 free spins, and extra free spins can be won from treasure chests. When the Level Up prize is awarded, the grid increases to 8x8, then to 10x10. When a Level Up is granted, and the reels expand, all current chests and uncovered symbols reset. At the final level, there is always a single Amethyst chest which contains all types of prizes except the Level Up. After the chest is opened, no more chests will be presented until the end of free spins.

Lost Relics 2: Slot Verdict

If NetEnt is hellbent on squeezing as much juice as it can out of its back catalogue, at least the studio is doing a decent job of revisiting past glories. Lost Relics 2 is another successful sequel/redo/makeover of a previous game. The absence of a cascading wins system stuck out like a sore thumb at first, but the game ultimately didn't suffer as a consequence since it's got other things to focus on. The main one is clearing those stone blocks to get to the treasure chests contained beneath. Unburying treasure this way ties into the theme really well, and the game as a whole has been designed to a high spec.

The block removal leading to treasure chest reveals is also a clever way of gaining a certain amount of commitment. It can really go either way, though. For example, at one stage, a single block remained in one part of the grid, stubbornly refusing to be destroyed for a while. After patiently waiting for a win to finally land on top of it, the reward was a single wild symbol, which didn't end up doing a whole lot. Bigger results are possible, and Lost Relics 2 has a surprisingly high max win of 21,248.1 times the bet. This might seem wildly optimistic, given things like modest symbol values even at the highest levels, but multipliers can stack in free spins, so technically there's hope.

In this day and age, the opportunities for exploration/looting may be more limited than they have been in the past, no doubt probably for the best. However, if the idea of pretending to go on a treasure hunt appeals, then Lost Relics 2 provides an entertaining environment for players to imagine they're exploring and/or looting an ancient civilization buried by the bush and a decent sequel that builds on the original.